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Fem.AI: Igniting Women Into the AI Workforce – Six Five On the Road

Fem.AI: Igniting Women Into the AI Workforce - Six Five On the Road

Did you know October is National Women in AI Month? Start by learning about opportunities for women in tech and AI on this episode of Six Five On the Road. Host Melody Brue is joined by Cadence Design SystemsNicole Johnson, Global Director of Social Impact and President of the Cadence Giving Foundation, for a conversation on empowering women through technology and initiatives to integrate them into the AI workforce more efficiently.

Their discussion covers:

  • The vision and goals of Fem.AI
  • The current landscape for women in AI and technology
  • Strategies and programs Cadence Design Systems employs to support women in AI
  • The impact of social impact initiatives on corporate culture and the wider community
  • Future directions for Fem.AI and how individuals and organizations can get involved

Learn more at Cadence Design Systems and join the Fem.AI Alliance.

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Or listen to the audio here:

Disclaimer: Six Five On the Road is for information and entertainment purposes only. Over the course of this webcast, we may talk about companies that are publicly traded and we may even reference that fact and their equity share price, but please do not take anything that we say as a recommendation about what you should do with your investment dollars. We are not investment advisors, and we ask that you do not treat us as such.

Transcript:

Melody Brue: Welcome to the Six Five. I’m Melody Brue, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. Today, we’re going to explore the fascinating world of AI and its impact on society. We’re going to dive into a crucial topic, the role of women in the AI workforce, and the numbers paint a bit of a stark picture. AI is projected to add trillions to the global economy and millions of jobs by 2030, yet women currently hold only a fraction of those roles and even fewer hold leadership positions. So this disparity demands our attention, and that’s why we are thrilled to have Nicole Johnson join us today. Nicole is the Global Director of Social Impact and the President of the Cadence Giving Foundation or Cadence. She is really helping to lead the charge to empower women in AI through initiatives like the Fem.AI Alliance. Welcome, Nicole.

Nicole Johnson: Thank you, Mel. Thanks for having me.

Melody Brue: So glad to have you, and I loved being with you and so many other amazing speakers and guests and participants at the Fem.AI Summit. And I know that was just the beginning, just the kickoff. We talked about so many things there, and one of the things, I think, that really stuck out was that on one hand, there are tons of entry points of women in tech and AI that we have to address, but then there’s the place where there’s the dropout. I think that was something that was really important that was talked about there. Where do you see women most dropping out of the pipeline?

Nicole Johnson: Yeah, so as we’ve started to embark on understanding this problem and where we can start to integrate in solutions, we’ve identified three leakage points where we see women most commonly drop out. The first is actually completing a STEM degree. So 45% of women who start college with a STEM major don’t graduate as a STEM major, which is fascinating. And so, that first one is how do we keep women in school and in STEM majors? The second is accessing a first job. Women have a harder time than men accessing that first job, should they complete a degree. And that becomes even more significant if there’s intersectionality with being a first-generation college student, with being BIPOC, with being LGBTQ+. So those can all contribute to, again, that first job access that is so critical to get you on your career trajectory.

And then, the third is rising to leadership levels. So you mentioned it, but I’ll just give the statistic. Right now in AI, we see women making up about 20% of the AI workforce and only about 10% of leadership. So once women are in those roles, we actually see about 50% of women dropping out of the workforce before they hit 12 years in tech versus about 20% in other industries. So how do we keep them in the workforce? How do we keep them engaged? How do we keep them wanting to rise to leadership levels so that other young women who are coming up can see role models and have that as an example of what a career trajectory can look like.

Melody Brue: Yeah, those are important points in all of those steps. How do you see AI differing from tech on a broader scale?

Nicole Johnson: Sure. So to me, there’s two key things. So the first is where we are right now in time. And so, when we were kind of doing a landscape analysis of where can we make an impact as a company that sits at the intersection of AI as a foundation that’s working on big problems, the AI workforce and the AI economy really came to light because we weren’t intentional about the internet revolution. The internet happened. Nobody was thinking like, “We’ve got to make sure… I mean, if you can remember back in the late ’80s, early ’90s, late ’90s, I mean, nobody was thinking, “Who’s in the workforce?” And so, we think that right now is a really key moment in time to start inserting some intentionality around this function, so that’s one.

The second is when you look at the type of roles that we believe are going to be available in AI, it’s actually roles that women are, and I don’t want to gender everyone, but typically, what we’ve found is that women like to work on impact issues, big problems. They want to make that impact with their career. And where we see AI actually is kind of blossoming is bringing in liberal arts majors, bringing in subject matter experts. So these are all places that we think that women can take really full advantage of being involved in this new AI workforce.

Melody Brue: Yeah, so it seems like that’s not going to happen, just like you said, with the internet and technology in general. I remember early in my career being like, “Oh, I’m the only woman in the company,” and sort of being okay with it and not really realizing that that’s something that people need to pay attention to. How do you see the kind of interventions that can be taken to ensure that that’s not okay, that we can ensure full participation?

Nicole Johnson: So this is where we really look to our nonprofit partners as the experts in these specific areas they work on. And so, we’ve partnered with seven organizations to date that are on the ground doing this work with women every day, ensuring that women, again, addressing those three leakage points of ensuring women stay in school. I’ll give you an example. Last Mile Education Fund is one of our partners that works on this. They do emergency grants for people, but it is really skewed towards women in their numbers that are within four semesters of graduating with a CS or EE major that need emergency loans to make it through. And it is shocking. The dollar amount that these women need, it is usually $1,300 or less, and that actually keeps them in school and gets them to graduate. And so, I mean, it’s those kinds of partnerships that we have been fostering and working on to really ensure that these on the ground solutions are being implemented.

Melody Brue: Those partnerships are so important, and you also have a bunch of corporate partnerships as well as part of your Fem.AI alliance.

Nicole Johnson: Yeah.

Melody Brue: So let’s talk about the Alliance and then also some of the very impressive and very exciting partnerships that were just announced.

Nicole Johnson: Sure. So when we started embarking on this… And you were generous with your time to attend our summit, thank you. But when we started embarking on this, we recognized that this is not a problem we could solve on our own, and we really needed to bring industry together to work on this issue congruently. So we launched an alliance, and we’ve had some really impressive partners already sign up. So to date, we have Nvidia. We have Workday. We have NetApp. We have Equinix. We have breaking news to you that we haven’t even announced yet. We have Vodafone, and we have Unity Technologies, so we’re moving quickly. And I think what’s been interesting about that is seeing how many companies are excited about addressing this issue and want to.

And so, our plan for this alliance is to bring them together with, again, some of the stakeholders out in the community. We are not under the impression that we can solve everything. And so, again, we look towards those partnerships, whether it’s with nonprofits, whether it’s with universities, whether it’s with scholarships, whatever that partnership looks like that best fits those leakage points. We’re going to work in collaboration with those experts on how to ensure that, again, women are not dropping out along those leakage points.

Melody Brue: I love that we have some breaking news here, too. That was a nice surprise. And Cadence started this out with a $20 million funding. I mean, that in itself is super impressive. So I just want to close this out with… I mean, I’ll give you an opportunity to share any of your last thoughts. I think from a broad outlook perspective, you have a huge job in terms of being in charge of corporate responsibility and all of that. And that feels to me like it must be a huge honor, but also in a way, I don’t want to say a burden, but it’s like that must weigh really heavy on you at times to be like, “There are so many problems to solve.”

And I look at what Cadence does in so many different ways, the $50 million investment in the racial equity fund and other initiatives. And I think you’re so fortunate to be a part of that, but also that’s a lot to take on, and to have those partners join you and everything, it must be great. How do you function daily, just deciding what do I invest in, what do we do? Because you guys do a lot, but there are a lot of things to do.

Nicole Johnson: There are a lot of things to do. So to be perfectly candid, there are days where you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I’ve been doing this… I mean, I’ve been working in this space or the nonprofit space for all of my career, and sometimes it can feel like, “Has anything changed?” But at the end of the day, I mean, again, I’m going to call out Last Mile Education Fund just because they were kind enough to bring one of their students that had been impacted by their funding to an event that we had recently. And she is a junior at Stanford. She just transferred to Stanford from Houston Community College, and it was that grant that she got from Last Mile Education Fund that allowed her to finish her community college courses and get into Stanford, and she’s a junior in computer science.

Melody Brue: That is awesome.

Nicole Johnson: I mean, there is impact, and I will also say I have an amazing team. First of all, they are completely committed to this work as well, as well as our board, so our Cadence Giving Foundation Board includes our CEO, our CFO, our CHRO, and many others. And so, they’re passionate about it, so I don’t feel like I’m going at it alone. I will say one of the things that keeps me sane is I also have a group of social impact leaders from other tech companies that I talk to on a regular basis. In fact, I’m going to do yoga with several of them tonight.

Melody Brue: Nice.

Nicole Johnson: And so, that network and those relationships can really help keep you grounded and sane when you’re dealing with all of the things that are coming at you.

Melody Brue: I’m sure that helps, too. I think this is something also that I’ve seen Cadence do is really not just do the things as Cadence is doing this, but also say, “Hey, I want you to join us. I want this company to join us,” and really kind try to set this as more of a movement, not just Cadence is doing this and that’s it, but really bring people in to do that, which is awesome. Is there anything that we didn’t cover that you want to share either about the alliance, or I mean, one, definitely would love for you to share how people can get involved, where to go to get more information about anything else?

Nicole Johnson: So we do have a website. It’s Fem.AI, and there is information there on either joining the alliance on learning more about women in AI. We do plan on updating that page with opportunities for trainings and other things that women can take advantage of. So that is a work in progress, but there is some great stuff there right now. And I would also say I would just really encourage women to look at this space that’s developing right now, look at this economy, look at this workforce, and think about ways that they might be able to fit into it. Again, I see this as a huge opportunity space for women, and I want them to be able to take advantage of it because my thinking is when women are successful, the whole workforce, everything lifts up. The economy lifts up, families lift up, and so it is an opportunity space. And so, take advantage.

Melody Brue: That’s great. Super inspiring and thank you for all your work and Cadence for all the work that you all do. It really is truly inspiring, and I’m so happy to have been a part of the summit and been able to kind of see all of the work that you do. Thank you for joining us today on The Six Five, and we look forward to seeing all of the goodness that the Fem.AI initiative continues to do and all of the partners who join along with you. And thank you for joining us, everybody who’s watching. And again, you can go to the Fem.AI website to get more information and hopefully join along. Thanks for joining us, and we will see you next time on The Six Five.

Nicole Johnson: Thanks, Mel.

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