Women in Tech Summit West!

Tivoli Student Union Building – Host to our conference & historic home to the Tivoli Brewing Company

Thanks to Women Who Code, I was able to attend Women in Tech Summit West, a one day conference in Denver that aims to look at all aspects of a career for a woman in tech. The event aims to welcome women at all stages, from students to senior executives, and in that respect it absolutely meets its aims. Upon arriving at WITS West, I immediately overheard women who had just met, referring each other to mentoring groups, offering to look at resumes, and simply feeling comfortable discussing anything from their expectations for the day to their experience being in Denver. Any nerves I had initially disappeared, and I was grateful and excited to be a part of this engaged and supportive community.

The theme I saw appear again and again over the course of the day was artificial intelligence’s increasing prevalence, and with that, the looming question of how this affects women, not just in tech fields, but also through the lens of job seekers and product users. Ultimately, we found ourselves asking, is AI healthy or harmful? Are we ready for it or seeking to resist it?

Diya Wynn, Being Human: The Competitive Advantage at WITS West

Diya Wynn, Global Readiness Lead with Amazon Web Services, wants to put our minds at ease. With Wynn’s talk featuring a video on Amazon Go cashierless stores, the potential for convenience and innovation using AI is apparent. A customer in the video peruses the store, a virtual cart being added to or emptied, as the guest picks up or returns products to shelves. In Wynn’s talk, as well as during the day’s final panel, the case was made that AI and machine learning will handle our lower level and repetitive tasks, in this example that of a cashier’s, allowing us as humans to devote our time to more creative, empathetic, and as Wynn states, “higher cognitive” roles. And if AI is making life easier, what could possibly be an argument against it? At WITS West we weren’t going to leave this question alone.

A key point then was to look at who is creating the products that will be making our lives easier, so to speak, and are they inclusive of those groups that are typically underrepresented in tech? The answer is, currently, not nearly enough. Speaker Devon Jones, Senior Engineer at Slalom Build, pointed out the examples of current technologies put into practice, but with glaring issues. Jones had a number of examples from which to take your pick – Fitbits and other heart rate monitors not tracking people with darker skin or tattoos as accurately; females dying when masks or bulletproof vests don’t properly fit; Siri not able to interpret a woman’s voice nearly as often as a man’s voice. What are ways in which the industry can acknowledge that this needs to change, and how can we make sure that the use of AI in the future is in consideration of these issues?

A historic copper brewing kettle in the conference room for Devon Jones’ talk

Jones spoke to the importance of recruiting and hiring for diversity, with an emphasis on being open to hiring from bootcamps rather than being limited to CS graduates. The growth of bootcamps could help the industry in this respect, with a significantly higher percentage of women graduating from bootcamp programs than from the traditional computer science degree track. A bootcamp graduate herself, Jones says that, with increased diversity in the room where products are designed and tested, you’ll find a more diverse base of users considered, producing more innovative and safer products as a direct result.

Looking ahead in consideration of AI and machine learning is another huge question: is this innovation in technology going to take jobs away? What will happen if or when it does? Diya Wynn points out that the future is about our adaptability – and with that adaptability that AI will only help us produce products better focused on the customer and on results. As AI becomes more common, she says that jobs won’t be lost, but rather will change, becoming roles that take advantage of skills only humans can have. One example was instead of applying algorithms to data, being the person who comes up with the company strategy based on that data. Another, instead of working as a lab tech, being the doctor who talks with patients about their care, based on data that has been automated for them. In another case, instead of being a paralegal, working as an attorney, another “higher cognitive” role that would not be able to be automated.

Based on jobs I’ve had I could readily remember many times in which I wished I could devote less time to the tasks that were indeed repetitive, and that I thought were preventing me from having time to make actual improvements to an event, company, or system. Beyond wishful thinking, however, as a woman without a college degree, I have concerns about the access to the kinds of jobs that would be available as a replacement to those lost due to automation. Would there be positions that don’t require the advanced education credentials that are required for that of a doctor or attorney, two such alternatives mentioned in the talk? Or if the answer is no, then my next question is, what would we do to make advanced education more accessible to those in financial need? I left the final panel of the day with mixed feelings. I felt excited by the possibilities that innovation can bring, as well as the chance that maybe one day I could be practically involved with them. I also felt unsure as to my remaining AI questions concerning accessibility as well as privacy, larger topics I’d now have to think about further.

Thanks again to Women Who Code for this opportunity to be a part of a community of women supporting women. I am so grateful to have the chance to not only meet other women in tech, but also to immerse myself in topics both familiar to me as well as entirely new. Before WITS West I particularly hadn’t considered machine learning as something that could be an accessible topic for me to engage with, but now I definitely want to incorporate it into my studies. Thanks to Women Who Code again and WITS West for a thought provoking day!

A quick selfie with the Tivoli White Ribbon beer crate display