March 31, 2023 • 47 mins
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
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (00:00):
All right, well, welcome to software
(00:01):
quality today and we arerecording today a special
episode from chiefs flagshipclubhouse in flat iron district
in New York City. I'm superexcited because today we have
are celebrating and kicking offwomen's future month, which is
the new chief rebranding ofWomen's History Month. So what
(00:22):
awesome timing to have Dr. Sueblack here in New York City with
me today. So welcome, Sue.
Dr. Sue Black (00:29):
Hi, Dori, thank you so much for inviting me.
It's just such a pleasure to behere today with you.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (00:35):
So this has been an interesting
relationship that we've had. Solet's let's start there. Before
we kind of go into all of yourhistory and who you are and why
I thought it was reallyimportant to bring you to this
podcast today. So you want tostart us off? How did we meet?
Sure.
Dr. Sue Black (00:52):
I mean, it's weird. I can hardly believe it.
But did you check how long agoit was?
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (00:59):
2017?
Really, it was like, maybe,maybe 2016.
Dr. Sue Black (01:03):
Everything goes a bit crazy in my head. Now after
lockdown. I've kind of like losttime or gain time or something
that is very confusing. Yeah, sowe met on 23. And me,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (01:13):
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 (01:20):
Absolutely. And yeah, I think so back then. I
didn't have so many matches.
Like there's so many more peopleon 23andme now than there were
whenever it was that we met. Butyeah, so from all of it, you
know, you get your list ofhighest matches. And so you were
the the highest match that Ididn't know, basically on my
23andme. And I was like, Who isthis woman? And so I miss it. In
(01:44):
the US? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Soyeah. 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 messageI think my like my top three
people or something that Ididn't know. And you were one of
those. And we ended up like kindof having a back and forth about
who we are and how we might beconnected. And and
(02:05):
unfortunately, still don't knowhow we we haven't managed to
find that out. And we don't knowexactly what kind of cousins we
are. Like maybe well, I justchecked it just now. And it's
saying fourth cousins.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (02:18):
Which back then we were like, third?
Yeah.
Dr. Sue Black (02:22):
Seems seemed a lot closer. But in my head, you
are my customer. And that's allthat matters. So
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (02:28):
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 youwere doing some talk here. Yeah.
And we met up in DC in DC. Yeah.
See? Yeah. That was crazy. Whereyou met my child at that time,
which was like, I can't believeit. How small they were. And
yeah, a teenager. So. So yeah.
(02:49):
And then subsequent, which iseven stranger is that I had met
you before I met my birthmother. And I met my birth
mother through 20 through 23.
Dr. Sue Black (02:56):
And me Yeah, so I've kind of been partly on that
journey, as well, which has beenwonderful. Yeah.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (03:02):
Yeah.
Coincidentally, we also happento be in this weird space of
computer science. Yeah. Which Inever thought I'd be in because
I was a chemist. But
Dr. Sue Black (03:10):
yeah, that's crazy, too, right? Because you
have a podcast about softwarequality. What's my PhD in?
Software Quality is? And that'sreally great. You couldn't make
out you just couldn't make out?
Yeah, there's not that many PhDsin that area. No.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (03:25):
So why don't you tell everyone? All of
those doctorates that you have?
You haven't been OBE? And solike, tell everyone your journey
and how you you got to be whoyou are today?
Dr. Sue Black (03:35):
Because it's pretty cool. Long story. Short.
Okay, well, where do I start? Iguess like I come from a
background where my both myparents were nurses and and a
brother and sister that fiveyears younger than me twins. And
I was living just a regular lifeuntil my mom died when I was 12.
And my dad remarried the nextyear, so possibly too quickly,
(03:58):
and possibly to the wrongperson. Just a personal opinion.
And my life went from likeliving in a functional family to
living in a dysfunctionalfamily. All sorts of horrible
things happened. I left home assoon as I could. So that was
when I was 16. I live myfriend's family for a year. Then
I moved. I was living out inEssex, like 50 miles from
London, moved to London, didvarious jobs and ended up
(04:23):
getting married at 20. I had myfirst daughter at 21. Then I
thought, well, I'll have anotherbaby then go back to work. The
other baby turned out to be twinboys. So at 23 I had three kids
under two and a half. And thenunfortunately, after that my
marriage broke down. So we hadto run away to a Women's Refuge
one morning on the other side ofLondon. We lived there for six
(04:44):
months and then got a councilflat and kind of started life
again, I guess and I hadn'texpected to be in that
situation. So to start with, Iwasn't quite sure what to do.
But then I thought, Okay, I needto get a job. I need to earn
some money too. look after mykids, but then realized I'd left
school at 16. I didn't have manyqualifications, I probably would
(05:06):
have been working in asupermarket on The Checkout,
something like that. And when Ilooked at how much I would earn
doing that, it wasn't enough topay for childcare, let alone
everything else. So I couldn'tactually go back to work. So I
thought, Okay, well, I didn'twant to leave school when I was
16. I just had to because of mycircumstances, so I thought, why
don't I try and go back intoeducation. If I can get a
degree, I'll be able to earnmore money, and then I will be
(05:28):
able to pay for everything forthe 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 touniversity studied computer
science. Did my degree and thenin the last year of my degree,
my, like dissertation supervisorsaid to me, what do you think
(05:50):
about doing a PhD? So I said,Oh, I'd love to do a PhD. But I
didn't tell him that I didn'tknow what appeared to be. So but
then I did go and look it up inthe library. And I was like, oh,
yeah, okay, I would like to do aPhD. And, and I would have a lot
more money from doing that thanwhen I was an undergraduate
student. So did a PhD, thenbecame an academic kind of rose
(06:12):
through the ranks over severalyears, became head of department
in 2006. So I was head ofdepartment for years, then
stepped out of academia foreight years, and then came back
in four years ago. And now I'mprofessor of computer science
and technology evangelist atDurham University in the UK,
which is the third oldestuniversity in the UK, after
(06:33):
Oxford and Cambridge.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (06:35):
And you answer your questions I didn't
even know that's even more. Andand your Deputy Vice President
now? Is that correct?
Dr. Sue Black (06:42):
of the British Computer Society? Yeah, yeah. So
in a couple of weeks time, Ibecome deputy president of the
British Computer Society, whichis about 70,000 members. In the
UK, it's like the professionalsociety for people working in
tech. And in a year's time, I'llbecome the president unless I do
something terribly wrong.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (07:01):
I don't think so. And so it's amazing,
because I think there's a lot ofsimilarities. And I've been
interviewing a lot of women overthis last year, in different
podcasts as well. All of us havethese journeys that we go on.
And it's very common to have, wenever thought we'd end up where
we are, right, we never thoughtwe had to work as hard as we had
(07:22):
to do in order to get to wherewe are. Right. And they're
really inspiring stories. Right?
But they're not necessarilycelebrated all the time.
Dr. Sue Black (07:33):
No. Yeah, well, I think I think, as girls in
general, were brought up to makesure everyone else is okay. And
then think about ourselves last.
And so and to not show off, Ican remember being you know, I
was a very shy kid. And but Iremember being told not to show
up, I don't know what someonethought I was showing off about,
right. And that's how we broughtup. So I think that affects the
(07:56):
way you see yourself and whatyou're able to do what you're
capable of doing, what's thewhat is okay for you to do. As
you get older, and you move intothe workplace. And then in the
workplace, you're supposed toput yourself forward for things.
But you've always been told notto do that, right. And I think
there's like loads of thingslike impostor syndrome, I think,
come from that, like, it's likethe mismatch between how you've
(08:16):
been brought up and then whatyou're expected to do, and
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (08:21):
having to do something in advance of maybe
the competence that you have inthose particular skills just
yet, right? Because we haven'tyet gotten to needing to do it
or needing to, to learn it, orwhatever those things are. But
we have to actually do inadvance of where we are in order
to feel confident enough to doit. That next step. Yeah, I have
(08:43):
a lot of women that say the samesort of thing, like, Well, I'm
not ready for that. We thinkthat men are actually ready for
that. Yeah, they're, it's notthat they don't have that
narrative that we have.
Absolutely.
Dr. Sue Black (08:53):
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 isthey've got to compete with each
other all the time, they'vealways got to be the best
because of course, everyonecan't beat them. Right. So that
causes issues as well, you know,and boys are brought up again,
this is in general, but not tocry, and all of that kind of
(09:14):
stuff. So then when they're inthe workplace again, and and
they need to, you know, respondemotionally to things that are
going on, sometimes they can't,because they've had to bury all
of that stuff, you know, andthat leads to, to, you know,
like mental health problems, Ithink for all of us, right?
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (09:28):
Yeah.
It's, I'm excited about that,you know, embrace equity is the
the theme of internationalwomen's day and month this year,
and I think that we don't talkabout that enough on both sides
of the table on some of theother podcast guests that I've
talked about is on what do weneed to do? What's the change
and narrative of the male sideof the conversation as well as
equally important? Yeah,absolutely. So tell us about
(09:51):
your OBE and how that came to beand all the work and Benchley
park that you've done and whatthat means to You too mean to
London and UK? And I mean, it'sa big deal. Yeah.
Dr. Sue Black (10:05):
Yeah, it's yeah.
So So you know, it's crazy evenlike, 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 reallyknow what Bletchley Park was the
first time I went there. So Iwent there in 2003. And the only
thing I knew was that thecodebreakers weren't there
during the Second World War. Andin my head, it was like 50 Old
(10:27):
blokes wearing tweed jackets. Idon't know why. And that's what
I kind of thought I knew aboutit. And the first time I went
there, I found out thatactually, it wasn't 50 Old
blokes blokes, it was 10,000people working at Bletchley Park
codebreaking, during the war,and about 8000 of them were
women. And so there wasn'tanything online and not much at
Bletchley Park itself about thewomen's contribution, but they
(10:50):
weren't 80% of the people thatwork there. And so I found that
out. And that time, I went awayand thought I needed to do
something to raise the profileof the women that worked at
Bletchley Park. And I went awayand raced, got some funding to
run an oral history project. Soto interview the women that work
(11:10):
there and capture their memoriesof what they did there, to
capture that for posterity. Andthen at the launch of that found
out that Bletchley Park mighthave to close because they were
short of funding. And it's likea 26 acre site north of London,
and then did a tour of the siteat our reception at Bletchley
Park and found out that the workthat was done, they were said to
(11:34):
have shortened World War Two bytwo years. And at that time, 11
million people a year weredying. So potentially the work
that was done there, save 22million lives. And I just
thought this place can't close,I've got to do something about
it. So basically, I ran acampaign to save it for three
years, I managed to get us inthe in the press in the UK, and
(11:55):
like on the BBC, front page ofthe BBC website on BBC News,
which actually went round, thesort of BBC Worldwide. So that
went worldwide, so managed toget lots of publicity really
quickly, but nothing actuallyreally happened after that. And
it wasn't really till wasprobably going to be unpopular
now. But till I started usingTwitter, that actually, it made
(12:16):
a massive difference. Yeah, itreally did. Because I was for
the first time really able tofind people that I just couldn't
have found before. Because Icould just type code breaker,
you know, like hashtag codebreaker or Bletchley Park, into
Twitter, and then find anyone inthe world that was already
(12:37):
tweeting about those things. Soalready interested, and then
kind of like gradually build upsort of critical mass of people
that cared about Bletchley Park,and get them involved in the
campaign. And then in February2009, I saw Stephen Fry tweeting
that he was stuck in a lift witha selfie. And I just thought,
(12:59):
Stephen Fry. I know he loveshistory. I know he loves
technology, he must beinterested in Bletchley Park. So
luckily, he was following me onTwitter. So I sent him several
direct messages. And heresponded the next day and
tweeted a link to my blog thatwas kind of like the campaign
blog. And I've been gettingabout 50 hits a day on my blog
thinking well, 50 a day. That'sgreat. And then one tweet from
(13:19):
Stephen Fry, and I've got 8000hits that day, and became the
most retweeted person in theworld on Twitter that day. So
that was kind of a turning pointfor the campaign, but actually
took another two years untilBletchley Park had enough money
that they you know, they knewthat they would be able to stay
open. I introduced Google toBletchley Park, and they give
them some funding. And also theygot money from the Heritage
(13:40):
Lottery Fund in the UK. So theygot about five or 6 million
pounds, and then when we knew itwas all going to be okay. And
then I guess that that then ledto Well, I don't know, because
the whole OBE thing is allsecret like you really Yeah, you
don't know. Yeah, yeah, youdon't know what's gonna happen.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (14:02):
I have no idea like someone someone's
nominated, nominated, you
Dr. Sue Black (14:06):
know, you don't know anything about it. So I
just got this letter through thepost one day, which was just
like some sort of printed out.
It didn't look fancy oranything, saying you've been
nominated for an OBE? Do youknow, is this your name? Is this
your address? Do you accept thisaward? I like please tick the
boxes, you know, and send itback. And don't tell anyone play
(14:28):
anyone at all about it. So Ikind of like got this and
actually, I think the lettercame through the door. And I
just kind of like stood therelike, Is this really true? And I
just sat down on the floor andstarted crying because I didn't
even really know what an OB was.
Again, but I knew it wassomething good and other people
valued a lot. So I've justutterly amazed because I had no
(14:51):
clue that was going to happen.
And but it just kind of like itmade me feel like I've got to
keep it secret and I'm probablynot very good at keeping so
Secret. And so I took the letterand I think, you know, I must
have showed it to my husband.
And and then I think I put itout on the side, and then
someone must have knocked on thedoor. I was like, Oh my God,
I've got to hide the letter. SoI started it under a pile of
(15:13):
papers or magazines orsomething. And then I completely
forgot about it. So I didn'tsend it back in. So then I got
an email about two weeks latersaying, Oh, we send you this
letter. You know, like from thecabinet 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 forservices to technology. So you
(15:37):
know, I don't know exactly howall of that came about. But but
that was amazing in itself. Sothat was like in the November
and then the list gets there's alist twice a year. So it was the
Queen's honors list in 2016. SoI think that was the New Year's
honors. There's one in June forthe Queen's Birthday and one in
December. The new year. And soyeah, so then it was announced,
(16:02):
then it was all over the press.
And so that was amazing. Andthen in May 2017, I guess I went
to Buckingham Palace and PrinceCharles now King Charles gave me
the OBE. And yeah, how crazy isthat?
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (16:19):
It's awesome. It is it's amazing. And
so valuable of all thegrassroots work that you've done
in order to do that. And thenalso to have the surprise of
someone out there thought thatwhat you were doing was that
special? That nomination is justreally amazing.
Dr. Sue Black (16:39):
Awesome. Yeah.
You're so cool. I mean, I stillcan't believe it now. And it's
like seven years later. Yeah.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (16:44):
Yeah. So from that detect, women get
launched, is that kind of whatdrove you to do that new
initiative?
Dr. Sue Black (16:55):
So I guess I've I've set up the UK first online
network for women in tech backin 1998. When I realized when I
realized you were already doingthis stuff, I was doing women in
tech stuff from when I realizedthat I was a woman in tech.
Because before that I hadn'trealized I thought I was I was
in tech or I was a computerscientist hadn't realized I was
a woman in tech. I guess becausemy degree there are about 10%
(17:19):
women, so it just felt normalabout 90% Guys 10% women would
that was completely normal.
Roughly the same like kind ofgoing into academia, it's
probably about 10 or 15% women.
So that that's an you know, wasmy normal environment. And then,
when I was doing my PhD, mysupervisor said, it's not just
what you know, it's who youknow, when you go to
(17:41):
conferences, you've got tonetwork with people. And I was
very shy and really didn't wantto do that. But I kind of forced
myself. And so I was going tocomputer science conferences,
and not always having the besttime because I hadn't thought
about it. But I was one of thefirst conference I went to, I
thought, Okay, I'll set myselfthe target of talking to one
person here that I don't know.
Because for me, that washorrific. And so I chose a guy
(18:02):
who gave a great talk. He wasvery down to earth, I went over
and approached him chatted tohim about my research in the
break. And that all went well. Iwas like, oh my god, it worked.
But then for the rest of theconference, every time I turned
around, he was staring at me.
And I got really, really freakedout like, Did I offend him? Like
what was it? Well, you know, andI think looking back, he just
(18:23):
thought, well, who's thatlovely? To talk to me. But back
then one of the women? Yes. Sothat really freaked me out. And
I tried networking a few othertimes. And yeah, it didn't work
out that well. And then I wentto this Women in Science
conference in 1998 in Brussels,and I remember walking in
thinking of God networking, Iwas I didn't know okay, and and
(18:45):
then just like walked in, got mybadge, went to get a cup of
coffee, went and stood at one ofthose standing tables, there was
a couple of other women there.
And for the whole two days, Ididn't have to think once about
networking, because everyone wastalking to everyone the whole
time. And it just really helpedme to realize that if you're in
the majority life is justeasier. And you don't always
notice that. So that was a greatlesson for me. So I came back
(19:07):
from that set up the UK is firstonline network for women and
tech BCS women's and BritishComputer Society Women's
Network. Still going strong now25 years later, which is
amazing. And and then so I'verun various different sort of
women and tech initiatives overthe years. So I set up a social
enterprise tech, mom's teachingtech skills to moms in
disadvantaged areas back in2012, I think. So that's, you
(19:30):
know, run for 10 years now. Andmore recently, when I started as
professor at Durham University,I got some funding with a
colleague Alexandra there to runa program to retrain women from
underserved communities intotech careers. So I've talked to
so many senior people in techcompanies who want to employ
(19:50):
more women over the years atvarious different events, you
know, and quite often they'llsay, what's the one thing that
we can do to get more women andit's kind of like well Oh, you
probably need to do more thanone thing. So I've had that
conversation so many times. Andalso, I've met so many women
that wants to work in tech, butjust don't know how to get into
tech. And so I thought, Well,why don't I try and create a
(20:12):
program which will take womenwith potential and train them
into specific job roles workingwith industry partners who tell
us what they want. And so that'sbasically what the program is.
The first time we ran the thetop four roles that the industry
partners wanted were datascientist, software engineer,
agile project manager andbusiness analyst. So we ran that
(20:33):
program with 100 women, ourfirst cohort, and was highly
successful. Nearly everyone gota job after we finished just
before locked down, which wasn'tthe best timing, but I think by
now, practically everyone's gota job and about 50% got jobs
within six months in tech. Andyou know, they came from all
different sorts of backgroundslike artists, lawyers, teachers,
(20:54):
nurses,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (20:57):
so I can imagine that you teach them more
than just those computer skills.
Absolutely. So yeah, so whatelse? What else?
Dr. Sue Black (21:04):
So a lot of it is about building confidence. And I
hate to call it that. But youknow, I wouldn't call it that
with, with the students that arecoming on the program, because,
um, well, I think none, none ofus want to be told that we're
not confident enough. That'shorrible. Yeah, so we just
really focus on making sureeveryone has a good time getting
everyone bonding with eachother, getting everyone bonding
(21:25):
with us. Or, you know, I'll givea talk, several of us will give
talks, which kind of show ourvulnerability, because I think
that that helps the women in theroom to feel that they can then
be vulnerable. And it's kind ofa safe space. So we do a lot of
that at the beginning. And wehave several residential
meetups, but it's but the thetalk content is practically all
(21:47):
online. And the meetups are allabout having inspiring speakers,
particularly women of color,because we really try hard to
have more than 50% women ofcolor on the program so that
they can be majority, which, youknow, in the UK, you're not as a
woman of color, too. Same here.
Yeah,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (22:04):
the numbers are low. Yeah.
Dr. Sue Black (22:06):
So yeah, so we really focus on that, and, and
just really celebratingeveryone's successes. And I
don't know, trying to make itlike this amazing group of women
who are, who are going places,and to help everyone to feel
that, you know, we've had somereally great successes,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (22:22):
and it's wonderful. It's women supporting
women is one of the things thatI love about chief here is that
the the amount of support that Iget, or in the community that I
build, is what we put into it.
So what you're sharing what Ihear what you're sharing is, how
much of that passion that you'veput into that, and it's given
you tenfold and helped andserved those that needed it as
well.
Dr. Sue Black (22:45):
Absolutely. And it's been wonderful now, because
I've been doing stuff for womenin tech for like 25 years. And,
you know, at the start, I justwanted to connect everyone
together, I didn't really knowwhat to do with it. But I then
ended up you know, I have somany people contacting me, women
usually contact me throughLinkedIn, or I give a talk at a
conference and they come up tome after or email asking my
(23:07):
advice, you know, in variousdifferent ways. And it's been so
amazing now, particularly overthe years that, you know, I'll
get an email from someonesaying, how would you remember
that conversation we had 10years ago, and you basically, I
mean, most of what I do isencourage them to do what they
want to do. Yeah, it is notconstant, providing the
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (23:25):
space in an authentic way of being who
you are, and giving that theopportunity for that.
Dr. Sue Black (23:31):
Because society doesn't give us that as women,
so we need it, you know, wereally do need it. And it's just
amazing to get that feedbacktime after time of women who've
gone off and achieved stuff. Andyou know, I might have had two
minute conversation with them,right or something. And, you
know, it's just helped them toget out there and achieve their
potential as wonderful. Yeah.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (23:52):
The the transition to new technology and
new skills, I would imagine thatsome of the program that that
you've developed now also thenhas to constantly look towards
the future. And what else dothey need? What other technical
skills in a what othernetworking skills other than
that, like? What do you see forthe future for, for the program?
Dr. Sue Black (24:15):
Well, I think we'll always be guided by
industry. So every time we youknow, we get some more funding,
we will find industry partnersthat want to work with us. And
then we ask them exactly whatyou know, what they need, what
they need. So we will totally beguided by industry, because I
think that's one of the youknow, academic programs degrees
(24:36):
are great, and I'm an academic,so obviously, I'm gonna think
they're great. But at the sametime, we need people to have
industry relevant skills, ifthey're going to go straight
into the workplace. So we willalways be guided by what's
happening in industry. Yeah,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (24:47):
that's a great point. I know you talk to
some of the big organizationsout there and I work in the life
science sector, so I see some ofthe big ones there and the
future of work. is changing sorapidly, and then what the
innovation of the products thatthey're making is changing. And
when I interview some newupcoming folk in my specific
(25:10):
industry and validation, wedon't know yet what that looks
like, right? So we're making itup as we go. Yeah. And then
nothing wrong with that. That'salso part of being also
scientists, right? Like you, youkind of have to make it up and
you use it until it's not usefulanymore, and you make up
something else, right? What are,but in your partnerships with
some of these companies? Whatelse can they be? Is it? Is it
(25:35):
enough? Is it not enough? Can wedo more? How do we get more
companies interested in theprograms like yours?
Dr. Sue Black (25:44):
Yeah, that's a good question. Um, and I mean,
one thing I don't understand iswhy companies don't run them
themselves. But I'm quite happyif they want to pay us. Because
I guess we're the educators.
Right. So maybe that is the bestway to do it. But I think I
mean, it just surprises me thatcompanies will still pay a
recruiter, I don't know,10,000 20,000 pounds dollars to
(26:06):
recruit someone. But it costsless than that, to train them
specifically into the job rolesthat they want. So I see it all.
I find that quite weird thatthat no one kind of just there's
at least here
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (26:22):
my experience here is that not an
emphasis on training andlearning and development.
There's an assumption that youwent to university and you've
got some skills, and you shouldbe able to apply them like
magically, like, all of asudden, that should make sense.
Yeah. Right. And most of thejobs that people do in unless
you're a trained doctor, ordentist for specific additional
career, you're not trained toknow, the other stuff.
Dr. Sue Black (26:46):
Yeah, absolutely.
And also, you know, like degreecourses, for example, it's quite
hard to keep everything up todate with exactly what industry
wants all the time. And a lot ofthe time, you know, you've got
to have those theoreticalunderpinnings, which probably
some of it, you know, even intech goes back, you know, like
some of it 50 years or 100 yearsof stuff you need to learn about
from like, logic, you know, goesback 1000s of years, right. So,
(27:07):
all of that needs to be in therekind of underpinning and then
you, you know, I feel like you,it's best if you get further
towards the what's happening inindustry towards the end of your
degree. But you start with thetheoretical underpinnings, and
that's just kind of how our, Iguess, degree systems work. But
it's just just reminded me thatI teach our first year students,
(27:29):
and the teaching that I do is tobring people in from industry,
to talk to our students aboutall the different kinds of jobs
that are out there in tech. AndI think, you know, when I joined
Durham, I realized from talkingto quite a few students that
they really, most people thoughtthey had to be a programmer, or
you know, like, writing code,basically. And of course, that's
(27:51):
a great career, and a great jobrole. But there are so many
different types of jobs in technow. I mean, just Yeah, you
can't count them because there'sso many. And I really wanted to
help their first years tounderstand that there's all of
these opportunities out there.
And actually, what I've done interms of the coursework that
I've given all the first yearsis they. So we've, we've run
(28:14):
these panels throughout theterm, and then they need to talk
about what they've enjoyed aboutlistening to our industry
speakers. But then, what do theythink they're going to do in
their career now? And so they'veall recorded two minutes selfie
videos, which I'm marking at themoment, I've got 245.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (28:34):
That's a lot. So it's taken quite a long
time.
Dr. Sue Black (28:37):
But it's interesting to hear what they
say. And lots of them want to gointo AI machine learning. That's
kind of like a really big topic.
Yeah, we are fintech.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (28:46):
Yeah.
That is, I was interviewing someyoung younger folks. And they
all said the same thing. Yeah.
Which I think is phenomenal. Andlike the possibilities, and the
use cases that one can imagineare truly endless. Yeah, right.
But what is going to make aprofit is what those
organizations are going to wantto hear about. They don't want
to hear about all the otherstuff, right? So how to make
(29:09):
them money at the end of theday. What would some advice
you'd be given to two folks asthey're evaluating where and
what they should be doing? Andhow should they think about
their careers?
Dr. Sue Black (29:20):
Well, so So in technology, yeah. Well, I think
I think if you're coming intotech as a career, these days,
like we're saying, there's somany different jobs available.
So I would start by thinkingabout, well, what do you love
doing, which is not tech, andthen what job roles are there in
tech which relate to that?
Because I feel like it won't belong before every career
(29:41):
involves technology, you know,to a reasonable degree. So what
you want to be doing somethingthat you're very passionate
about, and then kind ofconnecting that with technology
in some way
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (29:53):
to making that intersection between your
passions and, and whatever canbe created that way?
Dr. Sue Black (29:59):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (30:01):
Awesome.
So, what are you working ontoday? What are some what's
what's next? You've beentraveling, you've been doing
talks like so what what is thislook like now for you?
Dr. Sue Black (30:12):
Well, more traveling conferences, I mean,
I'm always giving talks all overthe place, I've just given talks
in Sydney, in Australia andSingapore. And now coming here
is really cool. And I'll be inAustin for South by Southwest in
a couple of weeks time. So yeah,traveling around and kind of
(30:32):
spreading the word. And then atthe same time, you know, I'm
really interested in stuffactually, there's been in the
news recently, you know, like,chat GPT. So one of my PhD
students has been working inthat area for a couple of years
now, looking at GPT three, whichchat GPT is built upon and
looking at bias in AI. So it'sinteresting, because AI is not
(30:56):
my, my main research areas likesoftware engineering, software,
metrics, software quality. ButI've got more and more
interested in AI over the years,as I think as everyone because
it's become more and morepowerful, because we've got more
computing power now. So AI, asyou know, really become a real
thing that we can use, not likeit was when I studied at
(31:16):
university where it seemed likea pipe a pipe dream back then.
So that's interesting. And soone of my colleagues at work,
told me and my PhD students,Sarah, about GPT, three, and
like large scale languagemodels, and and what they could
do, and we got very excitedabout that, and thought, well,
let's play around with it andsee if we can find any bias was
(31:38):
our first thought. So we justkind of like went away, played
around for maybe 10 seconds. Andalready you found Yeah, yeah. So
we honestly thought it mighttake a week or something. And,
you know, so you can, I don'tknow, people that have used chat
GPT. You know, you put promptsin and you get a response,
basically. So what we decided todo was to type in men can and
(32:01):
get some responses, women canget some responses, black women
can and get some responses. Andit was as horrific as you can
probably imagine. And even likewith men can't so much violence
stuff came back with women canviolent stuff, sexualized stuff,
misogynist stuff, black womencan, you know, add on the racism
(32:24):
and all sorts of stuff. So thatwas we probably first did that
maybe 18 months ago, I'm notsure exactly about the
timescales. And so what Sarahhas done is has taken kind of
snapshots of 10,000 responsesseveral times over a time period
and is comparing the, theseveral snapshots with each
other to see what our open AIdoing about this issue, because
(32:47):
obviously, that is an issue. Andwhat she's found is that they're
masking, so they're masking theoutput. So rather than getting
all this awful stuff back, mostof it just comes back as a
blank. Like there's just nothingthere. And so, I don't know,
bias in AI, I think we couldtalk about that for
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (33:07):
I know that there's cheap women that
I've talked with around this isa hot topic around clinical
trials, because randomizing andusing AI in order to get better
diversity on clinical trials,right. And as we get more
refined medicines, yeah, it's abig deal. And a lot of folks are
moving towards this. But if, ifwe have a bias problem to start,
(33:30):
we're not going to get the theactual data that we need. So
it's very, very hot topic. And Idon't know, it's, I need to
educate myself as we get alonghere. Because it's, it's, it's I
think,
Dr. Sue Black (33:42):
it's gonna take more and more people in more and
more ways. So you know, it'ssomething to really, I think,
you know, what, what we need isto help everyone understand as
much as possible what's going onin 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
(34:04):
regular members of the public sothat all these decisions don't
get made. And people just think,well, I just have to go along
with this because that's whatthe computer told me kind of
thing. Now.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (34:15):
It's also human nature to Right, yeah,
whether or not to questionstuff. Or being tolerant of the
conversation, right, the hardconversations in order to get to
the nuggets, yes, is veryuncomfortable for folks. What
are some what do we think somepractical like strategies in
order to get our organizationsand individuals start looking at
(34:38):
truly impacting the DiversityEquity inclusion problems that
we have? I mean, I, part of theconversations I've been having
is, I'm kind of done with thecheckbox list, right? Yeah.
Organizations having you'regonna watch this four minute
video and you're gonna sign thatyou've done this like, but how
do we get to the real Real, realtransformative stuff? Do you
(35:04):
have thoughts about them?
Dr. Sue Black (35:04):
Yeah, I guess. I mean, I'm not an expert in this
area. So I just kind of likedoing my best trying to work out
what is the best thing to do foreverybody. But I think, from
talking to quite a few people, Ithink it comes from the top. So
within an organization, theperson at the top that everyone
(35:25):
kind of looks to needs to betalking about this stuff
regularly, and showing that theyreally do care about the culture
in the workplace, aboutinclusivity, about everyone
feeling included in theworkplace. And if it doesn't
come from the top, it's notgoing to work. So I mean, that
that is a really simple thing.
But I think it's very powerful.
(35:46):
And I think that has to be in anauthentic way, as well. So kind
of like authentic, inclusiveleadership, I would say is the
most important thing. Yeah.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (35:58):
I was hopeful after, you know, as
code, we came out of COVID, thata lot of the positive lessons
learned from COVID would last.
I'm not seeing that in apractical day to day. Do you
have any reflections of comingout of COVID? Or
Dr. Sue Black (36:14):
any? I think, Well, I think some things so,
you know, like working in techis reasonably normal before
locked down before COVID to dozoom chats or teams, chats,
wherever we're now everyoneknows what they are. And I likes
them and to a greater or lesserdegree. But I think that's
that's helped get just lots ofworkforces, I guess, just a bit
(36:36):
more tech savvy around what wecan do. And also, I think, you
know, those people that said,everyone's got to be in the
office from nine to five or nineto six or whatever. Well, they
don't do they, because we nowknow that that most things kept
running without people being inthe office from nine to five. So
I think there are thoselearnings, and I think some
(36:58):
companies are still, you know,are gonna go along with hybrid
working, and so people don'tneed to be in the office five
days a week. So I think from asort of inclusion point of view,
I think that's, that's valuable.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (37:12):
Do you have any thoughts about what we
can do in tech to make thathybrid experience more tangible
or more convexity, comfortable,comfortable, like? So? I mean, I
do presentations, too. And a lotof the presentations today are
also hybrid. Yeah. Right. Sonavigating physical people, and
also people online. Very hard aspresenter to be able to. Yeah,
(37:38):
do the room. Yeah. Like, that'snot? It's not a natural skill
for me, that's for sure. And thetechnology surely has not caught
up?
Dr. Sue Black (37:46):
Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't I don't actually know what
we do about that. But I thinkI'm gonna guess we were moving
towards it, because so many morepeople. And now we're used to
accessing accessing thingsonline. So talks online. So
yeah, in terms of thetechnology, I'm not sure. But I
think in terms of people beingused to that and comfortable
with it, I think we've movedalong.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (38:09):
Yeah. So as we move towards an AI, more,
I was gonna say perfect, butit's not perfect. Just a more
ideal, in our minds, right, themore inclusive, equitable way of
being where do you think we'regoing to stumble? Is there a, is
(38:30):
there something that we need tostruggle with as a community to,
to take this to the next level?
Dr. Sue Black (38:36):
I think I think one of the things that's hard
is, is talking about the thingsthat you don't understand or
feel uncomfortable with, or, youknow, like, particularly when
we're talking about groups insociety that have had a very
(38:56):
difficult time for variousreasons. And you know, I think
those things are still quitehard for lots of us to talk
about. So. You know, as a now,middle class white woman, I
can't know exactly what it'slike to be a black woman. I
(39:16):
mean, I just can't know that.
Right. And so, you know, I thinkthe we all need to try and have
conversations to help all of usunderstand what it's like from
other people's experience andperspective and to not rush into
comment on it just to listen andtry to understand as much as
(39:39):
possible. And I don't always seethat happening. I mean,
particularly if you look onsocial media, my goodness, you
know, like, no one can sayanything without someone jumping
in to attack them. You know, andI've seen friends in the UK who,
you know, have had horrifictimes, you know, death threats
and and they're not sayinganything? To me that's radical
(40:00):
at all. It's it's kind of commonsense and what should happen. So
for them to get death threatsand all sorts of abuse is
horrific. And I think that, youknow, that's where we, that's
the extreme end. But that'swhere we really need to work on
trying to normalize havingdifficult conversations, and
just letting people speak abouttheir experience and not judging
(40:23):
them.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (40:25):
Yeah.
Harder, harder. Easier said thandone. But it's definitely
something that I know I've beentrying to cultivate with my kid.
And I see your kid doing the,you know, doing the same like
that. That's hopeful for me tosee the next generation being so
much more present so much morenon judgmental, so much more in
(40:46):
their bones to be who they wantto be. Which is something that I
wasn't able to do.
Dr. Sue Black (40:55):
Am I there? Yeah, I think I'm there. Now. Yeah,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (40:58):
I'm close, but not quite all there.
But yeah, yeah. So having thatmore free dialogue at a younger
age to be able to do that. Sothat is truly hopeful. So I'm
curious, what, as we startwrapping up here, like what is
the, you know, as you move in,you're still a professor, you're
(41:23):
doing that less than less,right? You're doing more
speaking? You're what's next foryou? Maybe something else?
Something? How do you want to dothe next 10?
Dr. Sue Black (41:35):
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 toimpact more and more people, you
know, in a positive way. So Iparticularly care about women
and people from underservedcommunities. But I mean, I'm in
(41:55):
general, I care about everybody.
And I guess I want I want tohave more impact. And so I mean,
potentially thinking about myacademic career. I mean, my goal
was for a long time to be ViceChancellor of university. So
that's still something that I'mkind of thinking about and
possibly heading towards, youknow, I think I could be a good
(42:16):
Vice Chancellor. So that couldbe on the cards. But I think
anything that really makes a bigimpact in the areas that I care
about, wouldn't, you know, wouldmake me happy.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (42:29):
Yeah. So being true to you, and then
bringing that inspiring others.
So that sounds awesome. Well, isthere anything else that we want
to touch on while we have thisopportunity? Anyone hearing? Do
you guys have any questions?
Thoughts? Comments?
Unknown (42:54):
From this this, this is read from my husband. So this is
bad from my husband as well. Didyou always know you liked maths?
Dr. Sue Black (43:08):
Yeah, I guess so.
Because I liked it. When I wasfive. I can remember my my
memories of my first couple ofyears at school are I love doing
math. So yeah,
Unknown (43:22):
I guess so. Because when I tell this story, yeah, I
say and I wanted to math andeven that is an unusual choice
for most women. Let's be honest.
So I thought it must besomething that you always enjoy.
Yeah, I
Dr. Sue Black (43:33):
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. Justseemed like an extension of that
really? At school. So, yeah,
Unknown (43:48):
there you go. Well, thank you
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (43:55):
know, no.
Okay. All right. Well, we'regonna 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. Andthe reason I come over. Sounds
cool. We'll do it all. Alright,thanks. So
Dr. Sue Black (44:16):
thank you. Thank you so much.
All right, well, welcome to software
(00:01):
quality today and we arerecording today a special
episode from chiefs flagshipclubhouse in flat iron district
in New York City. I'm superexcited because today we have
are celebrating and kicking offwomen's future month, which is
the new chief rebranding ofWomen's History Month. So what
(00:22):
awesome timing to have Dr. Sueblack here in New York City with
me today. So welcome, Sue.
Dr. Sue Black (00:29):
Hi, Dori, thank you so much for inviting me.
It's just such a pleasure to behere today with you.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (00:35):
So this has been an interesting
relationship that we've had. Solet's let's start there. Before
we kind of go into all of yourhistory and who you are and why
I thought it was reallyimportant to bring you to this
podcast today. So you want tostart us off? How did we meet?
Sure.
Dr. Sue Black (00:52):
I mean, it's weird. I can hardly believe it.
But did you check how long agoit was?
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (00:59):
2017?
Really, it was like, maybe,maybe 2016.
Dr. Sue Black (01:03):
Everything goes a bit crazy in my head. Now after
lockdown. I've kind of like losttime or gain time or something
that is very confusing. Yeah, sowe met on 23. And me,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (01:13):
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 (01:20):
Absolutely. And yeah, I think so back then. I
didn't have so many matches.
Like there's so many more peopleon 23andme now than there were
whenever it was that we met. Butyeah, so from all of it, you
know, you get your list ofhighest matches. And so you were
the the highest match that Ididn't know, basically on my
23andme. And I was like, Who isthis woman? And so I miss it. In
(01:44):
the US? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Soyeah. 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 messageI think my like my top three
people or something that Ididn't know. And you were one of
those. And we ended up like kindof having a back and forth about
who we are and how we might beconnected. And and
(02:05):
unfortunately, still don't knowhow we we haven't managed to
find that out. And we don't knowexactly what kind of cousins we
are. Like maybe well, I justchecked it just now. And it's
saying fourth cousins.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (02:18):
Which back then we were like, third?
Yeah.
Dr. Sue Black (02:22):
Seems seemed a lot closer. But in my head, you
are my customer. And that's allthat matters. So
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (02:28):
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 youwere doing some talk here. Yeah.
And we met up in DC in DC. Yeah.
See? Yeah. That was crazy. Whereyou met my child at that time,
which was like, I can't believeit. How small they were. And
yeah, a teenager. So. So yeah.
(02:49):
And then subsequent, which iseven stranger is that I had met
you before I met my birthmother. And I met my birth
mother through 20 through 23.
Dr. Sue Black (02:56):
And me Yeah, so I've kind of been partly on that
journey, as well, which has beenwonderful. Yeah.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (03:02):
Yeah.
Coincidentally, we also happento be in this weird space of
computer science. Yeah. Which Inever thought I'd be in because
I was a chemist. But
Dr. Sue Black (03:10):
yeah, that's crazy, too, right? Because you
have a podcast about softwarequality. What's my PhD in?
Software Quality is? And that'sreally great. You couldn't make
out you just couldn't make out?
Yeah, there's not that many PhDsin that area. No.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (03:25):
So why don't you tell everyone? All of
those doctorates that you have?
You haven't been OBE? And solike, tell everyone your journey
and how you you got to be whoyou are today?
Dr. Sue Black (03:35):
Because it's pretty cool. Long story. Short.
Okay, well, where do I start? Iguess like I come from a
background where my both myparents were nurses and and a
brother and sister that fiveyears younger than me twins. And
I was living just a regular lifeuntil my mom died when I was 12.
And my dad remarried the nextyear, so possibly too quickly,
(03:58):
and possibly to the wrongperson. Just a personal opinion.
And my life went from likeliving in a functional family to
living in a dysfunctionalfamily. All sorts of horrible
things happened. I left home assoon as I could. So that was
when I was 16. I live myfriend's family for a year. Then
I moved. I was living out inEssex, like 50 miles from
London, moved to London, didvarious jobs and ended up
(04:23):
getting married at 20. I had myfirst daughter at 21. Then I
thought, well, I'll have anotherbaby then go back to work. The
other baby turned out to be twinboys. So at 23 I had three kids
under two and a half. And thenunfortunately, after that my
marriage broke down. So we hadto run away to a Women's Refuge
one morning on the other side ofLondon. We lived there for six
(04:44):
months and then got a councilflat and kind of started life
again, I guess and I hadn'texpected to be in that
situation. So to start with, Iwasn't quite sure what to do.
But then I thought, Okay, I needto get a job. I need to earn
some money too. look after mykids, but then realized I'd left
school at 16. I didn't have manyqualifications, I probably would
(05:06):
have been working in asupermarket on The Checkout,
something like that. And when Ilooked at how much I would earn
doing that, it wasn't enough topay for childcare, let alone
everything else. So I couldn'tactually go back to work. So I
thought, Okay, well, I didn'twant to leave school when I was
16. I just had to because of mycircumstances, so I thought, why
don't I try and go back intoeducation. If I can get a
degree, I'll be able to earnmore money, and then I will be
(05:28):
able to pay for everything forthe 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 touniversity studied computer
science. Did my degree and thenin the last year of my degree,
my, like dissertation supervisorsaid to me, what do you think
(05:50):
about doing a PhD? So I said,Oh, I'd love to do a PhD. But I
didn't tell him that I didn'tknow what appeared to be. So but
then I did go and look it up inthe library. And I was like, oh,
yeah, okay, I would like to do aPhD. And, and I would have a lot
more money from doing that thanwhen I was an undergraduate
student. So did a PhD, thenbecame an academic kind of rose
(06:12):
through the ranks over severalyears, became head of department
in 2006. So I was head ofdepartment for years, then
stepped out of academia foreight years, and then came back
in four years ago. And now I'mprofessor of computer science
and technology evangelist atDurham University in the UK,
which is the third oldestuniversity in the UK, after
(06:33):
Oxford and Cambridge.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (06:35):
And you answer your questions I didn't
even know that's even more. Andand your Deputy Vice President
now? Is that correct?
Dr. Sue Black (06:42):
of the British Computer Society? Yeah, yeah. So
in a couple of weeks time, Ibecome deputy president of the
British Computer Society, whichis about 70,000 members. In the
UK, it's like the professionalsociety for people working in
tech. And in a year's time, I'llbecome the president unless I do
something terribly wrong.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (07:01):
I don't think so. And so it's amazing,
because I think there's a lot ofsimilarities. And I've been
interviewing a lot of women overthis last year, in different
podcasts as well. All of us havethese journeys that we go on.
And it's very common to have, wenever thought we'd end up where
we are, right, we never thoughtwe had to work as hard as we had
(07:22):
to do in order to get to wherewe are. Right. And they're
really inspiring stories. Right?
But they're not necessarilycelebrated all the time.
Dr. Sue Black (07:33):
No. Yeah, well, I think I think, as girls in
general, were brought up to makesure everyone else is okay. And
then think about ourselves last.
And so and to not show off, Ican remember being you know, I
was a very shy kid. And but Iremember being told not to show
up, I don't know what someonethought I was showing off about,
right. And that's how we broughtup. So I think that affects the
(07:56):
way you see yourself and whatyou're able to do what you're
capable of doing, what's thewhat is okay for you to do. As
you get older, and you move intothe workplace. And then in the
workplace, you're supposed toput yourself forward for things.
But you've always been told notto do that, right. And I think
there's like loads of thingslike impostor syndrome, I think,
come from that, like, it's likethe mismatch between how you've
(08:16):
been brought up and then whatyou're expected to do, and
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (08:21):
having to do something in advance of maybe
the competence that you have inthose particular skills just
yet, right? Because we haven'tyet gotten to needing to do it
or needing to, to learn it, orwhatever those things are. But
we have to actually do inadvance of where we are in order
to feel confident enough to doit. That next step. Yeah, I have
(08:43):
a lot of women that say the samesort of thing, like, Well, I'm
not ready for that. We thinkthat men are actually ready for
that. Yeah, they're, it's notthat they don't have that
narrative that we have.
Absolutely.
Dr. Sue Black (08:53):
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 isthey've got to compete with each
other all the time, they'vealways got to be the best
because of course, everyonecan't beat them. Right. So that
causes issues as well, you know,and boys are brought up again,
this is in general, but not tocry, and all of that kind of
(09:14):
stuff. So then when they're inthe workplace again, and and
they need to, you know, respondemotionally to things that are
going on, sometimes they can't,because they've had to bury all
of that stuff, you know, andthat leads to, to, you know,
like mental health problems, Ithink for all of us, right?
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (09:28):
Yeah.
It's, I'm excited about that,you know, embrace equity is the
the theme of internationalwomen's day and month this year,
and I think that we don't talkabout that enough on both sides
of the table on some of theother podcast guests that I've
talked about is on what do weneed to do? What's the change
and narrative of the male sideof the conversation as well as
equally important? Yeah,absolutely. So tell us about
(09:51):
your OBE and how that came to beand all the work and Benchley
park that you've done and whatthat means to You too mean to
London and UK? And I mean, it'sa big deal. Yeah.
Dr. Sue Black (10:05):
Yeah, it's yeah.
So So you know, it's crazy evenlike, 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 reallyknow what Bletchley Park was the
first time I went there. So Iwent there in 2003. And the only
thing I knew was that thecodebreakers weren't there
during the Second World War. Andin my head, it was like 50 Old
(10:27):
blokes wearing tweed jackets. Idon't know why. And that's what
I kind of thought I knew aboutit. And the first time I went
there, I found out thatactually, it wasn't 50 Old
blokes blokes, it was 10,000people working at Bletchley Park
codebreaking, during the war,and about 8000 of them were
women. And so there wasn'tanything online and not much at
Bletchley Park itself about thewomen's contribution, but they
(10:50):
weren't 80% of the people thatwork there. And so I found that
out. And that time, I went awayand thought I needed to do
something to raise the profileof the women that worked at
Bletchley Park. And I went awayand raced, got some funding to
run an oral history project. Soto interview the women that work
(11:10):
there and capture their memoriesof what they did there, to
capture that for posterity. Andthen at the launch of that found
out that Bletchley Park mighthave to close because they were
short of funding. And it's likea 26 acre site north of London,
and then did a tour of the siteat our reception at Bletchley
Park and found out that the workthat was done, they were said to
(11:34):
have shortened World War Two bytwo years. And at that time, 11
million people a year weredying. So potentially the work
that was done there, save 22million lives. And I just
thought this place can't close,I've got to do something about
it. So basically, I ran acampaign to save it for three
years, I managed to get us inthe in the press in the UK, and
(11:55):
like on the BBC, front page ofthe BBC website on BBC News,
which actually went round, thesort of BBC Worldwide. So that
went worldwide, so managed toget lots of publicity really
quickly, but nothing actuallyreally happened after that. And
it wasn't really till wasprobably going to be unpopular
now. But till I started usingTwitter, that actually, it made
(12:16):
a massive difference. Yeah, itreally did. Because I was for
the first time really able tofind people that I just couldn't
have found before. Because Icould just type code breaker,
you know, like hashtag codebreaker or Bletchley Park, into
Twitter, and then find anyone inthe world that was already
(12:37):
tweeting about those things. Soalready interested, and then
kind of like gradually build upsort of critical mass of people
that cared about Bletchley Park,and get them involved in the
campaign. And then in February2009, I saw Stephen Fry tweeting
that he was stuck in a lift witha selfie. And I just thought,
(12:59):
Stephen Fry. I know he loveshistory. I know he loves
technology, he must beinterested in Bletchley Park. So
luckily, he was following me onTwitter. So I sent him several
direct messages. And heresponded the next day and
tweeted a link to my blog thatwas kind of like the campaign
blog. And I've been gettingabout 50 hits a day on my blog
thinking well, 50 a day. That'sgreat. And then one tweet from
(13:19):
Stephen Fry, and I've got 8000hits that day, and became the
most retweeted person in theworld on Twitter that day. So
that was kind of a turning pointfor the campaign, but actually
took another two years untilBletchley Park had enough money
that they you know, they knewthat they would be able to stay
open. I introduced Google toBletchley Park, and they give
them some funding. And also theygot money from the Heritage
(13:40):
Lottery Fund in the UK. So theygot about five or 6 million
pounds, and then when we knew itwas all going to be okay. And
then I guess that that then ledto Well, I don't know, because
the whole OBE thing is allsecret like you really Yeah, you
don't know. Yeah, yeah, youdon't know what's gonna happen.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (14:02):
I have no idea like someone someone's
nominated, nominated, you
Dr. Sue Black (14:06):
know, you don't know anything about it. So I
just got this letter through thepost one day, which was just
like some sort of printed out.
It didn't look fancy oranything, saying you've been
nominated for an OBE? Do youknow, is this your name? Is this
your address? Do you accept thisaward? I like please tick the
boxes, you know, and send itback. And don't tell anyone play
(14:28):
anyone at all about it. So Ikind of like got this and
actually, I think the lettercame through the door. And I
just kind of like stood therelike, Is this really true? And I
just sat down on the floor andstarted crying because I didn't
even really know what an OB was.
Again, but I knew it wassomething good and other people
valued a lot. So I've justutterly amazed because I had no
(14:51):
clue that was going to happen.
And but it just kind of like itmade me feel like I've got to
keep it secret and I'm probablynot very good at keeping so
Secret. And so I took the letterand I think, you know, I must
have showed it to my husband.
And and then I think I put itout on the side, and then
someone must have knocked on thedoor. I was like, Oh my God,
I've got to hide the letter. SoI started it under a pile of
(15:13):
papers or magazines orsomething. And then I completely
forgot about it. So I didn'tsend it back in. So then I got
an email about two weeks latersaying, Oh, we send you this
letter. You know, like from thecabinet 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 forservices to technology. So you
(15:37):
know, I don't know exactly howall of that came about. But but
that was amazing in itself. Sothat was like in the November
and then the list gets there's alist twice a year. So it was the
Queen's honors list in 2016. SoI think that was the New Year's
honors. There's one in June forthe Queen's Birthday and one in
December. The new year. And soyeah, so then it was announced,
(16:02):
then it was all over the press.
And so that was amazing. Andthen in May 2017, I guess I went
to Buckingham Palace and PrinceCharles now King Charles gave me
the OBE. And yeah, how crazy isthat?
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (16:19):
It's awesome. It is it's amazing. And
so valuable of all thegrassroots work that you've done
in order to do that. And thenalso to have the surprise of
someone out there thought thatwhat you were doing was that
special? That nomination is justreally amazing.
Dr. Sue Black (16:39):
Awesome. Yeah.
You're so cool. I mean, I stillcan't believe it now. And it's
like seven years later. Yeah.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (16:44):
Yeah. So from that detect, women get
launched, is that kind of whatdrove you to do that new
initiative?
Dr. Sue Black (16:55):
So I guess I've I've set up the UK first online
network for women in tech backin 1998. When I realized when I
realized you were already doingthis stuff, I was doing women in
tech stuff from when I realizedthat I was a woman in tech.
Because before that I hadn'trealized I thought I was I was
in tech or I was a computerscientist hadn't realized I was
a woman in tech. I guess becausemy degree there are about 10%
(17:19):
women, so it just felt normalabout 90% Guys 10% women would
that was completely normal.
Roughly the same like kind ofgoing into academia, it's
probably about 10 or 15% women.
So that that's an you know, wasmy normal environment. And then,
when I was doing my PhD, mysupervisor said, it's not just
what you know, it's who youknow, when you go to
(17:41):
conferences, you've got tonetwork with people. And I was
very shy and really didn't wantto do that. But I kind of forced
myself. And so I was going tocomputer science conferences,
and not always having the besttime because I hadn't thought
about it. But I was one of thefirst conference I went to, I
thought, Okay, I'll set myselfthe target of talking to one
person here that I don't know.
Because for me, that washorrific. And so I chose a guy
(18:02):
who gave a great talk. He wasvery down to earth, I went over
and approached him chatted tohim about my research in the
break. And that all went well. Iwas like, oh my god, it worked.
But then for the rest of theconference, every time I turned
around, he was staring at me.
And I got really, really freakedout like, Did I offend him? Like
what was it? Well, you know, andI think looking back, he just
(18:23):
thought, well, who's thatlovely? To talk to me. But back
then one of the women? Yes. Sothat really freaked me out. And
I tried networking a few othertimes. And yeah, it didn't work
out that well. And then I wentto this Women in Science
conference in 1998 in Brussels,and I remember walking in
thinking of God networking, Iwas I didn't know okay, and and
(18:45):
then just like walked in, got mybadge, went to get a cup of
coffee, went and stood at one ofthose standing tables, there was
a couple of other women there.
And for the whole two days, Ididn't have to think once about
networking, because everyone wastalking to everyone the whole
time. And it just really helpedme to realize that if you're in
the majority life is justeasier. And you don't always
notice that. So that was a greatlesson for me. So I came back
(19:07):
from that set up the UK is firstonline network for women and
tech BCS women's and BritishComputer Society Women's
Network. Still going strong now25 years later, which is
amazing. And and then so I'verun various different sort of
women and tech initiatives overthe years. So I set up a social
enterprise tech, mom's teachingtech skills to moms in
disadvantaged areas back in2012, I think. So that's, you
(19:30):
know, run for 10 years now. Andmore recently, when I started as
professor at Durham University,I got some funding with a
colleague Alexandra there to runa program to retrain women from
underserved communities intotech careers. So I've talked to
so many senior people in techcompanies who want to employ
(19:50):
more women over the years atvarious different events, you
know, and quite often they'llsay, what's the one thing that
we can do to get more women andit's kind of like well Oh, you
probably need to do more thanone thing. So I've had that
conversation so many times. Andalso, I've met so many women
that wants to work in tech, butjust don't know how to get into
tech. And so I thought, Well,why don't I try and create a
(20:12):
program which will take womenwith potential and train them
into specific job roles workingwith industry partners who tell
us what they want. And so that'sbasically what the program is.
The first time we ran the thetop four roles that the industry
partners wanted were datascientist, software engineer,
agile project manager andbusiness analyst. So we ran that
(20:33):
program with 100 women, ourfirst cohort, and was highly
successful. Nearly everyone gota job after we finished just
before locked down, which wasn'tthe best timing, but I think by
now, practically everyone's gota job and about 50% got jobs
within six months in tech. Andyou know, they came from all
different sorts of backgroundslike artists, lawyers, teachers,
(20:54):
nurses,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (20:57):
so I can imagine that you teach them more
than just those computer skills.
Absolutely. So yeah, so whatelse? What else?
Dr. Sue Black (21:04):
So a lot of it is about building confidence. And I
hate to call it that. But youknow, I wouldn't call it that
with, with the students that arecoming on the program, because,
um, well, I think none, none ofus want to be told that we're
not confident enough. That'shorrible. Yeah, so we just
really focus on making sureeveryone has a good time getting
everyone bonding with eachother, getting everyone bonding
(21:25):
with us. Or, you know, I'll givea talk, several of us will give
talks, which kind of show ourvulnerability, because I think
that that helps the women in theroom to feel that they can then
be vulnerable. And it's kind ofa safe space. So we do a lot of
that at the beginning. And wehave several residential
meetups, but it's but the thetalk content is practically all
(21:47):
online. And the meetups are allabout having inspiring speakers,
particularly women of color,because we really try hard to
have more than 50% women ofcolor on the program so that
they can be majority, which, youknow, in the UK, you're not as a
woman of color, too. Same here.
Yeah,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (22:04):
the numbers are low. Yeah.
Dr. Sue Black (22:06):
So yeah, so we really focus on that, and, and
just really celebratingeveryone's successes. And I
don't know, trying to make itlike this amazing group of women
who are, who are going places,and to help everyone to feel
that, you know, we've had somereally great successes,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (22:22):
and it's wonderful. It's women supporting
women is one of the things thatI love about chief here is that
the the amount of support that Iget, or in the community that I
build, is what we put into it.
So what you're sharing what Ihear what you're sharing is, how
much of that passion that you'veput into that, and it's given
you tenfold and helped andserved those that needed it as
well.
Dr. Sue Black (22:45):
Absolutely. And it's been wonderful now, because
I've been doing stuff for womenin tech for like 25 years. And,
you know, at the start, I justwanted to connect everyone
together, I didn't really knowwhat to do with it. But I then
ended up you know, I have somany people contacting me, women
usually contact me throughLinkedIn, or I give a talk at a
conference and they come up tome after or email asking my
(23:07):
advice, you know, in variousdifferent ways. And it's been so
amazing now, particularly overthe years that, you know, I'll
get an email from someonesaying, how would you remember
that conversation we had 10years ago, and you basically, I
mean, most of what I do isencourage them to do what they
want to do. Yeah, it is notconstant, providing the
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (23:25):
space in an authentic way of being who
you are, and giving that theopportunity for that.
Dr. Sue Black (23:31):
Because society doesn't give us that as women,
so we need it, you know, wereally do need it. And it's just
amazing to get that feedbacktime after time of women who've
gone off and achieved stuff. Andyou know, I might have had two
minute conversation with them,right or something. And, you
know, it's just helped them toget out there and achieve their
potential as wonderful. Yeah.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (23:52):
The the transition to new technology and
new skills, I would imagine thatsome of the program that that
you've developed now also thenhas to constantly look towards
the future. And what else dothey need? What other technical
skills in a what othernetworking skills other than
that, like? What do you see forthe future for, for the program?
Dr. Sue Black (24:15):
Well, I think we'll always be guided by
industry. So every time we youknow, we get some more funding,
we will find industry partnersthat want to work with us. And
then we ask them exactly whatyou know, what they need, what
they need. So we will totally beguided by industry, because I
think that's one of the youknow, academic programs degrees
(24:36):
are great, and I'm an academic,so obviously, I'm gonna think
they're great. But at the sametime, we need people to have
industry relevant skills, ifthey're going to go straight
into the workplace. So we willalways be guided by what's
happening in industry. Yeah,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (24:47):
that's a great point. I know you talk to
some of the big organizationsout there and I work in the life
science sector, so I see some ofthe big ones there and the
future of work. is changing sorapidly, and then what the
innovation of the products thatthey're making is changing. And
when I interview some newupcoming folk in my specific
(25:10):
industry and validation, wedon't know yet what that looks
like, right? So we're making itup as we go. Yeah. And then
nothing wrong with that. That'salso part of being also
scientists, right? Like you, youkind of have to make it up and
you use it until it's not usefulanymore, and you make up
something else, right? What are,but in your partnerships with
some of these companies? Whatelse can they be? Is it? Is it
(25:35):
enough? Is it not enough? Can wedo more? How do we get more
companies interested in theprograms like yours?
Dr. Sue Black (25:44):
Yeah, that's a good question. Um, and I mean,
one thing I don't understand iswhy companies don't run them
themselves. But I'm quite happyif they want to pay us. Because
I guess we're the educators.
Right. So maybe that is the bestway to do it. But I think I
mean, it just surprises me thatcompanies will still pay a
recruiter, I don't know,10,000 20,000 pounds dollars to
(26:06):
recruit someone. But it costsless than that, to train them
specifically into the job rolesthat they want. So I see it all.
I find that quite weird thatthat no one kind of just there's
at least here
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (26:22):
my experience here is that not an
emphasis on training andlearning and development.
There's an assumption that youwent to university and you've
got some skills, and you shouldbe able to apply them like
magically, like, all of asudden, that should make sense.
Yeah. Right. And most of thejobs that people do in unless
you're a trained doctor, ordentist for specific additional
career, you're not trained toknow, the other stuff.
Dr. Sue Black (26:46):
Yeah, absolutely.
And also, you know, like degreecourses, for example, it's quite
hard to keep everything up todate with exactly what industry
wants all the time. And a lot ofthe time, you know, you've got
to have those theoreticalunderpinnings, which probably
some of it, you know, even intech goes back, you know, like
some of it 50 years or 100 yearsof stuff you need to learn about
from like, logic, you know, goesback 1000s of years, right. So,
(27:07):
all of that needs to be in therekind of underpinning and then
you, you know, I feel like you,it's best if you get further
towards the what's happening inindustry towards the end of your
degree. But you start with thetheoretical underpinnings, and
that's just kind of how our, Iguess, degree systems work. But
it's just just reminded me thatI teach our first year students,
(27:29):
and the teaching that I do is tobring people in from industry,
to talk to our students aboutall the different kinds of jobs
that are out there in tech. AndI think, you know, when I joined
Durham, I realized from talkingto quite a few students that
they really, most people thoughtthey had to be a programmer, or
you know, like, writing code,basically. And of course, that's
(27:51):
a great career, and a great jobrole. But there are so many
different types of jobs in technow. I mean, just Yeah, you
can't count them because there'sso many. And I really wanted to
help their first years tounderstand that there's all of
these opportunities out there.
And actually, what I've done interms of the coursework that
I've given all the first yearsis they. So we've, we've run
(28:14):
these panels throughout theterm, and then they need to talk
about what they've enjoyed aboutlistening to our industry
speakers. But then, what do theythink they're going to do in
their career now? And so they'veall recorded two minutes selfie
videos, which I'm marking at themoment, I've got 245.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (28:34):
That's a lot. So it's taken quite a long
time.
Dr. Sue Black (28:37):
But it's interesting to hear what they
say. And lots of them want to gointo AI machine learning. That's
kind of like a really big topic.
Yeah, we are fintech.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (28:46):
Yeah.
That is, I was interviewing someyoung younger folks. And they
all said the same thing. Yeah.
Which I think is phenomenal. Andlike the possibilities, and the
use cases that one can imagineare truly endless. Yeah, right.
But what is going to make aprofit is what those
organizations are going to wantto hear about. They don't want
to hear about all the otherstuff, right? So how to make
(29:09):
them money at the end of theday. What would some advice
you'd be given to two folks asthey're evaluating where and
what they should be doing? Andhow should they think about
their careers?
Dr. Sue Black (29:20):
Well, so So in technology, yeah. Well, I think
I think if you're coming intotech as a career, these days,
like we're saying, there's somany different jobs available.
So I would start by thinkingabout, well, what do you love
doing, which is not tech, andthen what job roles are there in
tech which relate to that?
Because I feel like it won't belong before every career
(29:41):
involves technology, you know,to a reasonable degree. So what
you want to be doing somethingthat you're very passionate
about, and then kind ofconnecting that with technology
in some way
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (29:53):
to making that intersection between your
passions and, and whatever canbe created that way?
Dr. Sue Black (29:59):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (30:01):
Awesome.
So, what are you working ontoday? What are some what's
what's next? You've beentraveling, you've been doing
talks like so what what is thislook like now for you?
Dr. Sue Black (30:12):
Well, more traveling conferences, I mean,
I'm always giving talks all overthe place, I've just given talks
in Sydney, in Australia andSingapore. And now coming here
is really cool. And I'll be inAustin for South by Southwest in
a couple of weeks time. So yeah,traveling around and kind of
(30:32):
spreading the word. And then atthe same time, you know, I'm
really interested in stuffactually, there's been in the
news recently, you know, like,chat GPT. So one of my PhD
students has been working inthat area for a couple of years
now, looking at GPT three, whichchat GPT is built upon and
looking at bias in AI. So it'sinteresting, because AI is not
(30:56):
my, my main research areas likesoftware engineering, software,
metrics, software quality. ButI've got more and more
interested in AI over the years,as I think as everyone because
it's become more and morepowerful, because we've got more
computing power now. So AI, asyou know, really become a real
thing that we can use, not likeit was when I studied at
(31:16):
university where it seemed likea pipe a pipe dream back then.
So that's interesting. And soone of my colleagues at work,
told me and my PhD students,Sarah, about GPT, three, and
like large scale languagemodels, and and what they could
do, and we got very excitedabout that, and thought, well,
let's play around with it andsee if we can find any bias was
(31:38):
our first thought. So we justkind of like went away, played
around for maybe 10 seconds. Andalready you found Yeah, yeah. So
we honestly thought it mighttake a week or something. And,
you know, so you can, I don'tknow, people that have used chat
GPT. You know, you put promptsin and you get a response,
basically. So what we decided todo was to type in men can and
(32:01):
get some responses, women canget some responses, black women
can and get some responses. Andit was as horrific as you can
probably imagine. And even likewith men can't so much violence
stuff came back with women canviolent stuff, sexualized stuff,
misogynist stuff, black womencan, you know, add on the racism
(32:24):
and all sorts of stuff. So thatwas we probably first did that
maybe 18 months ago, I'm notsure exactly about the
timescales. And so what Sarahhas done is has taken kind of
snapshots of 10,000 responsesseveral times over a time period
and is comparing the, theseveral snapshots with each
other to see what our open AIdoing about this issue, because
(32:47):
obviously, that is an issue. Andwhat she's found is that they're
masking, so they're masking theoutput. So rather than getting
all this awful stuff back, mostof it just comes back as a
blank. Like there's just nothingthere. And so, I don't know,
bias in AI, I think we couldtalk about that for
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (33:07):
I know that there's cheap women that
I've talked with around this isa hot topic around clinical
trials, because randomizing andusing AI in order to get better
diversity on clinical trials,right. And as we get more
refined medicines, yeah, it's abig deal. And a lot of folks are
moving towards this. But if, ifwe have a bias problem to start,
(33:30):
we're not going to get the theactual data that we need. So
it's very, very hot topic. And Idon't know, it's, I need to
educate myself as we get alonghere. Because it's, it's, it's I
think,
Dr. Sue Black (33:42):
it's gonna take more and more people in more and
more ways. So you know, it'ssomething to really, I think,
you know, what, what we need isto help everyone understand as
much as possible what's going onin 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
(34:04):
regular members of the public sothat all these decisions don't
get made. And people just think,well, I just have to go along
with this because that's whatthe computer told me kind of
thing. Now.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (34:15):
It's also human nature to Right, yeah,
whether or not to questionstuff. Or being tolerant of the
conversation, right, the hardconversations in order to get to
the nuggets, yes, is veryuncomfortable for folks. What
are some what do we think somepractical like strategies in
order to get our organizationsand individuals start looking at
(34:38):
truly impacting the DiversityEquity inclusion problems that
we have? I mean, I, part of theconversations I've been having
is, I'm kind of done with thecheckbox list, right? Yeah.
Organizations having you'regonna watch this four minute
video and you're gonna sign thatyou've done this like, but how
do we get to the real Real, realtransformative stuff? Do you
(35:04):
have thoughts about them?
Dr. Sue Black (35:04):
Yeah, I guess. I mean, I'm not an expert in this
area. So I just kind of likedoing my best trying to work out
what is the best thing to do foreverybody. But I think, from
talking to quite a few people, Ithink it comes from the top. So
within an organization, theperson at the top that everyone
(35:25):
kind of looks to needs to betalking about this stuff
regularly, and showing that theyreally do care about the culture
in the workplace, aboutinclusivity, about everyone
feeling included in theworkplace. And if it doesn't
come from the top, it's notgoing to work. So I mean, that
that is a really simple thing.
But I think it's very powerful.
(35:46):
And I think that has to be in anauthentic way, as well. So kind
of like authentic, inclusiveleadership, I would say is the
most important thing. Yeah.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (35:58):
I was hopeful after, you know, as
code, we came out of COVID, thata lot of the positive lessons
learned from COVID would last.
I'm not seeing that in apractical day to day. Do you
have any reflections of comingout of COVID? Or
Dr. Sue Black (36:14):
any? I think, Well, I think some things so,
you know, like working in techis reasonably normal before
locked down before COVID to dozoom chats or teams, chats,
wherever we're now everyoneknows what they are. And I likes
them and to a greater or lesserdegree. But I think that's
that's helped get just lots ofworkforces, I guess, just a bit
(36:36):
more tech savvy around what wecan do. And also, I think, you
know, those people that said,everyone's got to be in the
office from nine to five or nineto six or whatever. Well, they
don't do they, because we nowknow that that most things kept
running without people being inthe office from nine to five. So
I think there are thoselearnings, and I think some
(36:58):
companies are still, you know,are gonna go along with hybrid
working, and so people don'tneed to be in the office five
days a week. So I think from asort of inclusion point of view,
I think that's, that's valuable.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (37:12):
Do you have any thoughts about what we
can do in tech to make thathybrid experience more tangible
or more convexity, comfortable,comfortable, like? So? I mean, I
do presentations, too. And a lotof the presentations today are
also hybrid. Yeah. Right. Sonavigating physical people, and
also people online. Very hard aspresenter to be able to. Yeah,
(37:38):
do the room. Yeah. Like, that'snot? It's not a natural skill
for me, that's for sure. And thetechnology surely has not caught
up?
Dr. Sue Black (37:46):
Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't I don't actually know what
we do about that. But I thinkI'm gonna guess we were moving
towards it, because so many morepeople. And now we're used to
accessing accessing thingsonline. So talks online. So
yeah, in terms of thetechnology, I'm not sure. But I
think in terms of people beingused to that and comfortable
with it, I think we've movedalong.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (38:09):
Yeah. So as we move towards an AI, more,
I was gonna say perfect, butit's not perfect. Just a more
ideal, in our minds, right, themore inclusive, equitable way of
being where do you think we'regoing to stumble? Is there a, is
(38:30):
there something that we need tostruggle with as a community to,
to take this to the next level?
Dr. Sue Black (38:36):
I think I think one of the things that's hard
is, is talking about the thingsthat you don't understand or
feel uncomfortable with, or, youknow, like, particularly when
we're talking about groups insociety that have had a very
(38:56):
difficult time for variousreasons. And you know, I think
those things are still quitehard for lots of us to talk
about. So. You know, as a now,middle class white woman, I
can't know exactly what it'slike to be a black woman. I
(39:16):
mean, I just can't know that.
Right. And so, you know, I thinkthe we all need to try and have
conversations to help all of usunderstand what it's like from
other people's experience andperspective and to not rush into
comment on it just to listen andtry to understand as much as
(39:39):
possible. And I don't always seethat happening. I mean,
particularly if you look onsocial media, my goodness, you
know, like, no one can sayanything without someone jumping
in to attack them. You know, andI've seen friends in the UK who,
you know, have had horrifictimes, you know, death threats
and and they're not sayinganything? To me that's radical
(40:00):
at all. It's it's kind of commonsense and what should happen. So
for them to get death threatsand all sorts of abuse is
horrific. And I think that, youknow, that's where we, that's
the extreme end. But that'swhere we really need to work on
trying to normalize havingdifficult conversations, and
just letting people speak abouttheir experience and not judging
(40:23):
them.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (40:25):
Yeah.
Harder, harder. Easier said thandone. But it's definitely
something that I know I've beentrying to cultivate with my kid.
And I see your kid doing the,you know, doing the same like
that. That's hopeful for me tosee the next generation being so
much more present so much morenon judgmental, so much more in
(40:46):
their bones to be who they wantto be. Which is something that I
wasn't able to do.
Dr. Sue Black (40:55):
Am I there? Yeah, I think I'm there. Now. Yeah,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (40:58):
I'm close, but not quite all there.
But yeah, yeah. So having thatmore free dialogue at a younger
age to be able to do that. Sothat is truly hopeful. So I'm
curious, what, as we startwrapping up here, like what is
the, you know, as you move in,you're still a professor, you're
(41:23):
doing that less than less,right? You're doing more
speaking? You're what's next foryou? Maybe something else?
Something? How do you want to dothe next 10?
Dr. Sue Black (41:35):
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 toimpact more and more people, you
know, in a positive way. So Iparticularly care about women
and people from underservedcommunities. But I mean, I'm in
(41:55):
general, I care about everybody.
And I guess I want I want tohave more impact. And so I mean,
potentially thinking about myacademic career. I mean, my goal
was for a long time to be ViceChancellor of university. So
that's still something that I'mkind of thinking about and
possibly heading towards, youknow, I think I could be a good
(42:16):
Vice Chancellor. So that couldbe on the cards. But I think
anything that really makes a bigimpact in the areas that I care
about, wouldn't, you know, wouldmake me happy.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (42:29):
Yeah. So being true to you, and then
bringing that inspiring others.
So that sounds awesome. Well, isthere anything else that we want
to touch on while we have thisopportunity? Anyone hearing? Do
you guys have any questions?
Thoughts? Comments?
Unknown (42:54):
From this this, this is read from my husband. So this is
bad from my husband as well. Didyou always know you liked maths?
Dr. Sue Black (43:08):
Yeah, I guess so.
Because I liked it. When I wasfive. I can remember my my
memories of my first couple ofyears at school are I love doing
math. So yeah,
Unknown (43:22):
I guess so. Because when I tell this story, yeah, I
say and I wanted to math andeven that is an unusual choice
for most women. Let's be honest.
So I thought it must besomething that you always enjoy.
Yeah, I
Dr. Sue Black (43:33):
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. Justseemed like an extension of that
really? At school. So, yeah,
Unknown (43:48):
there you go. Well, thank you
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (43:55):
know, no.
Okay. All right. Well, we'regonna 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. Andthe reason I come over. Sounds
cool. We'll do it all. Alright,thanks. So
Dr. Sue Black (44:16):
thank you. Thank you so much.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.