Female Disruptors: Brenda Darden Wilkerson of AnitaB On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
We’re living in a time where many issues and challenges our society has faced for decades, even centuries, are boiling over and can no longer be ignored. The need for change is evident, can no longer be an afterthought, and has overlapping implications for systems of government, education, and the tech industry. So you can always find me on the front line, with other disrupters causing “good trouble” and fighting to reshape and deconstruct systems that uphold biases and discriminatory norms. For me, the highest and best use of tech is in the service of people. You will always find me at that intersection.
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing: Brenda Darden Wilkerson, President and CEO of AnitaB.org
Brenda Darden Wilkerson is a pioneering thought leader and an advocate for access, opportunity, and social justice for underrepresented communities in technology.
She currently serves as the President and CEO of AnitaB.org, a global organization that connects, inspires, and strives for greater equality for women and non-binary technologists in business, academia, and government.
Her work includes connecting communities worldwide to enable women and non-binary technologists to advance and succeed in tech as well as the organizations where they learn, work, invest and gain funding to create cultures conducive to mutual success.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
So happy to be part of this conversation. My tech journey started in college. As an undergraduate at Northwestern University, I initially thought I wanted to become a doctor, which prompted me to major in biomedical engineering on the pre-med track. As part of my courses, all engineers had to take two programming classes where I learned about computer science and programming. Little did I know these courses would spark my interest in the technology field. Years later, my experiences finding tech and then as a technologist eventually led me to K-12 administration, where I would found the Computer Science for All initiative. This program incorporates computer science classes into the core curriculum for every student in the Chicago Public Schools and eventually served as the inspiration for the Obama administration’s national CS For All initiatives. After nearly a decade, I became the President and CEO of AnitaB.org, the global nonprofit organization focused on sustaining an equitable future for women and non-binary technologists by cultivating a global community of leading technology talent in business, academia, and government, rounding out a lifetime career so far focused on tech.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Being a Black woman leader in the tech industry –is disruptive in and of itself. The culture in tech often revolves around cisgender white men proving difficult for women and non-binary individuals to navigate and achieve leadership roles. By advocating for access, opportunity, and social justice for underrepresented communities in technology, I am disrupting the status quo and helping shape the future of inclusive technology. We do that in many ways, including strengthening traditional educational pathways into tech and building nontraditional ones. At AnitaB.org, we strive to eliminate obstacles rooted in racism, misogyny, homophobia, classism, and more by providing resources and programming to thousands of members and the organizations that employ them. We also host the world’s largest tech conference for women and non-binary technologists at our annual Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC). Since 1994, GHC has given attendees a chance to expand their skills, grow their communities, hear from leaders in the tech space, and network with aspiring employers. Our Abie Awards give the stage and spotlight to tech women’s accomplishments, which is disruptive given that historically, such awards have normally gone to men. Thus, women’s accomplishments are at most hidden, in some cases, erased. Lifting up the accomplishments of tech women, past and present, disrupts the notion that we do not exist and haven’t been instrumental to the innovation and success of tech from its inception.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Wow, there are so many! But I like to tell this one because it speaks to the importance of understanding an audience you wish to serve to not only help them but also not harm them!
My first foray into education was at a community college. I got the opportunity to teach a few applications to continuing ed students. My first class was Lotus 1–2–3 (boy, does that tell my age!). I had four, 2-hour shots at teaching an introductory-level spreadsheet program to a group of mixed-aged adults. Having been a developer, I went about it from a programming angle, and I assumed that the students understood basic operating system information (it was Windows 3.1 afterall, so you couldn’t just rely on mousing). By hour 5, I was teaching VLookups! I remember starting the last class with the students. I asked if there were any questions. One student raised her hand and asked, “How do you turn these things on?” referring to the computer! I remember being dumbstruck. I had wasted, at least this student’s time, for three nights teaching far ahead her understanding. I hadn’t bothered to survey the class to see what they already knew. I obviously missed all the cues that she (and it turns out) most other students were clueless about what I was teaching. Many of them were women and other minoritized people who were giving up after work time seeking a leg up in their jobs. It was a complete failure! I remember going home, crying to my husband about how badly I had turned out. It was a good lesson that I have never forgotten. It doesn’t matter how much you know. If you don’t understand the needs of the people you serve, your smarts, education, preparation, etc., will not serve them. And it could end up hurting them.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
There have been many people who have helped me along my path. My dean, Cynthia Clontz, under whom I developed training pathways for adult students seeking an entryway into tech, believed in me and allowed me to use my creativity 10X the tech offerings, creating a sustainable pathway for these students to actually realize their dream of entering tech. She told me to use my vision, and she trusted that I understood the needs of our students. That experience of developing and growing a program that ended up impacting thousands of career changers helped me later understand how to galvanize the efforts of like-minded changemakers to create an initiative that has affected millions.
When I was developing the CSforAll initiative in Chicago, the pressure and pushback were immense as this was a major disruption to that educational system — creating a new core requirement? That hadn’t been done for decades. And most people in power didn’t see the need, nor did they believe in the necessity of such in a majority Black and Brown district. Several key supporters cheered me along that path, and stuck with me when it didn’t seem like my goal of every student in a 400K district receiving this sort of education and all the required disruption, would happen. I can say that this is one example of where the village came through: from professors who championed CS teacher credentialing in Illinois, which was missing and necessary, to the pioneering researcher/education-as-social-justice disruptors in California and Oregon who created culturally-relevant curriculum and teacher training, to one professor in particular at the University of Illinois at Chicago who, when I was faced with potentially being turned down for sorely needed funding for teacher training, assured me that he and his team would be with me no matter what. That statement at that juncture was pivotal to my decision to persevere when things looked bleak.
It bears mentioning that one thing that all disruptors need, especially female disruptors, is at least one friend who understands how wacky visionaries can seem to those who don’t understand their vision yet. By definition, visionaries see things before others. Having that smart friend who can dream with you, encourage you, ideate with you, when everybody just thinks you’re weird, keeps you on the path. I have several like this, but Leslie Beller is one such person for me, to this day.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
Any disruption that compromises basic human rights, access or excludes segments of the population is a negative disruption. The converse is a good disruption that improves access, supports human rights, and ensures that as many different segments of humanity are considered and served by this disruption. Disrupting unjust and inhumane systems — that misuse and abuse or even ignore people based on race, ethnicity, socio-economic background, gender, education, physical ability, and the like — is to be prioritized. This is when individual and collective action is necessary. In the tech industry, when we call for more diverse representation, we are disrupting the status quo by saying that all people should have access to opportunity, and some need nuanced tools and resources to offset decades of systemic bias and failure. We do not disrupt to indulge in flights of fancy — we agitate and work to create actionable change that benefits those who need it most. And we educate on why such disruptions are preferred because they benefit everyone.
Example of bad disruption: the broad use of facial recognition, in concert with laws that are not keeping up with the implications of its use on privacy. First, facial recognition has not been shown to be accurate enough for the ways in which it is used. Data shows that most broad use algorithms do not recognize brown or black skin or Asian faces accurately. Black women are misrecognized 33% of the time! But police departments and other law enforcement agencies are using this technology in ways that end up terrorizing segments of the population when the technology just doesn’t work well yet. The rush to the market with this sort of tech lacks ethics and is just irresponsible.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
We’re living in a time where many issues and challenges our society has faced for decades, even centuries, are boiling over and can no longer be ignored. The need for change is evident, can no longer be an afterthought, and has overlapping implications for systems of government, education, and the tech industry. So you can always find me on the front line, with other disrupters causing “good trouble” and fighting to reshape and deconstruct systems that uphold biases and discriminatory norms. For me, the highest and best use of tech is in the service of people. You will always find me at that intersection.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
Our society applauds the self-confidence or bravado of male disruptors but will question the legitimacy or motives of women disruptors with its institutional mindsets, structural barriers, and individual biases. Historic stereotyping has sustained an imbalance of power that gives rise to women having to prove they belong in the room where men are assumed to be. Economics is a huge barrier, with unequal pay’s prevalence looming large. Black Women’s Equal Pay Day is September 21. That’s the approximate day a Black woman must work into the new year to make what a white non-Hispanic man made at the end of the previous year. For Latinas and Indigenous women, it’s even worse with their equal pay days coming in November and December this year. That’s two years’ work for the same pay a white non-Hispanic man makes in 1. And we know that funding is a huge issue. Female founders not only get funded less often, but their funding amounts are a fraction of what male founders get. These and other compounding effects, including lack or expense of childcare, the “second shift,” both at home and at work, are causing our societies to lose out on the benefits women disruptors could offer. All of these are contrived limitations that we are working to disrupt.
Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?
Again, there are so many! From my CSforAll days, I got so much inspiration from Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race and Computing. It is an amazing book that of course addresses computing education specifically, but speaks broadly to the historic gaps in this nation’s social structures writ large. Jane Margolis and Joanna Goode, the authors, are two amazing pioneers whose impact on tech, education, and my life specifically is outsized. I used the groundbreaking curriculum, Exploring Computer Science, developed from their research that has now impacted millions of teachers and students. Their wisdom and friendship helped me in the early days of CSforAll develop strategy to scale computing across the third largest district in the country. The “unlikely metaphor: the color line in swimming and computer science” unlocked so many opportunities to help education gatekeepers understand the issues and barriers presented when our students don’t get access to quality technical education.
Currently, I’m reading Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado-Perez which should be required reading for EVERYONE! It speaks to the lack of inclusion of women in most data studies and the impact on just about every facet of human life because of it. From gaps in medical care that can even be life threatening, to economic impact on communities and countries’ GDPs, it is truly a wakeup call that I plan to use to raise awareness within the tech industry on the impact of data collection, aggregation and analysis.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Simply put, I want to help people. I want to create a ripple effect of positive change by giving a platform to those ordinary people who’ve done extraordinary things. I want to discuss pathways and not pipelines to create a more equitable society. I want to inspire a movement by continuing to tell the stories of the people most effective at moving the needle towards diversity in tech. Many of them are not technologists. Some of the best evangelists I know are sociologists, educators, and religious people. They’re just people. They’re thoughtful with a vision of how tech can be influential so that it positively impacts most people.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Teachers are the backbone of any country, the pillar upon which all aspirations are converted into reality” — A.P.J Abdul Kalam I genuinely believe that education and teachers are the foundation for how society develops socially and even economically. That’s why equity is so bloody important, even in the educational sphere. Teachers are role models who help shape ideas and constructs that aid students in becoming better individuals in society. If I weren’t leading AnitaB.org or in tech, I would still be an educator.
How can our readers follow you online?
You can follow me on Twitter (@BrendaDardenW), Instagram (@brendadardenw), and LinkedIn.
To keep up-to-date on AnitaB.org’s upcoming events, you can follow us on Twitter (@AnitaB_org), Instagram (@anitab_org), Facebook (@AnitaB.org), and LinkedIn (AnitaB.org) as well as our website.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Female Disruptors: Brenda Darden Wilkerson of AnitaB On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.