Last week I spent Tuesday and Wednesday at EmTech ’07, the Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT, a conference produced by Technology Review.
Robert Birgeneau, the chancellor of UC Berkeley, opened the workshop by telling the story of the MIT study in 1995, when he was dean of engineering at MIT. He painted a informative picture of the resistance of many of the faculty as the confidential information in the report demonstrated the many biases exist, often unintentional. This MIT report has had impact on many academic institutions besides MIT, but still we have a long way to go.
Sophie Vanderbroek, the CTO of Xerox, gave an engaging closing keynote about Innovation and leadership inside Xerox. But what was most striking to me was her description of the Xerox culture with a female CEO and CTO, where employees easily look up and see examples of successful role models like them.
I was proud to host a session with participants on the global picture with participants from Sri Lanka, Brazil, China, as well as the US. This panel discussed the difficulties, both logistical and cultural, in bringing together people from around the world. I was particularly struck by both Bernardine Dias’ and Claudia Morrell’s observations that well meaning westerners come into countries with their best intentions, ideas and technologies that are simply not sustainable in the local culture. They both stressed how important it is to engage with the local people to affect long term change.
For me, the conference closed with a panel about the Women’s workshop during the EmTech conference itself on Wednesday, I look forward to the day when there isn’t just a workshop about Women in Technology, but EmTech agenda about technology includes half women. That is what I call success.