In this fantastic episode, Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo and Professor Sue Black OBE get into a highly engaging discussion around Sue's personal journey in tech and beyond, the programs she's established to support women in tech, and her role in preserving Bletchley Park.
Please don't forget to subscribe, rate and share!
Connect with Sue on LinkedIn: Professor Sue Black OBE
*Disclaimer: Podcast guest participated in the podcast as an individual subject matter expert and contributor. The views and opinions they share are not necessarily shared by their employer. Nor should any reference to specific products or services be interpreted as commercial endorsements by their current employer.
This is a production of ProcellaRX
In this fantastic episode, Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo and Professor Sue Black OBE get into a highly engaging discussion around Sue's personal journey in tech and beyond, the programs she's established to support women in tech, and her role in preserving Bletchley Park.
Please don't forget to subscribe, rate and share!
Connect with Sue on LinkedIn: Professor Sue Black OBE
*Disclaimer: Podcast guest participated in the podcast as an individual subject matter expert and contributor. The views and opinions they share are not necessarily shared by their employer. Nor should any reference to specific products or services be interpreted as commercial endorsements by their current employer.
This is a production of ProcellaRX
All right, well, welcome to software quality today and we are recording today a special episode from chiefs flagship clubhouse in flat iron district in New York City. I'm super excited because today we have are celebrating and kicking off women's future month, which is the new chief rebranding of Women's History Month. So what awesome timing to have Dr. Sue black here in New York City with me today. So welcome, Sue.
Dr. Sue Black:Hi, Dori, thank you so much for inviting me. It's just such a pleasure to be here today with you.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:So this has been an interesting relationship that we've had. So let's let's start there. Before we kind of go into all of your history and who you are and why I thought it was really important to bring you to this podcast today. So you want to start us off? How did we meet? Sure.
Dr. Sue Black:I mean, it's weird. I can hardly believe it. But did you check how long ago it was?
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:2017? Really, it was like, maybe, maybe 2016.
Dr. Sue Black:Everything goes a bit crazy in my head. Now after lockdown. I've kind of like lost time or gain time or something that is very confusing. Yeah, so we met on 23. And me,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:it's not like we met on Tinder or something. I'm 23. And me. Yeah. Which is equally as digitally. Fun to meet people.
Dr. Sue Black:Absolutely. And yeah, I think so back then. I didn't have so many matches. Like there's so many more people on 23andme now than there were whenever it was that we met. But yeah, so from all of it, you know, you get your list of highest matches. And so you were the the highest match that I didn't know, basically on my 23andme. And I was like, Who is this woman? And so I miss it. In the US? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So yeah. So I was in London in the UK, you're in the US? And yeah, I didn't know who you were. So I thought well, I'll I'll message I think my like my top three people or something that I didn't know. And you were one of those. And we ended up like kind of having a back and forth about who we are and how we might be connected. And and unfortunately, still don't know how we we haven't managed to find that out. And we don't know exactly what kind of cousins we are. Like maybe well, I just checked it just now. And it's saying fourth cousins.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:Which back then we were like, third? Yeah.
Dr. Sue Black:Seems seemed a lot closer. But in my head, you are my customer. And that's all that matters. So
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:yeah. And so we've met and then I was a I was able to be over in London, and we had up there and then you came to the US. Yeah. And you were doing some talk here. Yeah. And we met up in DC in DC. Yeah. See? Yeah. That was crazy. Where you met my child at that time, which was like, I can't believe it. How small they were. And yeah, a teenager. So. So yeah. And then subsequent, which is even stranger is that I had met you before I met my birth mother. And I met my birth mother through 20 through 23.
Dr. Sue Black:And me Yeah, so I've kind of been partly on that journey, as well, which has been wonderful. Yeah.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:Yeah. Coincidentally, we also happen to be in this weird space of computer science. Yeah. Which I never thought I'd be in because I was a chemist. But
Dr. Sue Black:yeah, that's crazy, too, right? Because you have a podcast about software quality. What's my PhD in? Software Quality is? And that's really great. You couldn't make out you just couldn't make out? Yeah, there's not that many PhDs in that area. No.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:So why don't you tell everyone? All of those doctorates that you have? You haven't been OBE? And so like, tell everyone your journey and how you you got to be who you are today?
Dr. Sue Black:Because it's pretty cool. Long story. Short. Okay, well, where do I start? I guess like I come from a background where my both my parents were nurses and and a brother and sister that five years younger than me twins. And I was living just a regular life until my mom died when I was 12. And my dad remarried the next year, so possibly too quickly, and possibly to the wrong person. Just a personal opinion. And my life went from like living in a functional family to living in a dysfunctional family. All sorts of horrible things happened. I left home as soon as I could. So that was when I was 16. I live my friend's family for a year. Then I moved. I was living out in Essex, like 50 miles from London, moved to London, did various jobs and ended up getting married at 20. I had my first daughter at 21. Then I thought, well, I'll have another baby then go back to work. The other baby turned out to be twin boys. So at 23 I had three kids under two and a half. And then unfortunately, after that my marriage broke down. So we had to run away to a Women's Refuge one morning on the other side of London. We lived there for six months and then got a council flat and kind of started life again, I guess and I hadn't expected to be in that situation. So to start with, I wasn't quite sure what to do. But then I thought, Okay, I need to get a job. I need to earn some money too. look after my kids, but then realized I'd left school at 16. I didn't have many qualifications, I probably would have been working in a supermarket on The Checkout, something like that. And when I looked at how much I would earn doing that, it wasn't enough to pay for childcare, let alone everything else. So I couldn't actually go back to work. So I thought, Okay, well, I didn't want to leave school when I was 16. I just had to because of my circumstances, so I thought, why don't I try and go back into education. If I can get a degree, I'll be able to earn more money, and then I will be able to pay for everything for the kids. So that's why I did really I went along to college, did like a maths course at night school, that enabled me to go to university studied computer science. Did my degree and then in the last year of my degree, my, like dissertation supervisor said to me, what do you think about doing a PhD? So I said, Oh, I'd love to do a PhD. But I didn't tell him that I didn't know what appeared to be. So but then I did go and look it up in the library. And I was like, oh, yeah, okay, I would like to do a PhD. And, and I would have a lot more money from doing that than when I was an undergraduate student. So did a PhD, then became an academic kind of rose through the ranks over several years, became head of department in 2006. So I was head of department for years, then stepped out of academia for eight years, and then came back in four years ago. And now I'm professor of computer science and technology evangelist at Durham University in the UK, which is the third oldest university in the UK, after Oxford and Cambridge.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:And you answer your questions I didn't even know that's even more. And and your Deputy Vice President now? Is that correct?
Dr. Sue Black:of the British Computer Society? Yeah, yeah. So in a couple of weeks time, I become deputy president of the British Computer Society, which is about 70,000 members. In the UK, it's like the professional society for people working in tech. And in a year's time, I'll become the president unless I do something terribly wrong.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:I don't think so. And so it's amazing, because I think there's a lot of similarities. And I've been interviewing a lot of women over this last year, in different podcasts as well. All of us have these journeys that we go on. And it's very common to have, we never thought we'd end up where we are, right, we never thought we had to work as hard as we had to do in order to get to where we are. Right. And they're really inspiring stories. Right? But they're not necessarily celebrated all the time.
Dr. Sue Black:No. Yeah, well, I think I think, as girls in general, were brought up to make sure everyone else is okay. And then think about ourselves last. And so and to not show off, I can remember being you know, I was a very shy kid. And but I remember being told not to show up, I don't know what someone thought I was showing off about, right. And that's how we brought up. So I think that affects the way you see yourself and what you're able to do what you're capable of doing, what's the what is okay for you to do. As you get older, and you move into the workplace. And then in the workplace, you're supposed to put yourself forward for things. But you've always been told not to do that, right. And I think there's like loads of things like impostor syndrome, I think, come from that, like, it's like the mismatch between how you've been brought up and then what you're expected to do, and
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:having to do something in advance of maybe the competence that you have in those particular skills just yet, right? Because we haven't yet gotten to needing to do it or needing to, to learn it, or whatever those things are. But we have to actually do in advance of where we are in order to feel confident enough to do it. That next step. Yeah, I have a lot of women that say the same sort of thing, like, Well, I'm not ready for that. We think that men are actually ready for that. Yeah, they're, it's not that they don't have that narrative that we have. Absolutely.
Dr. Sue Black:I mean, I think both of the narratives can be toxic, really great, you know, it's toxic for men to have the narrative they have, which is they've got to compete with each other all the time, they've always got to be the best because of course, everyone can't beat them. Right. So that causes issues as well, you know, and boys are brought up again, this is in general, but not to cry, and all of that kind of stuff. So then when they're in the workplace again, and and they need to, you know, respond emotionally to things that are going on, sometimes they can't, because they've had to bury all of that stuff, you know, and that leads to, to, you know, like mental health problems, I think for all of us, right?
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:Yeah. It's, I'm excited about that, you know, embrace equity is the the theme of international women's day and month this year, and I think that we don't talk about that enough on both sides of the table on some of the other podcast guests that I've talked about is on what do we need to do? What's the change and narrative of the male side of the conversation as well as equally important? Yeah, absolutely. So tell us about your OBE and how that came to be and all the work and Benchley park that you've done and what that means to You too mean to London and UK? And I mean, it's a big deal. Yeah.
Dr. Sue Black:Yeah, it's yeah. So So you know, it's crazy even like, how often do I talk about this? And I'm still like, Whoa, I feel a bit embarrassed. But you know. So I, I didn't really know what Bletchley Park was the first time I went there. So I went there in 2003. And the only thing I knew was that the codebreakers weren't there during the Second World War. And in my head, it was like 50 Old blokes wearing tweed jackets. I don't know why. And that's what I kind of thought I knew about it. And the first time I went there, I found out that actually, it wasn't 50 Old blokes blokes, it was 10,000 people working at Bletchley Park codebreaking, during the war, and about 8000 of them were women. And so there wasn't anything online and not much at Bletchley Park itself about the women's contribution, but they weren't 80% of the people that work there. And so I found that out. And that time, I went away and thought I needed to do something to raise the profile of the women that worked at Bletchley Park. And I went away and raced, got some funding to run an oral history project. So to interview the women that work there and capture their memories of what they did there, to capture that for posterity. And then at the launch of that found out that Bletchley Park might have to close because they were short of funding. And it's like a 26 acre site north of London, and then did a tour of the site at our reception at Bletchley Park and found out that the work that was done, they were said to have shortened World War Two by two years. And at that time, 11 million people a year were dying. So potentially the work that was done there, save 22 million lives. And I just thought this place can't close, I've got to do something about it. So basically, I ran a campaign to save it for three years, I managed to get us in the in the press in the UK, and like on the BBC, front page of the BBC website on BBC News, which actually went round, the sort of BBC Worldwide. So that went worldwide, so managed to get lots of publicity really quickly, but nothing actually really happened after that. And it wasn't really till was probably going to be unpopular now. But till I started using Twitter, that actually, it made a massive difference. Yeah, it really did. Because I was for the first time really able to find people that I just couldn't have found before. Because I could just type code breaker, you know, like hashtag code breaker or Bletchley Park, into Twitter, and then find anyone in the world that was already tweeting about those things. So already interested, and then kind of like gradually build up sort of critical mass of people that cared about Bletchley Park, and get them involved in the campaign. And then in February 2009, I saw Stephen Fry tweeting that he was stuck in a lift with a selfie. And I just thought, Stephen Fry. I know he loves history. I know he loves technology, he must be interested in Bletchley Park. So luckily, he was following me on Twitter. So I sent him several direct messages. And he responded the next day and tweeted a link to my blog that was kind of like the campaign blog. And I've been getting about 50 hits a day on my blog thinking well, 50 a day. That's great. And then one tweet from Stephen Fry, and I've got 8000 hits that day, and became the most retweeted person in the world on Twitter that day. So that was kind of a turning point for the campaign, but actually took another two years until Bletchley Park had enough money that they you know, they knew that they would be able to stay open. I introduced Google to Bletchley Park, and they give them some funding. And also they got money from the Heritage Lottery Fund in the UK. So they got about five or 6 million pounds, and then when we knew it was all going to be okay. And then I guess that that then led to Well, I don't know, because the whole OBE thing is all secret like you really Yeah, you don't know. Yeah, yeah, you don't know what's gonna happen.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:I have no idea like someone someone's nominated, nominated, you
Dr. Sue Black:know, you don't know anything about it. So I just got this letter through the post one day, which was just like some sort of printed out. It didn't look fancy or anything, saying you've been nominated for an OBE? Do you know, is this your name? Is this your address? Do you accept this award? I like please tick the boxes, you know, and send it back. And don't tell anyone play anyone at all about it. So I kind of like got this and actually, I think the letter came through the door. And I just kind of like stood there like, Is this really true? And I just sat down on the floor and started crying because I didn't even really know what an OB was. Again, but I knew it was something good and other people valued a lot. So I've just utterly amazed because I had no clue that was going to happen. And but it just kind of like it made me feel like I've got to keep it secret and I'm probably not very good at keeping so Secret. And so I took the letter and I think, you know, I must have showed it to my husband. And and then I think I put it out on the side, and then someone must have knocked on the door. I was like, Oh my God, I've got to hide the letter. So I started it under a pile of papers or magazines or something. And then I completely forgot about it. So I didn't send it back in. So then I got an email about two weeks later saying, Oh, we send you this letter. You know, like from the cabinet office in London? Did you get it? And I was like, Oh, my God. Yes, I did. Yes, I do accept it. Crazy. And it was for services to technology. So you know, I don't know exactly how all of that came about. But but that was amazing in itself. So that was like in the November and then the list gets there's a list twice a year. So it was the Queen's honors list in 2016. So I think that was the New Year's honors. There's one in June for the Queen's Birthday and one in December. The new year. And so yeah, so then it was announced, then it was all over the press. And so that was amazing. And then in May 2017, I guess I went to Buckingham Palace and Prince Charles now King Charles gave me the OBE. And yeah, how crazy is that?
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:It's awesome. It is it's amazing. And so valuable of all the grassroots work that you've done in order to do that. And then also to have the surprise of someone out there thought that what you were doing was that special? That nomination is just really amazing.
Dr. Sue Black:Awesome. Yeah. You're so cool. I mean, I still can't believe it now. And it's like seven years later. Yeah.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:Yeah. So from that detect, women get launched, is that kind of what drove you to do that new initiative?
Dr. Sue Black:So I guess I've I've set up the UK first online network for women in tech back in 1998. When I realized when I realized you were already doing this stuff, I was doing women in tech stuff from when I realized that I was a woman in tech. Because before that I hadn't realized I thought I was I was in tech or I was a computer scientist hadn't realized I was a woman in tech. I guess because my degree there are about 10% women, so it just felt normal about 90% Guys 10% women would that was completely normal. Roughly the same like kind of going into academia, it's probably about 10 or 15% women. So that that's an you know, was my normal environment. And then, when I was doing my PhD, my supervisor said, it's not just what you know, it's who you know, when you go to conferences, you've got to network with people. And I was very shy and really didn't want to do that. But I kind of forced myself. And so I was going to computer science conferences, and not always having the best time because I hadn't thought about it. But I was one of the first conference I went to, I thought, Okay, I'll set myself the target of talking to one person here that I don't know. Because for me, that was horrific. And so I chose a guy who gave a great talk. He was very down to earth, I went over and approached him chatted to him about my research in the break. And that all went well. I was like, oh my god, it worked. But then for the rest of the conference, every time I turned around, he was staring at me. And I got really, really freaked out like, Did I offend him? Like what was it? Well, you know, and I think looking back, he just thought, well, who's that lovely? To talk to me. But back then one of the women? Yes. So that really freaked me out. And I tried networking a few other times. And yeah, it didn't work out that well. And then I went to this Women in Science conference in 1998 in Brussels, and I remember walking in thinking of God networking, I was I didn't know okay, and and then just like walked in, got my badge, went to get a cup of coffee, went and stood at one of those standing tables, there was a couple of other women there. And for the whole two days, I didn't have to think once about networking, because everyone was talking to everyone the whole time. And it just really helped me to realize that if you're in the majority life is just easier. And you don't always notice that. So that was a great lesson for me. So I came back from that set up the UK is first online network for women and tech BCS women's and British Computer Society Women's Network. Still going strong now 25 years later, which is amazing. And and then so I've run various different sort of women and tech initiatives over the years. So I set up a social enterprise tech, mom's teaching tech skills to moms in disadvantaged areas back in 2012, I think. So that's, you know, run for 10 years now. And more recently, when I started as professor at Durham University, I got some funding with a colleague Alexandra there to run a program to retrain women from underserved communities into tech careers. So I've talked to so many senior people in tech companies who want to employ more women over the years at various different events, you know, and quite often they'll say, what's the one thing that we can do to get more women and it's kind of like well Oh, you probably need to do more than one thing. So I've had that conversation so many times. And also, I've met so many women that wants to work in tech, but just don't know how to get into tech. And so I thought, Well, why don't I try and create a program which will take women with potential and train them into specific job roles working with industry partners who tell us what they want. And so that's basically what the program is. The first time we ran the the top four roles that the industry partners wanted were data scientist, software engineer, agile project manager and business analyst. So we ran that program with 100 women, our first cohort, and was highly successful. Nearly everyone got a job after we finished just before locked down, which wasn't the best timing, but I think by now, practically everyone's got a job and about 50% got jobs within six months in tech. And you know, they came from all different sorts of backgrounds like artists, lawyers, teachers, nurses,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:so I can imagine that you teach them more than just those computer skills. Absolutely. So yeah, so what else? What else?
Dr. Sue Black:So a lot of it is about building confidence. And I hate to call it that. But you know, I wouldn't call it that with, with the students that are coming on the program, because, um, well, I think none, none of us want to be told that we're not confident enough. That's horrible. Yeah, so we just really focus on making sure everyone has a good time getting everyone bonding with each other, getting everyone bonding with us. Or, you know, I'll give a talk, several of us will give talks, which kind of show our vulnerability, because I think that that helps the women in the room to feel that they can then be vulnerable. And it's kind of a safe space. So we do a lot of that at the beginning. And we have several residential meetups, but it's but the the talk content is practically all online. And the meetups are all about having inspiring speakers, particularly women of color, because we really try hard to have more than 50% women of color on the program so that they can be majority, which, you know, in the UK, you're not as a woman of color, too. Same here. Yeah,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:the numbers are low. Yeah.
Dr. Sue Black:So yeah, so we really focus on that, and, and just really celebrating everyone's successes. And I don't know, trying to make it like this amazing group of women who are, who are going places, and to help everyone to feel that, you know, we've had some really great successes,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:and it's wonderful. It's women supporting women is one of the things that I love about chief here is that the the amount of support that I get, or in the community that I build, is what we put into it. So what you're sharing what I hear what you're sharing is, how much of that passion that you've put into that, and it's given you tenfold and helped and served those that needed it as well.
Dr. Sue Black:Absolutely. And it's been wonderful now, because I've been doing stuff for women in tech for like 25 years. And, you know, at the start, I just wanted to connect everyone together, I didn't really know what to do with it. But I then ended up you know, I have so many people contacting me, women usually contact me through LinkedIn, or I give a talk at a conference and they come up to me after or email asking my advice, you know, in various different ways. And it's been so amazing now, particularly over the years that, you know, I'll get an email from someone saying, how would you remember that conversation we had 10 years ago, and you basically, I mean, most of what I do is encourage them to do what they want to do. Yeah, it is not constant, providing the
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:space in an authentic way of being who you are, and giving that the opportunity for that.
Dr. Sue Black:Because society doesn't give us that as women, so we need it, you know, we really do need it. And it's just amazing to get that feedback time after time of women who've gone off and achieved stuff. And you know, I might have had two minute conversation with them, right or something. And, you know, it's just helped them to get out there and achieve their potential as wonderful. Yeah.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:The the transition to new technology and new skills, I would imagine that some of the program that that you've developed now also then has to constantly look towards the future. And what else do they need? What other technical skills in a what other networking skills other than that, like? What do you see for the future for, for the program?
Dr. Sue Black:Well, I think we'll always be guided by industry. So every time we you know, we get some more funding, we will find industry partners that want to work with us. And then we ask them exactly what you know, what they need, what they need. So we will totally be guided by industry, because I think that's one of the you know, academic programs degrees are great, and I'm an academic, so obviously, I'm gonna think they're great. But at the same time, we need people to have industry relevant skills, if they're going to go straight into the workplace. So we will always be guided by what's happening in industry. Yeah,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:that's a great point. I know you talk to some of the big organizations out there and I work in the life science sector, so I see some of the big ones there and the future of work. is changing so rapidly, and then what the innovation of the products that they're making is changing. And when I interview some new upcoming folk in my specific industry and validation, we don't know yet what that looks like, right? So we're making it up as we go. Yeah. And then nothing wrong with that. That's also part of being also scientists, right? Like you, you kind of have to make it up and you use it until it's not useful anymore, and you make up something else, right? What are, but in your partnerships with some of these companies? What else can they be? Is it? Is it enough? Is it not enough? Can we do more? How do we get more companies interested in the programs like yours?
Dr. Sue Black:Yeah, that's a good question. Um, and I mean, one thing I don't understand is why companies don't run them themselves. But I'm quite happy if they want to pay us. Because I guess we're the educators. Right. So maybe that is the best way to do it. But I think I mean, it just surprises me that companies will still pay a recruiter, I don't know, 10,000 20,000 pounds dollars to recruit someone. But it costs less than that, to train them specifically into the job roles that they want. So I see it all. I find that quite weird that that no one kind of just there's at least here
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:my experience here is that not an emphasis on training and learning and development. There's an assumption that you went to university and you've got some skills, and you should be able to apply them like magically, like, all of a sudden, that should make sense. Yeah. Right. And most of the jobs that people do in unless you're a trained doctor, or dentist for specific additional career, you're not trained to know, the other stuff.
Dr. Sue Black:Yeah, absolutely. And also, you know, like degree courses, for example, it's quite hard to keep everything up to date with exactly what industry wants all the time. And a lot of the time, you know, you've got to have those theoretical underpinnings, which probably some of it, you know, even in tech goes back, you know, like some of it 50 years or 100 years of stuff you need to learn about from like, logic, you know, goes back 1000s of years, right. So, all of that needs to be in there kind of underpinning and then you, you know, I feel like you, it's best if you get further towards the what's happening in industry towards the end of your degree. But you start with the theoretical underpinnings, and that's just kind of how our, I guess, degree systems work. But it's just just reminded me that I teach our first year students, and the teaching that I do is to bring people in from industry, to talk to our students about all the different kinds of jobs that are out there in tech. And I think, you know, when I joined Durham, I realized from talking to quite a few students that they really, most people thought they had to be a programmer, or you know, like, writing code, basically. And of course, that's a great career, and a great job role. But there are so many different types of jobs in tech now. I mean, just Yeah, you can't count them because there's so many. And I really wanted to help their first years to understand that there's all of these opportunities out there. And actually, what I've done in terms of the coursework that I've given all the first years is they. So we've, we've run these panels throughout the term, and then they need to talk about what they've enjoyed about listening to our industry speakers. But then, what do they think they're going to do in their career now? And so they've all recorded two minutes selfie videos, which I'm marking at the moment, I've got 245.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:That's a lot. So it's taken quite a long time.
Dr. Sue Black:But it's interesting to hear what they say. And lots of them want to go into AI machine learning. That's kind of like a really big topic. Yeah, we are fintech.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:Yeah. That is, I was interviewing some young younger folks. And they all said the same thing. Yeah. Which I think is phenomenal. And like the possibilities, and the use cases that one can imagine are truly endless. Yeah, right. But what is going to make a profit is what those organizations are going to want to hear about. They don't want to hear about all the other stuff, right? So how to make them money at the end of the day. What would some advice you'd be given to two folks as they're evaluating where and what they should be doing? And how should they think about their careers?
Dr. Sue Black:Well, so So in technology, yeah. Well, I think I think if you're coming into tech as a career, these days, like we're saying, there's so many different jobs available. So I would start by thinking about, well, what do you love doing, which is not tech, and then what job roles are there in tech which relate to that? Because I feel like it won't be long before every career involves technology, you know, to a reasonable degree. So what you want to be doing something that you're very passionate about, and then kind of connecting that with technology in some way
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:to making that intersection between your passions and, and whatever can be created that way?
Dr. Sue Black:Yeah. Absolutely.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:Awesome. So, what are you working on today? What are some what's what's next? You've been traveling, you've been doing talks like so what what is this look like now for you?
Dr. Sue Black:Well, more traveling conferences, I mean, I'm always giving talks all over the place, I've just given talks in Sydney, in Australia and Singapore. And now coming here is really cool. And I'll be in Austin for South by Southwest in a couple of weeks time. So yeah, traveling around and kind of spreading the word. And then at the same time, you know, I'm really interested in stuff actually, there's been in the news recently, you know, like, chat GPT. So one of my PhD students has been working in that area for a couple of years now, looking at GPT three, which chat GPT is built upon and looking at bias in AI. So it's interesting, because AI is not my, my main research areas like software engineering, software, metrics, software quality. But I've got more and more interested in AI over the years, as I think as everyone because it's become more and more powerful, because we've got more computing power now. So AI, as you know, really become a real thing that we can use, not like it was when I studied at university where it seemed like a pipe a pipe dream back then. So that's interesting. And so one of my colleagues at work, told me and my PhD students, Sarah, about GPT, three, and like large scale language models, and and what they could do, and we got very excited about that, and thought, well, let's play around with it and see if we can find any bias was our first thought. So we just kind of like went away, played around for maybe 10 seconds. And already you found Yeah, yeah. So we honestly thought it might take a week or something. And, you know, so you can, I don't know, people that have used chat GPT. You know, you put prompts in and you get a response, basically. So what we decided to do was to type in men can and get some responses, women can get some responses, black women can and get some responses. And it was as horrific as you can probably imagine. And even like with men can't so much violence stuff came back with women can violent stuff, sexualized stuff, misogynist stuff, black women can, you know, add on the racism and all sorts of stuff. So that was we probably first did that maybe 18 months ago, I'm not sure exactly about the timescales. And so what Sarah has done is has taken kind of snapshots of 10,000 responses several times over a time period and is comparing the, the several snapshots with each other to see what our open AI doing about this issue, because obviously, that is an issue. And what she's found is that they're masking, so they're masking the output. So rather than getting all this awful stuff back, most of it just comes back as a blank. Like there's just nothing there. And so, I don't know, bias in AI, I think we could talk about that for
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:I know that there's cheap women that I've talked with around this is a hot topic around clinical trials, because randomizing and using AI in order to get better diversity on clinical trials, right. And as we get more refined medicines, yeah, it's a big deal. And a lot of folks are moving towards this. But if, if we have a bias problem to start, we're not going to get the the actual data that we need. So it's very, very hot topic. And I don't know, it's, I need to educate myself as we get along here. Because it's, it's, it's I think,
Dr. Sue Black:it's gonna take more and more people in more and more ways. So you know, it's something to really, I think, you know, what, what we need is to help everyone understand as much as possible what's going on in a kind of basic way so that when things do look like it's, it's the wrong decision, or the wrong output, and something, then we question it as just as regular members of the public so that all these decisions don't get made. And people just think, well, I just have to go along with this because that's what the computer told me kind of thing. Now.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:It's also human nature to Right, yeah, whether or not to question stuff. Or being tolerant of the conversation, right, the hard conversations in order to get to the nuggets, yes, is very uncomfortable for folks. What are some what do we think some practical like strategies in order to get our organizations and individuals start looking at truly impacting the Diversity Equity inclusion problems that we have? I mean, I, part of the conversations I've been having is, I'm kind of done with the checkbox list, right? Yeah. Organizations having you're gonna watch this four minute video and you're gonna sign that you've done this like, but how do we get to the real Real, real transformative stuff? Do you have thoughts about them?
Dr. Sue Black:Yeah, I guess. I mean, I'm not an expert in this area. So I just kind of like doing my best trying to work out what is the best thing to do for everybody. But I think, from talking to quite a few people, I think it comes from the top. So within an organization, the person at the top that everyone kind of looks to needs to be talking about this stuff regularly, and showing that they really do care about the culture in the workplace, about inclusivity, about everyone feeling included in the workplace. And if it doesn't come from the top, it's not going to work. So I mean, that that is a really simple thing. But I think it's very powerful. And I think that has to be in an authentic way, as well. So kind of like authentic, inclusive leadership, I would say is the most important thing. Yeah.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:I was hopeful after, you know, as code, we came out of COVID, that a lot of the positive lessons learned from COVID would last. I'm not seeing that in a practical day to day. Do you have any reflections of coming out of COVID? Or
Dr. Sue Black:any? I think, Well, I think some things so, you know, like working in tech is reasonably normal before locked down before COVID to do zoom chats or teams, chats, wherever we're now everyone knows what they are. And I likes them and to a greater or lesser degree. But I think that's that's helped get just lots of workforces, I guess, just a bit more tech savvy around what we can do. And also, I think, you know, those people that said, everyone's got to be in the office from nine to five or nine to six or whatever. Well, they don't do they, because we now know that that most things kept running without people being in the office from nine to five. So I think there are those learnings, and I think some companies are still, you know, are gonna go along with hybrid working, and so people don't need to be in the office five days a week. So I think from a sort of inclusion point of view, I think that's, that's valuable.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:Do you have any thoughts about what we can do in tech to make that hybrid experience more tangible or more convexity, comfortable, comfortable, like? So? I mean, I do presentations, too. And a lot of the presentations today are also hybrid. Yeah. Right. So navigating physical people, and also people online. Very hard as presenter to be able to. Yeah, do the room. Yeah. Like, that's not? It's not a natural skill for me, that's for sure. And the technology surely has not caught up?
Dr. Sue Black:Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't I don't actually know what we do about that. But I think I'm gonna guess we were moving towards it, because so many more people. And now we're used to accessing accessing things online. So talks online. So yeah, in terms of the technology, I'm not sure. But I think in terms of people being used to that and comfortable with it, I think we've moved along.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:Yeah. So as we move towards an AI, more, I was gonna say perfect, but it's not perfect. Just a more ideal, in our minds, right, the more inclusive, equitable way of being where do you think we're going to stumble? Is there a, is there something that we need to struggle with as a community to, to take this to the next level?
Dr. Sue Black:I think I think one of the things that's hard is, is talking about the things that you don't understand or feel uncomfortable with, or, you know, like, particularly when we're talking about groups in society that have had a very difficult time for various reasons. And you know, I think those things are still quite hard for lots of us to talk about. So. You know, as a now, middle class white woman, I can't know exactly what it's like to be a black woman. I mean, I just can't know that. Right. And so, you know, I think the we all need to try and have conversations to help all of us understand what it's like from other people's experience and perspective and to not rush into comment on it just to listen and try to understand as much as possible. And I don't always see that happening. I mean, particularly if you look on social media, my goodness, you know, like, no one can say anything without someone jumping in to attack them. You know, and I've seen friends in the UK who, you know, have had horrific times, you know, death threats and and they're not saying anything? To me that's radical at all. It's it's kind of common sense and what should happen. So for them to get death threats and all sorts of abuse is horrific. And I think that, you know, that's where we, that's the extreme end. But that's where we really need to work on trying to normalize having difficult conversations, and just letting people speak about their experience and not judging them.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:Yeah. Harder, harder. Easier said than done. But it's definitely something that I know I've been trying to cultivate with my kid. And I see your kid doing the, you know, doing the same like that. That's hopeful for me to see the next generation being so much more present so much more non judgmental, so much more in their bones to be who they want to be. Which is something that I wasn't able to do.
Dr. Sue Black:Am I there? Yeah, I think I'm there. Now. Yeah,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:I'm close, but not quite all there. But yeah, yeah. So having that more free dialogue at a younger age to be able to do that. So that is truly hopeful. So I'm curious, what, as we start wrapping up here, like what is the, you know, as you move in, you're still a professor, you're doing that less than less, right? You're doing more speaking? You're what's next for you? Maybe something else? Something? How do you want to do the next 10?
Dr. Sue Black:Yeah, that's a good question. Well, I guess, I mean, I want to, as I get older, I get more and more confident. And I more and more want to impact more and more people, you know, in a positive way. So I particularly care about women and people from underserved communities. But I mean, I'm in general, I care about everybody. And I guess I want I want to have more impact. And so I mean, potentially thinking about my academic career. I mean, my goal was for a long time to be Vice Chancellor of university. So that's still something that I'm kind of thinking about and possibly heading towards, you know, I think I could be a good Vice Chancellor. So that could be on the cards. But I think anything that really makes a big impact in the areas that I care about, wouldn't, you know, would make me happy.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:Yeah. So being true to you, and then bringing that inspiring others. So that sounds awesome. Well, is there anything else that we want to touch on while we have this opportunity? Anyone hearing? Do you guys have any questions? Thoughts? Comments?
Unknown:From this this, this is read from my husband. So this is bad from my husband as well. Did you always know you liked maths?
Dr. Sue Black:Yeah, I guess so. Because I liked it. When I was five. I can remember my my memories of my first couple of years at school are I love doing math. So yeah,
Unknown:I guess so. Because when I tell this story, yeah, I say and I wanted to math and even that is an unusual choice for most women. Let's be honest. So I thought it must be something that you always enjoy. Yeah, I
Dr. Sue Black:think I did. I mean, so so at home, we did like puzzles and mazes, and quizzes, and I always absolutely loved all of that. And math. Just seemed like an extension of that really? At school. So, yeah,
Unknown:there you go. Well, thank you
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:know, no. Okay. All right. Well, we're gonna wrap up here. Thank you so much for your time. Wonderful, cousin. And we're gonna wrap up and maybe we'll do it again. We'll do it across the pond. And the reason I come over. Sounds cool. We'll do it all. Alright, thanks. So
Dr. Sue Black:thank you. Thank you so much.