Latest / Technology Now / Hiring outside the box: How diversity of thought is changing STEM
Transcript
- Michael: Hello, hello, hello. And a very big welcome to Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, where we take what's happening in the world around us and explore how it's changing the way organizations are using technology. We are hosts Michael Bird. Aubrey: And Aubrey Level, and in this episode we're exploring the world outside of STEM looking in, and taking a glance at non-traditional routes into the field of technology. We'll be exploring how changing needs in IT is creating demand for a more diverse skillset. We'll also be talking about how tech organizations can bring in different individuals with diverse backgrounds, and we'll be looking at how the tech of the future will need more than just the ability to code. Michael: So if you are the kind of person who needs to know why what's going on in the world matters to your organization, then this show is for you. And if you're enjoying it, do make sure you subscribe on your podcast app of choice so you don't miss out. All right then, here we go. So despite news of doom and gloom in the tech industry, it's still growing at an incredible rate and demanding more labor and human resources than ever before. Upwards of 30% of tech jobs are going unfilled globally, and it's not just due to the lack of people wanting to get into the field. More and more experts are talking about individual jobs within tech, becoming far more multidisciplinary. As the world of cybersecurity, machine learning, project management, R and D, product ethics and marketing collide. And some of these skills just can't be found in a university degree, at least not yet. And that is why increasingly organizations are looking for more diverse candidates from further a field to fill the gaps, spur innovation, and keep the wheels turning in our huge and ever expanding field. Aubrey: Today's guest is a case in point. Cristin Merritt is the CMO of Alces Flight Limited, an integrator of super-computing systems. Kristen received a degree in classics, which she's turned into a career in supercomputers. She's also a part of Women in High Performance Computing, an organization dedicated to representing and encouraging more women into the field. Cristin, thanks so much for joining us. Talk to us a little bit about your background. How do the skills of classics translate to IT? Cristin Merritt: I fell into tech, to be quite honest with you, but I've always been alongside of it. So growing up, I was the kid who played mud instead of D and D, so I was on the dial-up going in as a 16th level Elven Ranger, and I would be in the skeleton yard chatting away to everybody as having a good old laugh. And so when I went off to do university, oddly enough, I thought you went to university to be an academic and to study, and I found classics to be a really fascinating field. But one of the things that I learned when I got out of university and I started looking for work, is that when you have a degree that has got a lot of disciplinary sides to it, so you have languages, you have art, you have history, it gives you a lot of tools in your belt that are translatable. And I don't think a lot of people are aware of the ability to translate their academic side into a job side. So in the case of tech, the way that I got in is actually through my languages background. Classist have to study multiple languages. So when someone showed me code, I just realized it was another language, and as soon as I got into that, I was flying. So that's how it happened. Michael: And I guess there's that ability to break down technical jargon and translate into plain English. Is that something that came from doing your degree? Cristin Merritt: Yes. Well, yes and no. Experience obviously is what's going to get you in there. But yeah, as soon as people began... Like I said, it started with the code. In fact, my former mentor, Mike Maciopento, he called it getting on the phone. Coding is like getting on the phone and calling people and telling people to do different things. And he was the first person to introduce me to the idea of storytelling and to explain concepts through stories to people. He taught me not only how to do some coding, he began to teach me to train people. At the time I was working in Enterprise Tech, high performance computing is also large scale. And so as we went along this journey, I began to see that my strength actually began to reside less in the coding element, but I actually got much, much stronger in writing the stories. And that began my career working alongside a lot of these wonderfully talented people in technology, telling their stories and getting the word out about what they were up to. Michael: I Is there anything particular in the field of high performance computing that you think your skills play really nicely into over say the rest of the tech sector? Cristin Merritt: High performance computing is not an easy field to explain. It kind of is, because people have seen the machines and like Mission Impossible where people are dropping down into the ceilings or crashing through windows, which by the way, no one would ever put a high performs computing machine next to any type of sun. But it would be those things that people have a familiarity with. But I think by being able to gain in my academic background and then to take it forward in my career about looking at a problem from many different sides, it means that I am able to translate those requirements. So you have in high performance computing people who do just want to see the very high level view, but because of the complexity, there are people who are specialists within the field who like to drill all the way down into one particular element such as computer storage or networking, and be able to explain those concepts from both the high and the low level. Honestly, the multidisciplinary side of my degree in classics I think was absolutely beneficial in being able to explain that to the general public. Aubrey: Looking at your network and what your clients and partners are after, what skills are becoming more in demand in your experience, and how are non-traditional candidates well suited to them filling those gaps? Cristin Merritt: So I'm going to say that this past month that... Sorry. The month that we're we're talking is March, which is Women's History Month. I had an opportunity to interview quite a few women who work in this field, and one of the things I actually asked was that question, it was like, "What do you think? What do you think is going to happen?" And they actually said the words multidisciplinary to meet a lot. And what I'm beginning to see coming out of universities, especially with education, is almost like a cross pollinated degree types. So we've got people coming out with degrees in computer science and linguistics. We've got people coming out with degrees in physics, but also biology. So someone referred to it as the hard and soft or the analytical and numerical sides. I think that a lot of the future in tech is going to take people who can look at problems from more than one direction. And I think mixing those into people who are specialists, I think that's going to drive it all forward, because having people who are willing to ask the questions or ask what you refer to as kind of dumb questions like, "Oh, I'm going to ask something out of left field." It's amazing how that can jog people forward. And I think that going into the future, we've got a lot of students out there who want into tech and have all these little tools. And I think that the universities are starting to see it. I think that the institutions and companies are starting to see it, and I'm hoping that what the future is, is people being able to pull together from their own academic and personal experience to build these careers and not be so focused on, I must be a commuter scientist. I must be an engineer in order to get something forward. Michael: So history is all about storytelling, narrative and layering intelligent insight over data. How important is that in working with emerging AI technologies such as things like chatbots or natural learning... Sorry, natural language processing and machine learning? Cristin Merritt: Oh, gosh. The one thing about the magic of what's coming and what's starting with artificial intelligence and machine learning is that we have this great opportunity to learn from it and from it to learn from us. So the biggest thing I would have to say is the ethical side of this is incredibly important. So in classics and in history, there's people who specialize in what's known as provenance. So you're talking about knowing the origins of something in order to build forward to a better future. There's many, many, many, many, many, many, many academic papers about where they think something came from or where something originated and what it went from and what it came to. And I think that we're going to see a lot of people who are more like an archivist or a historian come into play in a new and exciting way in AI and ML, because they're going to be trying to bring forward as much information around the data, as much information around the processing as possible in order for people to get a better picture, a better result, a more ethical response, a more progressive response from what's coming up right now in AI and ML. Aubrey: What's your message to tech companies who are still recruiting solely from traditional IT graduate backgrounds? Cristin Merritt: Stop it. I would say that there is a lot of research that exists out there about more progressive mortar, more inclusive hiring practices. I know that Women in HPC has several guides. There's guides coming out of a lot of UK institutions such as the N8 CIR, who are starting to look at diversity checklists where you can actually engage in different ways with potential candidates, which may... People that might have been left out, because they didn't come from a Russell Group or in the US we would call Ivy League University, because they don't have that background. They can actually still get in there, because when you take away certain things or add things or change how you put a job role forward, you're bringing more people into the field. And I think that people especially should be looking at the humanity side of things, classics, linguistics, history as a means by which to engage in these problems in new and exciting ways. So I would just say now is the time to start looking, because I honestly think that education is shifting. Everything is shifting towards this idea of we can't just put people in boxes anymore. We need to let them build up their own careers and their own degrees. Michael: Brilliant. Thank you so much, Cristin. And it's given us all quite a lot of things to think about. We'll be dropping some useful links about some of the stuff that we've discussed already in the show and we'll be discussing in the show notes. We'll be back in a moment with our questions for Cristin from the audience, so don't go anywhere. Aubrey: All right. It's book club time. We are opening up the floor for you to give us your recommendations on books which have changed the way you look at the world, life and business in the last year. Michael: And if you want to share your recommendations, there's a link in the podcast description. Just record a voice note on your phone and send it over. All right, right. Let's roll the clip. Joachim Schultz...: Yeah. My name is Joachim Schultze. I'm a professor for systems medicine at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases. And one of my recent books that I really liked is one of the latest biographies about Alexander Van Humboldt, who was one of the biggest scientists of his time. And I didn't know, for example, how much he was basically thinking about a United world already in the 18th century. How much he was thinking about natural resource securing and so on, so we underestimated. The globalization that we are in happened and started much earlier and a lot of very intelligent people have probably driven where we are right now. And it's not only us, but we have to keep going and making sure that we're on the right track to unite people, unite nations, stay international, and they also work against current movements towards more closed shops and closed countries and closed nations. And with [inaudible], we can help to do that probably. Michael: Thank you, thank you, thank you. And once again, do keep your book reviews coming in via the link in the description. Aubrey: All right, it's time for questions from the audience. You, our listeners have been sending in your questions to Cristin on the topic of getting into STEM and women in tech. Okay. First question, Joanne from Boston wants to know what the transition into the field of IT is like, as someone who has qualifications outside of the field, but feels like she has transferrable skills. Cristin Merritt: The transition is hard. It's like climbing up the side of the hill at first. I think that myself and those who I know who've transitioned into tech, we went through 18 months to two years of learning how the world works. But the thing that you should take comfort in is any job, and I'll dig up the research on this. Any job takes about that much time, about 18 to 24 months to truly get into. And I think what it is, is when you have the drive and the need to succeed or you get excited about a field, you naturally find yourself learning. And I think that if you manage to start out or get on a ground floor with a tech job, mentorship is key. If you can find a mentor or a sponsor or an ally or just someone you can talk to, that would be probably the best advice I would get. Anybody who wanted to get into tech and or was just starting out... "Oh my gosh, I have a new job in tech, what do I do?" That's just a path to do it. But I don't want to say, "Oh, it's so easy, it's great." Sometimes it's really tough. But the best thing is to stick in there, get your friends, find your networks, be willing to ask silly questions, and you too will eventually rise up in the field. Honestly, it's just putting in the grit. Michael: Okay, so second question. Shavon from Belfast would like to know what you think the ideal skillset for working on supercomputers in the field of HPC? What the ideal skillset will be in five to 10 years compared to what we're used to? Cristin Merritt: I think the ideal skillset for high performance computing... Well, first of all, I do have to say it's a big field. I think there is going to be a real drive for people who have the linguistics side, the languages side. Maybe it's just me being a bit partial to my background, but I really think that being able to understand different cultures, how they speak, how they interact, is going to be really paramount to how things start to transition into the X scale side, which is even larger. Adding on which right now AI and ML is like pre and post. It's not really in the middle of HPC, so I think we're going to see a lot of that. I also really feel like what I was talking about, these cross pollinated roles are going to start coming up, where people with that kind of computer programming background is part of, but not the entire portion of who they are. So they are probably going to have another science side to them, or they might have more of a creative side to them as well. And I think those mixes, I think they're going to start getting into the field quite a bit in the future. Michael: Thanks, Cristin. And again, we'll drop a couple of links in the podcast description for more on these topics, all right then, we are getting towards the end of the show, which means it is time for This Weekend History. Aubrey: This Weekend History. That delay is just, it's become part of this now. We have to embrace it. Michael: It's part of the charm. It's what makes it- Aubrey: I think so. Michael: ... at least a top 10 hit. Anyway, This Weekend History, which is a look at the monumental events in the world of business and technology, which has changed our lives. Aubrey, what do we have? Aubrey: So the clue from last week was Bill Gates is feeling blue screen. Know what it is? Of course you do. Who could forget? It's the infamous blue screen of death at the Windows 98 plug and play reveal on April 20th, 1998. After his assistant plugged in a scanner to demonstrate how Windows could take care of the rest, Gates was just a little embarrassed when the system actually crashed, broadcasting its big blue error to an audience of thousands who burst out laughing. I mean, I would. All Bill could respond was, "Hey, I guess that's why we're not shipping Windows 98 yet." Wise move. Incidentally, the assistant who plugged in the scanner eventually became an SVP of marketing at Microsoft. So we can take comfort in the fact that even on your worst days, it will always pass. The clue for next week is hubble bubble toil and trouble. And no, it's not the hardest one we've ever done. Michael: All right. Well, that brings us to the end of Technology Now for this week. Next week we'll be discussing pressure on the public sector and how tech keeps us going through political upheaval with HP chief technologist Russell McDonald. It's going to be fascinating. Aubrey: Until then, thank you to our guest, Cristin Merritt, and thank you all so much for listening. Technology Now was hosted by myself, Aubrey Level and Michael Bird, and is produced by Sam Dotta Pollen and Zoe Anderson, with production support from Harry Morton, Alicia Kempson, Alison Paisley, Alex Podmore, and Ed Everston. Technology Now is a lower street production for Hewlett Packard Enterprise. We'll see you next week.