November 2, 2020 • 34 mins
To improve the diversity in the tech industry and racial tolerance in the country, we need novel, tangible ideas. In this episode of Smart Talks, Jonathan Strickland talks with IBM Distinguished Engineers Dale Davis Jones and Lysa Banks, along with Creative Architect Britni Lonesome, about their involvement with the Call for Code for Racial Justice effort and how listeners can get involved with the tech solutions they're developing.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
To make a real difference in the world. Today's episode
is a powerful one, and I am fortunate to participate
in this important discussion. I think there is no way
to express how tumultuous twenty twenty has been that hasn't
already been said a million times by this point. The
(00:22):
United States and the world at large continue to grapple
with enormous problems, ranging from the COVID nineteen pandemic to
economic recessions to climate change. But one issue that really
ties into all of those when you look into it,
and frankly has for centuries, has been the need for
(00:45):
racial justice in the United States. The stories of George Floyd,
Brianna Taylor, Eric Garner, and so many more have prompted
crowds to protest in the streets and call for systemic change.
And it's not that the underlying issues of systemic racism
are new. In fact, what makes them systemic is that
(01:07):
these issues are woven into the policies and social structures
of the United States. Rather, it is that they are
undeniable and we have a responsibility to address that. To
that end, within IBM, a group of employees began to
formulate a means to lean on the company's enormous spectrum
(01:29):
of technologies towards the goal of attaining true racial justice.
The company's history of programs and initiatives that aim to
make the world a better place served as a sort
of launching ground for the call for Code for Racial Justice.
Today you'll hear a conversation I had with three important
(01:50):
members of that initiative. Dale Davis Jones is a Vice
president and Distinguished Engineer at IBM and the leader of
IBM s gts are cotect Community. Lisa Banks is a
distinguished engineer working within the CTO office of the IBM
Cloud Engagement Hub. And Brittany Lonesome is a creative architect
(02:12):
with a deep experience in cloud systems. Listen to their
stories and how they and other IBM r s were
able to take the incredible emotional response to the racial
justice crisis and turn it into actions that anyone can
contribute to. We have a lot to cover today. We've
(02:32):
got a really big and important topic. But before we
jump into that, I would love to get a little
more information about my guests today and to learn about
your professional background and what brought you into the jobs
that you you currently hold and what you find exciting
about it and why it matters to you and really
(02:53):
to the whole world. But let's start with you, Dale.
Can you tell me a little bit about what it
is you do and how you got to where you
are today. Okay, so Hi, I'm Dale Davis Jones, and
I'm in the Global Technology Services part of um IBM,
where we serve more than four thousand clients in transforming
(03:14):
their I T infrastructure, which means we look at what
they're doing to run the infrastructure to ensure that they
are continuously evolving to meet the needs of the world today,
and we help them on that journey with cloud, with AI,
with automation. For for those of us who are not
in it. UM you go to the store and you
(03:37):
know the air condition works in your grocery, the food
is um is not tainted, the hospitals are running with
the right systems, and the patient records are in order.
And UM I leave the architects who work with clients
on these engagements, and I'm also the global leader for
the architect team. My background really briefly is undergrad I
(04:01):
was UM a math major with a minor and computer science. UM.
I did graduate school in UM in Systems, UM and controls.
And I've had I would say, a checkered career at IBM,
and that I have had many rules in many different
parts of the business, from the mainframe organization to consulting
(04:23):
technology services and a standing corporate headquarters. UM. As someone
from a small island, which is Trinidad and Tobago, it's
really exciting to me to get up and know in
a given day I can be talking to clients and
IBM or is in UM, you know, almost any country
in the world. Yeah, Lisa, can I hear a little
bit about you? Sure? Absolutely so. I am a computer
(04:45):
engineer and mathematician by degree. I've reinvented myself several times
throughout my career and IBM. I started as a mainframe developer.
I've worked in corporate technical strategy, where I had the
privilege to meet and work with Dale. As a matter
of fact, and one thing she did not tell you
(05:06):
about her professional background is that she's actually the first
black female distinguished engineer in IBM. Uh. She saw something
in me, put her arm around me, mentored me, and
I'm very happy to say that with her support, I
became the second black female distinguished engineer and IBM. But
(05:28):
as I mentioned, I've I've reinvented myself several times. So,
like I said, starting the mainframe development, moving on to
corporate technical strategy, I've worked as a industry solutions architect
UM in cloud for IBM. I've helped IBM with several
acquisitions including you Stream, Clearly, the Weather Company, and helped
(05:52):
define a new business unit UM around those acquisitions. Within IBM,
I've worked with teams to do DevOps transformations UM too
adopt cloud technologies and architectures for legacy applications you know.
Right now, I am on a team called our Cloud
(06:13):
Engagement Hub where we guide and advise IBM's top clients
on their journey to cloud UM, making sure that we're
able to help them rethink, re engineer, reimagine their legacy
application portfolios UH to leverage and take advantage of the
(06:33):
values of some of the newer technologies that are out now.
And I focus primarily right now on mainframe modernization and
how we can bring a cloud native developer experience UH
to the main frame. So it's really exciting to have
a job that fuses both my my you know based
fundamental experience and IBM and all of the newer things
(06:56):
I've learned in some of my more recent roles. Wonderful
and Brittany, Please, I would love to hear about your
background as well. Sure, Sure, I wish I could say
I was I was the third UH black female, but
not the case. Were very very honor happy to be
you know, to have worked within me in the company
of of of Dal and Lisa. UM. I'm a I'm
(07:20):
a gym, a boy engineer by trade actually, and I
joined UM IBM after getting my UH Tech NBA from
Johns Hopkins. I came in through the IBM Summit UH
Sales Sales Organization UM, so I was a client pacient
architect UM for stually most of my career. I started
(07:43):
with the CAMPS portfolio back when it was Cloud and
a Living to Mobile Social Security UM, and then moved
UM solding into the cloud organization for UM the last
six years of my career, SO I helped client with
their cloud strategy. It's adopting cloud is being successful on
(08:03):
the cloud and the organizations UM. Lisa and I actually
did cross paths very briefly. UM. I think it was
about five years ago when I was working on a
first of a con project without being research. Um, it
was a it was a a high gpustrating and cloud
plant for for for various use cases and in the
(08:25):
gaming and healthcare something some other industries. So yeah, I'm
just really excited. It's happy to be here. UM. But
the sectually about ib as well is the this is
the flexibility and control that I've essentially had over over
over my career. I was able to the previous roles
kind of create my own roles while within IBM. So um,
(08:49):
that's that's really what maybe treat not being over other
of other companies with for was just being able to
be in the droversy of of of your experience. You're
just like, my next question is one I feel like
the importance is sort of evident on the face of it,
but I feel that this is one we need to address.
(09:09):
So in your own words, can you explain why, since
we're talking about call for code for racial justice, why
everyone should care about racial justice? Why is this an
issue for everybody? When you ask the question, why does
it matter to everyone? I think we've I think the
first thing is to understand what we mean when we
(09:29):
say racial justice, UM, and what I have learned and
read and believe is that racial justice is a systemic
and um systemically fear treatment of people of any and
all races that results in equal and equitable opportunities for
(09:51):
all people as well as outcomes for them. And I
think if we are clear on that, then it is
not about black versus white, or um other you know,
any race you know versus another, But it is a
systemic fair treatment of all people. And if you think
(10:12):
of this as we're all humans living in a civilized society,
then it is incumbent on any human who wants to
preserve a civil civilized society to understand that injustice for
any race takes a tool on the society. Um. It
(10:34):
leads to unrest. It affects um everything that we hold
dear as human beings, a right to life, to a
quality of life, an a right to good health, a
right to justice and fair treatment, a right to education,
(10:55):
a right to vote. And once you introduce where you know,
um racism and racial bias into a system, you you
you create an imbalance that really damages the fabric of
how the that entire society functions and creates uh an
(11:20):
environment where it is not possible for anyone who is
a civilized human being to function um the way that
they need to. And and and there's one other thing, right,
It's not just a matter of not discriminating and not um,
(11:40):
you know, promoting inequities. It's also being deliberate and ensuring
that we support others and each other as human beings
to achieve a sustained level of racial equity, UM, to
achieve the rights that a civilized society expects UM as
(12:03):
a human being. And when we get rid of that,
when we devalue or we don't value each other as
human beings equally, we create an instability that has a
long lasting impact on our health, our safety, our well
being as human beings. That's my view. Well, I think
(12:25):
that's a good segue for us to talk about Call
for Code for Racial Justice. Can you tell us a
little bit about what that is and how it even
how it even came to be, and how each of
you became involved with this project. So UM that we
of the George Floyd in our protests, which again came
(12:46):
about via video. UM, that's when the conversations really you know,
started to come to come into the workplace, you know, finally,
after after many years. And so the way I got
involved in in a in the project that that first week, UM,
we you know, we had a lot of talent call
in talent hall discussions, asked me anythings, UM, just various
(13:09):
discussions across ib with the black communities, Allied communities, UM,
not just in the US, but but literally across the world.
And UM and and as part of those discussions, UM,
you know, the black community asked for you know, a
call for code, you know, an initiative to apply technology.
Can can we you know, put our heads together, our
(13:32):
expertise together to to to UM to find technology to
this issue. So UM and and do and much who
is also UM one of our leaders for this initiative UM.
I worked with him on D on the Cloud Advisor
UM team. So he called myself, Lisa dell um and
(13:53):
asked us to be you know, a part of this
initiative and just and to build it and to build
us into what you know the program is today. So
when he called it, it was a no, it was
a no brain and there wasn't even I thought it
was like, of course, this is a lived experience. We're
black in the office, were black outside of it. So
it was something we couldn't we we could couldn't pass.
(14:15):
You know, Brittany's right, right, I feel there there was
a sense of anger, of pain, of frustration, of just
just so much emotion right from the black IBM community
in the wake of recent events George Floyd, Brianna Taylor,
countless others. Things kind of came to a head and
(14:39):
the Black community spoke up and IBAM listened, you know,
And and I have to stop and say that I'm
incredibly proud of what IBM's response has been. Within two
weeks of George floyd murder, IBM was taking action and responding.
(15:03):
They were listening. There were a series of town halls,
of small round tables, fireside chats, discussions, in in team meetings,
in slack and email. IBM wanted to understand. And the
(15:24):
Black community spoke up and IBM heard the pain. IBM
listened to the frustrations. We took all of that information,
all of that feedback, and we synthesized it. And when
I say we, I mean a group of black IBM
rs uh in concert uh you know, with the you know,
(15:47):
senior executive sponsor of the Black Community and IBM. We
worked together. We synthesized it. We used design thinking to
really understand what are the common themes, the common threads,
and we found some, right, I think we found maybe
you know, Brittany can keep me honest here, she's been
in this since to start with me. Um, you know
(16:10):
several themes maybe ten fifteen different common central themes around
systemic racism in our society and how we wanted to
combat those. Uh. We distilled them down. We put them
to a vote to the Black community and IBM and said, look,
(16:32):
we listened, we heard. Let us play back to you
what we heard. Are these the right things or these
the the activities the initiatives that matter to you? Are
these the problems you want to see us as an
IBM community as a whole tackle. And we put them
to a vote because we know that we can't do
(16:52):
everything as much as we might want to. But if
we bring focus to a few things that we can
move the needle, we can apply our technology are best
and brightest to try to solve some subset of the
problems that we face as a society. Uh. We put
them to a vote. They voted, and those are the
(17:13):
three themes that we have UH externalized as part of
Call for Code for Racial Justice, Diverse Representation, UH police
and judicial reform, and policy and legislation reform. Dale, you
want to share yours, as Lisa and Brittany shared, and
(17:36):
dow mch Um IBM fellow pulled me into our Call
for Code Challenge team and I started to say, Wow,
I have you know this other project. I'm running this
other initiative and it's it's morather than just IBM. And
then I had a really hard talking too with myself
(17:58):
and said, IBM is listening as Lisa's said, right, um,
we have IBMS attention. The world is looking for help,
the US is looking for help. I could choose my
choose to loose sleep over the fear I'm feeling, the
frustration I'm feeling, or I can channel my energy right
(18:21):
um and my waking hours to doing something. So I said, Okay,
I'm gonna jump in and I'm going to help. And
it worked out that and had some challenges that took
him away from this right at the end of August,
and I ended up having to manage both of these.
But Jonathan, I will tell you this, right I sat
(18:45):
at the beginning that one of the best things in
IBM is waking up every morning and knowing I can
talk to people in many countries of the world and clients.
But one of the things I didn't say is that
the people in IBM from all of life came together
to help me and and do and Lisa with both
(19:07):
of those initiatives. Right, I have a team of sixty
people who have been working with me on the I
T Language initiative, and the passion and the drive is
unbelievable that they bring to the table, all volunteering to help.
We have more than five hundred people from IBM plus
(19:30):
Red Hats who have come together to work on the
Call for Code initiative. And for me, it was cathartic.
It felt like I was able to do something I
I was. I was going around, I would almost say,
in a daze, and I turned on me my turned
my emotions on and off for survival. And we got
(19:51):
people from you know, all ages, right um, all different
parts of the company, all different kinds of skills coming
together to build this out. I think was cathartic for
all of us, and it helped us to channel what
we're doing, what our frustration, our numbness, our exhaustion, um
(20:11):
and our fear. But I will say for me, Call
for Code really helped me to feel that I could
contribute in a tangible way and bring others along. And
everyone who's been working with us on this has been
really touched by the power of our technology, the support
(20:34):
of our leadership Bob Lord, Aravin Krishna or SeeU to
create a space for us to make this happen. And
I know it's a long answer, but I really want
to do to understand, you know what what it meant
for me, right because I was shutting down, literally shutting
down and operating in you know, sort of an automatic
mode just for you know, my my personal and mental
(20:58):
and emotional survival, and Call for Code for Racial Justice
allowed me to feel and then channel those feelings into
helping the team. I'm really really incredibly impressed with what
I'm hearing, not just by you know, knowing that this
is such a critical topic in the first place. I mean,
(21:21):
that's the fact that we have IBM ers dedicating precious
time to really tackling this. That really speaks to how
critical an issue it is. It also speaks highly of
the character of you and all the other ib M
r s who have uh participated in the Call for
Code for Racial Justice and I'm I'm humbled again to
(21:46):
be part of this conversation. Can you talk a little
bit about some of the actual work that you have
created with Call for Code for Racial Justice so far? Sure?
So at least I mentioned and in betid out of
the podcast, we synthesized UM, you know, input from the
black communities down to three themes and their police and
judicial reform and accountability, policy and legislative reform, and UM
(22:12):
diverse representation. So for police and judicial reform, we're looking
at how can we use technology UM to better analyze
broad data, provide insights, and make recommendations that will drive
racial equality and reform across criminal justice and public safety.
For policy and legislation reform, it's the question is how
(22:34):
can we use technology to analyze, inform and develop policy
to reform the workplace products, public safety, just legislation and
society at large. And then for diverse representation, we're looking
at the prevention, detection and the remediation of bias and
misrepresentation in workplace UM products in society. And like we've
(22:58):
been saying before, you know, full corporations and for the
you know, for the world to succeed if it's critical
to have light representation at every level. UM. So within
the Police in Judicial Reform theme where we're gonna release
a couple of solutions. One looks like the capabilities for contribution,
(23:19):
management and analysis of categories of trust and information about
incidents for both the police and their stakeholders. So for
Police in Judicial Reform and accountability, one solution UM is
a web bag that allows the defense attorney or public
defender to upload information about a case and and they're defendant,
and we'll send this data to a bias detection engine
(23:42):
and using the results from that, we can create a
report outline and possible charges, the range of possible sentence,
peach charge, evidence of passed bias UM indeed biased recommendations
for police bargaining sentences. So again, how can we trans
form the process when someone is going to trial. We
(24:03):
also have another solution that predicts how likely UM a
charge the sentence sentencing will be very different if the
convicted person was of a different race. FIRD solution for
Police in Judicial Reform is a content management application that
will allow civilians to contribute uh statements and evidence to
(24:25):
police Internet reports and create a tamper proof record with
all accounts of the Internet. For policy and legislative reform,
we have a web advocation to enable and empower black
people to exercise their right to vote by assuring that
their voice is heard. It's a it's a virtual one
stop shop for but voters to assist them with all
(24:46):
of their their voting needs. And another solution for policy
legislative reform is a web based application to help advocates
find legislation of interest based on the advocates preferences for
impact areas and geographical location. UMAN. Finally, UH, we have
a platform as capable of story curated PRNL information as
(25:09):
a termined by the community. It provides a mobile friendly
way for users to examine that information, increasing their legal
awareness UM and to allow them to communicate their reactions
and thoughts via the recording of video testimonials to be
shared with the community and that people responsible for the
creation of that And for diverse representation, I'll turn it
(25:29):
over to them to talk about the work that we're
doing there. So diverse representation UM is a theme that
really cuts across all of the three themes. And if
you think about racial intstice and bias UM. If you
don't have a society that UM is diverse and UH
(25:54):
those uh and and you don't have a way of
eliminating both explicit and implicit bias from your society, then
you run into some of the challenges we see where
policy and legislative reform or police UM legislation and reform
(26:18):
accountability isn't UM isn't performed in an equitable way. So
for the but for the diverse rich representation solution, what
we really have focused on is providing a means for
us to detect bias and content that promotes negative stereotypes
(26:44):
about the black community that UM promotes both in an
avert and a subtle way UH, racial language and themes
that continue to reinforce the perception of one race, in
(27:09):
this case blocks as lesser than or less value than
another race or other races. And also to provide a
way for the community to come together two work on
this issue, which is a lot less UM a lot
(27:35):
more difficult to tackle than overt racism in many ways
because it gets into the UM language we've accepted as
part of the norm for a very long time. Can
people get involved in build upon the work that you
(27:56):
are doing with Call for Code for Racial Justice, So
we will be announcing the solutions next week. UM. We
have a Call for Code for UM Racial Justice site
where if you're a developer, you can register, you can
get involved UM, you can start contributing code ideas UM.
(28:22):
If you are a on GEO or private sector company
or other interested community entities like community governments, you can
UM engage and share that you are interested in partnering
with us, maybe as a tester, maybe as an end user,
(28:42):
a deployer, or someone who wants to take what we're
doing and build a community around it to implement with
their own developers. So we have created a site. These
solutions will be featured on those on our websites UM
under IBM Developer Call for Code, UM for Racial Justice
and UM we will be ruling these solutions out and
(29:05):
any developer or or UM par ecosystem partner can join
us UM to be part of the journey of taking
these solutions and bringing them to our communities in America
and the world. And all they have to do is
click on a link and sign up and if they'd
like to go learn about it at All Things Open
(29:27):
and the Inclusive in the inclusion and diversity. Um uh
tracks they can um, they can hear and do talk
about those solutions in a number of sessions a Lisa
or or Britney. I don't know if there's anything else
you wanted to add. Yeah, I just wanted to add
(29:48):
one thing, which is partly you know, why it's so
important that we've open source these, these starter kits, these solutions,
and also how people can get involved. Right. Yes, this
is technolog legy, but you don't just have to be
a developer, right. I think the the net of it
really comes down to the fact that you know, I
(30:09):
think I mentioned this before, you know, we want to
address the community. We want to apply you know, technical
know how as well. And so that's why really the
premise around open sourcing these, right is we know, we
recognize that there is a diverse representation issue in the
(30:31):
tech industry. Um. And I think by open sourcing these
it allows us to open the aperture and get a broader,
uh set of contributors working with us, whether it's developers,
whether it's people in the community who want to make
a difference, who have an idea or see a problem
(30:52):
that they think technology can help. Solve and so I think,
you know, open sourcing, this really helps us to bring
all different types of skill sets, all different different types
of um people together to really form a community. And
you know, for folks to get involved, please don't think
(31:13):
that you have to be a developer, that you have
to be a coder. You know, there's room for everyone
and and all types of skills UH to participate in
in in Call for Code for Racial Justice. I it's
hard for me to put into words how inspirational I
have found this conversation. You look at a problem as
(31:34):
enormous as the addressing injustice, racial injustice, and I think
for a lot of people, the first reaction is this
problem is too big for me to do anything that
will make any difference. And I think that this initiative
proves that wrong, and it gives people that opportunity and
(31:55):
that hope that I think a lot of people are
really searching for right now. So, from the bottom of
my heart, thank you all so much, not just for
being on the show, but for doing this incredible work
and and for opening up the doors for other people
to be a part of it and to make the
world a better place. It is a truly phenomenal story,
(32:17):
and I am so thankful that I get to be
one of the people to tell it. No, thank you
so much for having us. Thank you, Jonathan M. Really
appreciate this opportunity. Yes, thank you. I have covered the
tech industry for more than ten years. In that time,
I've talked about topics ranging from inconsequential two critically important issues.
(32:41):
Racial justice clearly belongs in that second category, and I
mean it when I say it is a problem so large,
so deeply ingrained in the systems that run our society,
that it was really hard for me to get a
feel for what the average person like myself could do
(33:02):
in response to it. The Call for Code for Racial
Justice is a great example of how anyone, whether they
are a developer or not, can get involved to make
real world change happen. The work that comes out of
this project will help address wrongs that have been part
of our world for far too long, and in the end,
(33:24):
righting those wrongs will help everyone. Systemic racism really does
harm everyone within a society, and when there is real
justice that is equitable across the board, we all benefit.
To get involved. Please visit developer dot IBM dot com
(33:45):
slash call for code slash, racial dash justice. You don't
need to be a developer to be a part of this.
You just need to have the desire to make the
world a more us and a better place. That's all
for today, Thank you for listening. I'll talk to you
(34:06):
again really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
To make a real difference in the world. Today's episode
is a powerful one, and I am fortunate to participate
in this important discussion. I think there is no way
to express how tumultuous twenty twenty has been that hasn't
already been said a million times by this point. The
(00:22):
United States and the world at large continue to grapple
with enormous problems, ranging from the COVID nineteen pandemic to
economic recessions to climate change. But one issue that really
ties into all of those when you look into it,
and frankly has for centuries, has been the need for
(00:45):
racial justice in the United States. The stories of George Floyd,
Brianna Taylor, Eric Garner, and so many more have prompted
crowds to protest in the streets and call for systemic change.
And it's not that the underlying issues of systemic racism
are new. In fact, what makes them systemic is that
(01:07):
these issues are woven into the policies and social structures
of the United States. Rather, it is that they are
undeniable and we have a responsibility to address that. To
that end, within IBM, a group of employees began to
formulate a means to lean on the company's enormous spectrum
(01:29):
of technologies towards the goal of attaining true racial justice.
The company's history of programs and initiatives that aim to
make the world a better place served as a sort
of launching ground for the call for Code for Racial Justice.
Today you'll hear a conversation I had with three important
(01:50):
members of that initiative. Dale Davis Jones is a Vice
president and Distinguished Engineer at IBM and the leader of
IBM s gts are cotect Community. Lisa Banks is a
distinguished engineer working within the CTO office of the IBM
Cloud Engagement Hub. And Brittany Lonesome is a creative architect
(02:12):
with a deep experience in cloud systems. Listen to their
stories and how they and other IBM r s were
able to take the incredible emotional response to the racial
justice crisis and turn it into actions that anyone can
contribute to. We have a lot to cover today. We've
(02:32):
got a really big and important topic. But before we
jump into that, I would love to get a little
more information about my guests today and to learn about
your professional background and what brought you into the jobs
that you you currently hold and what you find exciting
about it and why it matters to you and really
(02:53):
to the whole world. But let's start with you, Dale.
Can you tell me a little bit about what it
is you do and how you got to where you
are today. Okay, so Hi, I'm Dale Davis Jones, and
I'm in the Global Technology Services part of um IBM,
where we serve more than four thousand clients in transforming
(03:14):
their I T infrastructure, which means we look at what
they're doing to run the infrastructure to ensure that they
are continuously evolving to meet the needs of the world today,
and we help them on that journey with cloud, with AI,
with automation. For for those of us who are not
in it. UM you go to the store and you
(03:37):
know the air condition works in your grocery, the food
is um is not tainted, the hospitals are running with
the right systems, and the patient records are in order.
And UM I leave the architects who work with clients
on these engagements, and I'm also the global leader for
the architect team. My background really briefly is undergrad I
(04:01):
was UM a math major with a minor and computer science. UM.
I did graduate school in UM in Systems, UM and controls.
And I've had I would say, a checkered career at IBM,
and that I have had many rules in many different
parts of the business, from the mainframe organization to consulting
(04:23):
technology services and a standing corporate headquarters. UM. As someone
from a small island, which is Trinidad and Tobago, it's
really exciting to me to get up and know in
a given day I can be talking to clients and
IBM or is in UM, you know, almost any country
in the world. Yeah, Lisa, can I hear a little
bit about you? Sure? Absolutely so. I am a computer
(04:45):
engineer and mathematician by degree. I've reinvented myself several times
throughout my career and IBM. I started as a mainframe developer.
I've worked in corporate technical strategy, where I had the
privilege to meet and work with Dale. As a matter
of fact, and one thing she did not tell you
(05:06):
about her professional background is that she's actually the first
black female distinguished engineer in IBM. Uh. She saw something
in me, put her arm around me, mentored me, and
I'm very happy to say that with her support, I
became the second black female distinguished engineer and IBM. But
(05:28):
as I mentioned, I've I've reinvented myself several times. So,
like I said, starting the mainframe development, moving on to
corporate technical strategy, I've worked as a industry solutions architect
UM in cloud for IBM. I've helped IBM with several
acquisitions including you Stream, Clearly, the Weather Company, and helped
(05:52):
define a new business unit UM around those acquisitions. Within IBM,
I've worked with teams to do DevOps transformations UM too
adopt cloud technologies and architectures for legacy applications you know.
Right now, I am on a team called our Cloud
(06:13):
Engagement Hub where we guide and advise IBM's top clients
on their journey to cloud UM, making sure that we're
able to help them rethink, re engineer, reimagine their legacy
application portfolios UH to leverage and take advantage of the
(06:33):
values of some of the newer technologies that are out now.
And I focus primarily right now on mainframe modernization and
how we can bring a cloud native developer experience UH
to the main frame. So it's really exciting to have
a job that fuses both my my you know based
fundamental experience and IBM and all of the newer things
(06:56):
I've learned in some of my more recent roles. Wonderful
and Brittany, Please, I would love to hear about your
background as well. Sure, Sure, I wish I could say
I was I was the third UH black female, but
not the case. Were very very honor happy to be
you know, to have worked within me in the company
of of of Dal and Lisa. UM. I'm a I'm
(07:20):
a gym, a boy engineer by trade actually, and I
joined UM IBM after getting my UH Tech NBA from
Johns Hopkins. I came in through the IBM Summit UH
Sales Sales Organization UM, so I was a client pacient
architect UM for stually most of my career. I started
(07:43):
with the CAMPS portfolio back when it was Cloud and
a Living to Mobile Social Security UM, and then moved
UM solding into the cloud organization for UM the last
six years of my career, SO I helped client with
their cloud strategy. It's adopting cloud is being successful on
(08:03):
the cloud and the organizations UM. Lisa and I actually
did cross paths very briefly. UM. I think it was
about five years ago when I was working on a
first of a con project without being research. Um, it
was a it was a a high gpustrating and cloud
plant for for for various use cases and in the
(08:25):
gaming and healthcare something some other industries. So yeah, I'm
just really excited. It's happy to be here. UM. But
the sectually about ib as well is the this is
the flexibility and control that I've essentially had over over
over my career. I was able to the previous roles
kind of create my own roles while within IBM. So um,
(08:49):
that's that's really what maybe treat not being over other
of other companies with for was just being able to
be in the droversy of of of your experience. You're
just like, my next question is one I feel like
the importance is sort of evident on the face of it,
but I feel that this is one we need to address.
(09:09):
So in your own words, can you explain why, since
we're talking about call for code for racial justice, why
everyone should care about racial justice? Why is this an
issue for everybody? When you ask the question, why does
it matter to everyone? I think we've I think the
first thing is to understand what we mean when we
(09:29):
say racial justice, UM, and what I have learned and
read and believe is that racial justice is a systemic
and um systemically fear treatment of people of any and
all races that results in equal and equitable opportunities for
(09:51):
all people as well as outcomes for them. And I
think if we are clear on that, then it is
not about black versus white, or um other you know,
any race you know versus another, But it is a
systemic fair treatment of all people. And if you think
(10:12):
of this as we're all humans living in a civilized society,
then it is incumbent on any human who wants to
preserve a civil civilized society to understand that injustice for
any race takes a tool on the society. Um. It
(10:34):
leads to unrest. It affects um everything that we hold
dear as human beings, a right to life, to a
quality of life, an a right to good health, a
right to justice and fair treatment, a right to education,
(10:55):
a right to vote. And once you introduce where you know,
um racism and racial bias into a system, you you
you create an imbalance that really damages the fabric of
how the that entire society functions and creates uh an
(11:20):
environment where it is not possible for anyone who is
a civilized human being to function um the way that
they need to. And and and there's one other thing, right,
It's not just a matter of not discriminating and not um,
(11:40):
you know, promoting inequities. It's also being deliberate and ensuring
that we support others and each other as human beings
to achieve a sustained level of racial equity, UM, to
achieve the rights that a civilized society expects UM as
(12:03):
a human being. And when we get rid of that,
when we devalue or we don't value each other as
human beings equally, we create an instability that has a
long lasting impact on our health, our safety, our well
being as human beings. That's my view. Well, I think
(12:25):
that's a good segue for us to talk about Call
for Code for Racial Justice. Can you tell us a
little bit about what that is and how it even
how it even came to be, and how each of
you became involved with this project. So UM that we
of the George Floyd in our protests, which again came
(12:46):
about via video. UM, that's when the conversations really you know,
started to come to come into the workplace, you know, finally,
after after many years. And so the way I got
involved in in a in the project that that first week, UM,
we you know, we had a lot of talent call
in talent hall discussions, asked me anythings, UM, just various
(13:09):
discussions across ib with the black communities, Allied communities, UM,
not just in the US, but but literally across the world.
And UM and and as part of those discussions, UM,
you know, the black community asked for you know, a
call for code, you know, an initiative to apply technology.
Can can we you know, put our heads together, our
(13:32):
expertise together to to to UM to find technology to
this issue. So UM and and do and much who
is also UM one of our leaders for this initiative UM.
I worked with him on D on the Cloud Advisor
UM team. So he called myself, Lisa dell um and
(13:53):
asked us to be you know, a part of this
initiative and just and to build it and to build
us into what you know the program is today. So
when he called it, it was a no, it was
a no brain and there wasn't even I thought it
was like, of course, this is a lived experience. We're
black in the office, were black outside of it. So
it was something we couldn't we we could couldn't pass.
(14:15):
You know, Brittany's right, right, I feel there there was
a sense of anger, of pain, of frustration, of just
just so much emotion right from the black IBM community
in the wake of recent events George Floyd, Brianna Taylor,
countless others. Things kind of came to a head and
(14:39):
the Black community spoke up and IBAM listened, you know,
And and I have to stop and say that I'm
incredibly proud of what IBM's response has been. Within two
weeks of George floyd murder, IBM was taking action and responding.
(15:03):
They were listening. There were a series of town halls,
of small round tables, fireside chats, discussions, in in team meetings,
in slack and email. IBM wanted to understand. And the
(15:24):
Black community spoke up and IBM heard the pain. IBM
listened to the frustrations. We took all of that information,
all of that feedback, and we synthesized it. And when
I say we, I mean a group of black IBM
rs uh in concert uh you know, with the you know,
(15:47):
senior executive sponsor of the Black Community and IBM. We
worked together. We synthesized it. We used design thinking to
really understand what are the common themes, the common threads,
and we found some, right, I think we found maybe
you know, Brittany can keep me honest here, she's been
in this since to start with me. Um, you know
(16:10):
several themes maybe ten fifteen different common central themes around
systemic racism in our society and how we wanted to
combat those. Uh. We distilled them down. We put them
to a vote to the Black community and IBM and said, look,
(16:32):
we listened, we heard. Let us play back to you
what we heard. Are these the right things or these
the the activities the initiatives that matter to you? Are
these the problems you want to see us as an
IBM community as a whole tackle. And we put them
to a vote because we know that we can't do
(16:52):
everything as much as we might want to. But if
we bring focus to a few things that we can
move the needle, we can apply our technology are best
and brightest to try to solve some subset of the
problems that we face as a society. Uh. We put
them to a vote. They voted, and those are the
(17:13):
three themes that we have UH externalized as part of
Call for Code for Racial Justice, Diverse Representation, UH police
and judicial reform, and policy and legislation reform. Dale, you
want to share yours, as Lisa and Brittany shared, and
(17:36):
dow mch Um IBM fellow pulled me into our Call
for Code Challenge team and I started to say, Wow,
I have you know this other project. I'm running this
other initiative and it's it's morather than just IBM. And
then I had a really hard talking too with myself
(17:58):
and said, IBM is listening as Lisa's said, right, um,
we have IBMS attention. The world is looking for help,
the US is looking for help. I could choose my
choose to loose sleep over the fear I'm feeling, the
frustration I'm feeling, or I can channel my energy right
(18:21):
um and my waking hours to doing something. So I said, Okay,
I'm gonna jump in and I'm going to help. And
it worked out that and had some challenges that took
him away from this right at the end of August,
and I ended up having to manage both of these.
But Jonathan, I will tell you this, right I sat
(18:45):
at the beginning that one of the best things in
IBM is waking up every morning and knowing I can
talk to people in many countries of the world and clients.
But one of the things I didn't say is that
the people in IBM from all of life came together
to help me and and do and Lisa with both
(19:07):
of those initiatives. Right, I have a team of sixty
people who have been working with me on the I
T Language initiative, and the passion and the drive is
unbelievable that they bring to the table, all volunteering to help.
We have more than five hundred people from IBM plus
(19:30):
Red Hats who have come together to work on the
Call for Code initiative. And for me, it was cathartic.
It felt like I was able to do something I
I was. I was going around, I would almost say,
in a daze, and I turned on me my turned
my emotions on and off for survival. And we got
(19:51):
people from you know, all ages, right um, all different
parts of the company, all different kinds of skills coming
together to build this out. I think was cathartic for
all of us, and it helped us to channel what
we're doing, what our frustration, our numbness, our exhaustion, um
(20:11):
and our fear. But I will say for me, Call
for Code really helped me to feel that I could
contribute in a tangible way and bring others along. And
everyone who's been working with us on this has been
really touched by the power of our technology, the support
(20:34):
of our leadership Bob Lord, Aravin Krishna or SeeU to
create a space for us to make this happen. And
I know it's a long answer, but I really want
to do to understand, you know what what it meant
for me, right because I was shutting down, literally shutting
down and operating in you know, sort of an automatic
mode just for you know, my my personal and mental
(20:58):
and emotional survival, and Call for Code for Racial Justice
allowed me to feel and then channel those feelings into
helping the team. I'm really really incredibly impressed with what
I'm hearing, not just by you know, knowing that this
is such a critical topic in the first place. I mean,
(21:21):
that's the fact that we have IBM ers dedicating precious
time to really tackling this. That really speaks to how
critical an issue it is. It also speaks highly of
the character of you and all the other ib M
r s who have uh participated in the Call for
Code for Racial Justice and I'm I'm humbled again to
(21:46):
be part of this conversation. Can you talk a little
bit about some of the actual work that you have
created with Call for Code for Racial Justice so far? Sure?
So at least I mentioned and in betid out of
the podcast, we synthesized UM, you know, input from the
black communities down to three themes and their police and
judicial reform and accountability, policy and legislative reform, and UM
(22:12):
diverse representation. So for police and judicial reform, we're looking
at how can we use technology UM to better analyze
broad data, provide insights, and make recommendations that will drive
racial equality and reform across criminal justice and public safety.
For policy and legislation reform, it's the question is how
(22:34):
can we use technology to analyze, inform and develop policy
to reform the workplace products, public safety, just legislation and
society at large. And then for diverse representation, we're looking
at the prevention, detection and the remediation of bias and
misrepresentation in workplace UM products in society. And like we've
(22:58):
been saying before, you know, full corporations and for the
you know, for the world to succeed if it's critical
to have light representation at every level. UM. So within
the Police in Judicial Reform theme where we're gonna release
a couple of solutions. One looks like the capabilities for contribution,
(23:19):
management and analysis of categories of trust and information about
incidents for both the police and their stakeholders. So for
Police in Judicial Reform and accountability, one solution UM is
a web bag that allows the defense attorney or public
defender to upload information about a case and and they're defendant,
and we'll send this data to a bias detection engine
(23:42):
and using the results from that, we can create a
report outline and possible charges, the range of possible sentence,
peach charge, evidence of passed bias UM indeed biased recommendations
for police bargaining sentences. So again, how can we trans
form the process when someone is going to trial. We
(24:03):
also have another solution that predicts how likely UM a
charge the sentence sentencing will be very different if the
convicted person was of a different race. FIRD solution for
Police in Judicial Reform is a content management application that
will allow civilians to contribute uh statements and evidence to
(24:25):
police Internet reports and create a tamper proof record with
all accounts of the Internet. For policy and legislative reform,
we have a web advocation to enable and empower black
people to exercise their right to vote by assuring that
their voice is heard. It's a it's a virtual one
stop shop for but voters to assist them with all
(24:46):
of their their voting needs. And another solution for policy
legislative reform is a web based application to help advocates
find legislation of interest based on the advocates preferences for
impact areas and geographical location. UMAN. Finally, UH, we have
a platform as capable of story curated PRNL information as
(25:09):
a termined by the community. It provides a mobile friendly
way for users to examine that information, increasing their legal
awareness UM and to allow them to communicate their reactions
and thoughts via the recording of video testimonials to be
shared with the community and that people responsible for the
creation of that And for diverse representation, I'll turn it
(25:29):
over to them to talk about the work that we're
doing there. So diverse representation UM is a theme that
really cuts across all of the three themes. And if
you think about racial intstice and bias UM. If you
don't have a society that UM is diverse and UH
(25:54):
those uh and and you don't have a way of
eliminating both explicit and implicit bias from your society, then
you run into some of the challenges we see where
policy and legislative reform or police UM legislation and reform
(26:18):
accountability isn't UM isn't performed in an equitable way. So
for the but for the diverse rich representation solution, what
we really have focused on is providing a means for
us to detect bias and content that promotes negative stereotypes
(26:44):
about the black community that UM promotes both in an
avert and a subtle way UH, racial language and themes
that continue to reinforce the perception of one race, in
(27:09):
this case blocks as lesser than or less value than
another race or other races. And also to provide a
way for the community to come together two work on
this issue, which is a lot less UM a lot
(27:35):
more difficult to tackle than overt racism in many ways
because it gets into the UM language we've accepted as
part of the norm for a very long time. Can
people get involved in build upon the work that you
(27:56):
are doing with Call for Code for Racial Justice, So
we will be announcing the solutions next week. UM. We
have a Call for Code for UM Racial Justice site
where if you're a developer, you can register, you can
get involved UM, you can start contributing code ideas UM.
(28:22):
If you are a on GEO or private sector company
or other interested community entities like community governments, you can
UM engage and share that you are interested in partnering
with us, maybe as a tester, maybe as an end user,
(28:42):
a deployer, or someone who wants to take what we're
doing and build a community around it to implement with
their own developers. So we have created a site. These
solutions will be featured on those on our websites UM
under IBM Developer Call for Code, UM for Racial Justice
and UM we will be ruling these solutions out and
(29:05):
any developer or or UM par ecosystem partner can join
us UM to be part of the journey of taking
these solutions and bringing them to our communities in America
and the world. And all they have to do is
click on a link and sign up and if they'd
like to go learn about it at All Things Open
(29:27):
and the Inclusive in the inclusion and diversity. Um uh
tracks they can um, they can hear and do talk
about those solutions in a number of sessions a Lisa
or or Britney. I don't know if there's anything else
you wanted to add. Yeah, I just wanted to add
(29:48):
one thing, which is partly you know, why it's so
important that we've open source these, these starter kits, these solutions,
and also how people can get involved. Right. Yes, this
is technolog legy, but you don't just have to be
a developer, right. I think the the net of it
really comes down to the fact that you know, I
(30:09):
think I mentioned this before, you know, we want to
address the community. We want to apply you know, technical
know how as well. And so that's why really the
premise around open sourcing these, right is we know, we
recognize that there is a diverse representation issue in the
(30:31):
tech industry. Um. And I think by open sourcing these
it allows us to open the aperture and get a broader,
uh set of contributors working with us, whether it's developers,
whether it's people in the community who want to make
a difference, who have an idea or see a problem
(30:52):
that they think technology can help. Solve and so I think,
you know, open sourcing, this really helps us to bring
all different types of skill sets, all different different types
of um people together to really form a community. And
you know, for folks to get involved, please don't think
(31:13):
that you have to be a developer, that you have
to be a coder. You know, there's room for everyone
and and all types of skills UH to participate in
in in Call for Code for Racial Justice. I it's
hard for me to put into words how inspirational I
have found this conversation. You look at a problem as
(31:34):
enormous as the addressing injustice, racial injustice, and I think
for a lot of people, the first reaction is this
problem is too big for me to do anything that
will make any difference. And I think that this initiative
proves that wrong, and it gives people that opportunity and
(31:55):
that hope that I think a lot of people are
really searching for right now. So, from the bottom of
my heart, thank you all so much, not just for
being on the show, but for doing this incredible work
and and for opening up the doors for other people
to be a part of it and to make the
world a better place. It is a truly phenomenal story,
(32:17):
and I am so thankful that I get to be
one of the people to tell it. No, thank you
so much for having us. Thank you, Jonathan M. Really
appreciate this opportunity. Yes, thank you. I have covered the
tech industry for more than ten years. In that time,
I've talked about topics ranging from inconsequential two critically important issues.
(32:41):
Racial justice clearly belongs in that second category, and I
mean it when I say it is a problem so large,
so deeply ingrained in the systems that run our society,
that it was really hard for me to get a
feel for what the average person like myself could do
(33:02):
in response to it. The Call for Code for Racial
Justice is a great example of how anyone, whether they
are a developer or not, can get involved to make
real world change happen. The work that comes out of
this project will help address wrongs that have been part
of our world for far too long, and in the end,
(33:24):
righting those wrongs will help everyone. Systemic racism really does
harm everyone within a society, and when there is real
justice that is equitable across the board, we all benefit.
To get involved. Please visit developer dot IBM dot com
(33:45):
slash call for code slash, racial dash justice. You don't
need to be a developer to be a part of this.
You just need to have the desire to make the
world a more us and a better place. That's all
for today, Thank you for listening. I'll talk to you
(34:06):
again really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
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