The Four R’s: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and C(r)oding?

Before reading the articles I was very set in my thoughts that everyone should learn to code at an early age. This belief stemmed from the fact that I felt I had been at a disadvantage from my peers because I never really felt that coding was “accessible” to me before coming to college. Like many of my peers, my first experience with coding and the concepts behind building a program began freshmen year working with MATLAB. Like many of the articles pointed out, numerous public education systems rarely have computer science offered in their curriculum and the stigma associated with enrolling in this type of class can discourage many minorities from joining them.

The one programming elective I did decide to take in high school did not spark my interest in programming at all and it actually deterred me from pursuing that path. The class was set up by downloading an IDE then following along in a book finishing one programming assignment after the other. I’m not even sure what language we learned (indicative of how memorable that class was).

Reading the articles and reflecting on that experience, I did realize how difficult it would be to teach coding universally in the same way the three R’s are taught. My view is still that coding should be mandatory and taught at an earlier age than college but I do see the hesitation in just diving right in and trying to “go for it” before teachers or schools are ready to introduce this curriculum. It sounds like programs are being developed (the tools created by MIT) to teach logic and computer literacy. The computational thinking is what I think the classes should focus on opposed to an actual language. I think most programmers would agree that one of the most valuable skills they possess is their adaptability and the process of breaking down a system into parts and simply following the instructions and syntax for a certain language to apply to that problem. And as one of the articles mentioned, the most important part is solving the problem not necessarily knowing how to code it.

It seems like the process to teach someone how to teach a coding class has not been thoroughly defined yet and especially the disparity that is being found between the people who can easily pick up coding and those who “just don’t have it” I do think that computational thinking should be introduced to everyone. I was part of Prof. McMillan’s Low Vision Mentorship class and I experienced first hand what it was like to walk into a “computer science” class where the class was just thrown into the curriculum but the teachers were not given proper instruction on how to lead it. Trying to communicate these ideas behind computer science was difficult because of the breadth of information out there.

One of the articles pointed out that there’s a necessary distinction between consumers of technology and creators of technology. My ten year old cousin is a master of Minecraft and knows how to screen capture his video games and upload them to Youtube but that doesn’t mean he is destined for coding. I think a lot of times people associate using technology with being able to code and also vice versa. The number of times I’ve been asked to help work a projector or fix a speaker because “I’m a computer science major, shouldn’t I know how all technologies work”. The difference between these two are the logic in between which is why I think computational thinking should be taught more so than actual coding and programming languages.

If the Computer Science 4All Initiative moves forward, there needs to be a clear curriculum for schools and teachers to follow. I appreciate the push for these types of classes and making them mandatory makes it accessible for those who aren’t initially interested to try it out and also gives those who may be a little intimidated by this type a work an appreciation for it or a kickstart to a future career in it.

Piracy

From the readings, the DMCA believes that not enough is being done to prevent this crime and even some have spoken out about how sites like Youtube are perpetuating this cycle or illegality. Some provisions for dealing with infringement involve the DRM which puts “locks’ on things on the internet that an be accessed or not. The W3C has fought this because it believes that it takes away liberties that form the basis of the internet.  Safe harbor provisions are those set in place for service providers that assure them protection if their services are used in a way that they were not intended. The four are transitory digital network communications, system caching, information location tools, and information residing on systems.

It is not ethical for users to share copyrighted materials even if they own a copy of it already. Their own copy gives them the right to only that. If they already own a version in another format, while it is a little annoying that this is the case, I do think that ownership is with the original item purchased.

I think so many people still partake in piracy out of convenience and because they see it as a victimless crime. I think they believe that they aren’t really hurting anyone by doing this so. I also think that there is incentive to do so because of how far removed the sale is. Even if there is a victim to the crime, the amount of money musicians make is astronomical. I also think that since music itself is not tangible it is harder to justify paying for a sound.

I do think that the emergence of streaming services such as Netflix and Spotify address the problem of piracy. It seems that, in the past, most people committed these acts simply out of convenience and because it was the easiest way to do so. The rise in subscribers to music platforms is evidence that people aren’t going out of their way to do the wrong thing but they will sacrifice some of their integrity out of convenience. These companies are changing the way the industry works and for the better. I personally don’t know a lot of people who still illegally download music and most of the people I talk to are subscribers to a streaming service and their main source of access to this media is now one of these services. Piracy doesn’t seem to be a solvable problem nor does it seem to be a real problem. It is good that these rules exist in order to enforce in extreme cases but it seems to me to be a law like jaywalking which I understand fully why it is in place but seems almost impossible to enforce in all cases and it seems like a waste of resources to try and police strictly. Additionally, it seems like the DMCA has been having problems putting a system into place that would both prevent this type of crime but also keep other legal postings unlocked.

Autonomous Vehicles

The motivation for developing and building self-driving cars is that they free up time for users and are theoretically less prone to the mistakes a human would make. Additionally, I think a part of the motivation behind the creation of them is the fact that they are possible. Humans have always tried to explore their ideas and stretch their limits and now that we are making these technological progressions and getting autonomous vehicles seem to be attainable, people are working hard to get there first. The arguments for a self-driving car is that they would make our roads safer because of their ability to eliminate mistakes from carelessness. Also, drivers are now able to trust that cars will follow the basic rules of the road instead of relying on blind trust in other people (e.g. stopping at a stop sign, eliminating road rage, slowing down at a yellow light, properly yielding, changing lanes). Autonomous vehicles can also act more efficiently in the flow of traffic. This reduces the risks of accidents if all cars are communicating with one another and decisions can be made about the flow based on the knowledge of knowing a user’s destination and other users intended destinations. An argument against the use of self-driving cars is that there are still humans that do the programming so the change from human error on the road simply evolves into human error in the code. Additionally, the car would be simulating the choices each driver would make and the flexibility/dependency of human instinct and the ability to make quick decisions in emergencies would deteriorate.

The “social dilemma of autonomous vehicles” arises because we are trying to determine a standard for morality that blankets everyone while usually those decisions are made on an individual level. Ideally humans should be the ones to make the decision at the time but if they’re not engaged in the moment they might not be able to respond quickly enough to make that choice. I do agree with the strategy that the article makes about the necessity of making these decisions regulated instead of relying on users to choose whether or not they want their personal vehicle to make utilitarian choices. It is very evident from the articles that humans cannot be trusted with everyone taking the responsibility on themselves to have a utilitarian vehicle if there’s an option where they personally don’t have to. The article cites that manufacturers may tend to vote for the view that the vehicle simply protects its passengers because doing otherwise might impede the progress of making these vehicles a reality in our very near future but I believe that’s a bullshit claim. All companies should push for putting the best possible product out there and whoever ends up being successful first is setting a standard for the future and should understand the implications of their actions. I am unsure who should be responsible in the case of an accident. I think the manufacturer should list all of the capabilities of the car and if the accident is investigated and it is deemed that the company never claimed its vehicle is able to handle the accident then it should be on the owner of the car to be held responsible. When looking at the capabilities of the car they should understand what is and what is not covered and the liability they take on by “driving” it.

The societal implications to self-driving cars have already started to arise and the first one to overcome is the adoption of this new product. For them to truly work effectively and most efficiently, a large number of users would have to use them. Additionally, I think the idea of security and being able to protect the passengers and the car from malware is an important issue that needs to be addressed. The economic impacts would be huge. One of the articles mentioned Otto which would put numerous people out of jobs if all types of shipping and transportation shifted to this model.

I am worried about the dangers of self-driving cars but would ultimately love to have one. I am so in awe by this new technology that I would be willing to take on the burden of risks that might exist by doing so.

Project 03 Reflection

Quiz Result:

 

 

After going through the challenges one change I did decide to make was to try and filter out more of what my Internet profile looked like. This included deleting old photo albums from Facebook and “unliking” topics or posts from my profile. I also installed privacy badger to get a better sense of what websites tracked my information. Especially with the overturned legislation, if ISPs are now allowed to sell my data without my permission, I am going to make sure I have as much a handle over that data as I possibly can. Additionally, the 15 minutes of isolation that Day 3 suggests made me more aware of my dependence on technology not only to accomplish tasks

Taking the quiz, I did see that I valued convenience over privacy. This was a semi difficult choice to make because I am well aware of the way data can be used against people but I am under the mindset it appears most of my other classmates are under that ‘if I’m not doing anything wrong, I don’t have anything to worry about’. Although my beliefs and practices should extend beyond just me I chose convenience over privacy simply due to the fact that I felt like I had nothing to hide so my personal privacy wouldn’t put me in jeopardy of anything.

I think privacy is a right worth protecting. I do not think it is impossible to completely protect it though. Everyone deserves the opportunity to keep to themselves if they so choose and even though the techniques to protect one’s privacy are not impenetrable, defenses should be put up in order to make it more difficult. It’s the same concept of putting a lock on one’s door. Obviously, there are many ways to bet around this lock, but the existence of it shows that what is inside is of value to someone and others should think twice about their actions. Putting up privacy barriers also makes the act of invasion and active one instead of a passive one. People should be able to feel like they have control over the aspects of their lives and privacy is one of those ways to do so.

 

AI

Artificial Intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence through machines. The main component of this is that the machines are simply giving training data and from there are able to make decisions that are not hard coded by their creators. An interesting part of this is that one of the difficulties comes from the fact that not even humans know what they are talking about in particular when they discuss intelligence. One of the articles describes the difficulty in coding the type of logic humans use to make decisions and references a study that asks reveals how difficult it is for computers to tell the difference between pornographic and non-pornographic images. One of the participants tries to define how he differentiates it and says “I know it when I see it”. Psychology and humans don’t seem to be completely aware of all the inner workings behind decision making but they are trying to somehow simulate this subconscious into machines.

AI is similar to human intelligence in that it picks up on subtleties and uses evidence to formulate future decisions but as Eric Schmidt points out in one of the readings, AI has the ability to evolve faster than human intelligence because while people usually learn from the mistakes they make themselves, they rarely learn from the mistakes of others while AI algorithms are trained to do both.

AlphaGo, DeepBlue, and Watson all had specific purposes in mind and do not present themselves as all encompassing forms of knowledge but they all show the viability of artificial intelligence. AlphaGo specifically shows how machines have evolved to create decision trees in a manner that is not brute force. It is simulating the same thought process a human would go through of pinpointing a couple of the best decisions and making an informed decision on how to proceed without the need of brute forcing all the choices and weighing the percentages of each. Although the practicality of AlphaGo in solving real world problems is very limited, it does show how machines have been programmed to simulate decisions in the same way humans can.

The Turing Test and the Chinese Room both test artificial intelligence against the judgment of another human. The Chinese Room method challenges the machine’s ability to convince another human that the machine understands what is occurring rather than just regurgitating information or programmed responses. Searle draws the distinction between what it means to simulate a thought and what it means to understand. He questions the validity of the Turing Test because he believes that it is only simulating thought whereas the Chinese Room test would identify thoughts that come from understanding not simulation. I believe that Searle’s counter argument to the Turing Test is valid because, as he says, intentions, are very important in making the distinction between intelligence and not.

The growing concerns over the power of AI is not warranted. Although the learning rates of computers are much quicker than ours because they don’t need rest and don’t lose focus, as many of the articles have pointed out, AI is simply extensions of ourselves. There is no intelligence level a machine can get to that humans cannot. In fact, while machines seem to be limited in the things they can do it has been pointed out that emotion is one part of the spectrum that may be most difficult to accomplish. In the article that describes how AlphaGo defeated Lee, they describe Lee as “a man who get sup and eats breakfast, takes naps, feels embarrassed, gets nervous” and while some of these seem like emotions that may hinder one’s decision making these can actually drive people to take risks and be bold, a strategy that the computer might never learn and one that allowed Lee to beat the machine in one of the games.

A computing system could never be considered a mind because it is unphased by emotions and cannot form relationships. If they were to be considered a mind then there would be serious ethical implications on how they were treated. In a Black Mirror episode, one of the computer simulations of someone’s subconscious is subjected to being isolated for months on end in order to force the “subconscious” into agreeing to be a personal assistant that will cater to the needs of the creator and technically no one is being harmed but is this a form of torture? This would be extremely psychologically damaging for a human to endure but since this was only a simulation of a clone of someone else’s mind is it now acceptable. I suspect that many other similar ethical dilemmas would arise if computers were put under this classification.

What is Chandler’s job?

I thought I cared about my private data and the information the internet has on me. I believe in mine and others’ right to privacy. I thought I believed all of this. I thought I believed all of this until I was going through the blog post links. The link that showed showed a list of how to find out all of the things Google knew about you. The second link on the page redirects to a chrome extension that allows you to block websites from collecting metadata on you (how long you’ve been on the page, which links you’ve clicked on, etc.) and that one step of downloading and installing the extension proved to be enough to say “eh” about the data that is collected about me.

I do believe that it is a fairly unrealistic expectation for people to have that complete privacy and a respect of this concept still exists in the age we live in. On an episode of Parks and Rec, one of the main characters (Ron Swanson) prides himself in living off the grid. He refuses to give his birthday, address, medical information, etc. to anyone so he was enraged to find out that he was sent an advertisement in the mail containing personalized info. As the episode progresses he attempts to remove all information the internet could have on him and takes down all the pictures on the walls of various restaurants where he has won food prizes etc. One of the people he asks to help him in this task (Aziz Ansari) is documenting this process and ironically adds more of a web footprint than he originally had. I think this very clearly shows that there are parts of your life that you  just have to admit will be public and it takes excessive effort to completely stay off the grid.

The current world we live in, forces us to stay connected if we truly want to succeed. LinkedIn helped me in my job hunt and other information hosted on various websites (github, youtube, spotify, etc. ) that contain my profile have all helped me succeed. Additionally, a quick Google search of my name might bring up the high school I went to, the state it is in, my current University, sports I’ve played before, awards I have won, etc. Even if I made an effort to stay off the grid, it seems almost impossible for me to be able to accomplish anything and have none of my information publicly available on the internet.

In terms of targeted advertising, I think by entering a website you’re agreeing to use their services and in term they collect information from you. I think the issue is transparent enough that people know that they’re giving up some of their information privacy when doing tasks such as these.

The Internet of Things provide a lot of improvements to our daily lives and I do not think progress in this area should cease. I think one of the things that should accompany this though is the idea that nothing is infallible. I don’t think anyone should begin to use this new technology with the mindset that these are completely secure. Just as security has evolved in the past, there are improvements but everything comes with its vulnerabilities. Of course it makes sense that if you’re able to access your devices from anywhere, so could someone else. I don’t think we should trust anything to be completely secure and purchasing these products should just show that you are willing to take the risks for the benefits it provides.

Snowden

My initial thoughts on the idea of government surveillance was that the only people who were against it were the people with something to hide. I believed that the government was simply looking for people who would become threats and had the nation’s best interest at heart when making decisions towards these matters.

Following this specific incident and other whistle blowers I think it is noble of them to expose the freedoms that are being violated by our very own government. My friends make jokes about me being paranoid that I keep a piece of tape over my laptop and honestly I’m not entirely sure why I do this and I kind of laugh at myself for being this paranoid. I think it is the idea that this information shouldn’t be available to anyone besides the people I choose to share it with. I want to be able to own and control as many parts of my life as I can.

While I do believe that details such as government surveillance should be revealed, I do not believe that Edward Snowden was a hero in doing the things he did. He did not try to go through the proper avenues to reveal this information. Snowden exposed tons of government information that could’ve put our country in jeopardy and these actions are not pardonable. I support the actions of the US government to bring him to justice because he should not be rewarded with freedom for betraying his country and this will set precedent for others who think it is ok to reveal information in such a careless manner.

I do think that as citizens we have an obligation to the country we call home and are apart of. Even though Snowden believed that he was in the right in exposing all the information he could, what he did was wrong.

Although I do see Snowden as betraying his country, I am very deeply conflicted. I’m not entirely confident in the system of getting problems solved by working them through the processes the government has in place. I do think public knowledge of the surveillance was something that should have been exposed but I think Snowden should have strove for reporting it through the avenues currently set up to handle problems such as those.

Project 02 Reflection: Hidden Figures

The challenges that women and minorities face when entering STEM fields are problems that have been addressed and discussed but somehow the obstacles still exist and are not being addressed in the full capacity that they should be. It is challenging for women and minorities to break into the STEM fields because of the current stereotypes that still exist. One of the scenes in Hidden Figures perfectly describes why some of these obstacles still exist. Dorothy is in the bathroom having a conversation with Mrs. Mitchell and Mrs. Mitchell tries to clarify that she doesn’t have anything against her and Dorothy replies “and I honestly think you believe that”. It brings up this notion that prejudices exist in people who honestly believe they are doing nothing wrong. This issue still exists and reminds me of the stories I’ve heard of women telling stories where men tell them “you’re a lot more pretty than I thought a programmer should be ” and other things like this: comments they believe to be harmless that actually go a long way in describing the current social setting that is in place. Bringing awareness to these issues and addressing the fact that stereotypes exist and if you don’t take an active effort in trying to change your views then it creates an environment where women and minorities feel unwelcome. This also seems to be an issue mainly being tackled by women and minorities. These populations that only represent 20% of the field are being charged with the responsibility of making changes to the entire system. People in positions of power need to take up this responsibility as well and put it upon themselves that they have the power to influence the setting and that it is their duty to do so.

I believe that role models are essential  to achieving the feats that you set out to accomplish. Growing up in America, as the child of immigrants my parents were not striving to be the best engineers or employees  they could be. They both immigrated here around the age of 20 both without college degrees and worked a series of odd jobs including everything from being a street cleaner in the city of New Orleans to being a seamstress’ assistant in a small town in Oklahoma. Neither of my parents saw their education as a means to attaining the best career they could get but both understood that they were going to be the stepping stone to provide their children the opportunities they were not provided themselves. Growing up, I watched my parents work their jobs as a means to make money and provide for us not as them following their passion. I do believe that they ended up doing something they both liked, my mother as a manger in a department store and my father working in the aerospace industry. However, I think I can safely say that neither of them would consider these positions their dream jobs. Growing up, my main understanding of what a job was was a way to make money to live your life. As I got older I realized that I was fairly good at school and I was told by my classmates and my teachers that I was intelligent enough to be able to succeed (whatever that meant) and go to great schools that would land me at a great job. The only role models I ever  had in my life were my parents and my teachers. They taught me what it meant to be a good person and gave me confidence but I think what I felt like I was missing from these role models is a way to find out what direction I wanted to take. Going into college I didn’t even know what I wanted my major to be but there were a couple of things I knew about my future. I knew I wanted to be a good parent and work hard for my family, something I learned from my mom and dad. I knew I wanted to be a good and caring person, something I learned from my faith teachings growing up and also some of the teachers I had gotten to work with. I didn’t really find anyone who could help me find what kind of job I wanted to take or anyone who could help me devise world goals. I knew what my goals were for the kind of person I wanted to be but I never had a way of knowing what I wanted to be. I watched a lot of Ted talks in my free time and started reading more non-fiction books that would tell stories of people achieving what they wanted to be or more than that. During my time in high school, I thought “succeeding” meant being the best and at the top of the class and while this might be true in high school, college does not operate in the same way. College meant making decisions and acquiring the skills you needed to propel you into the life you wanted, something that’s not achieved by simply being the top of your class. Looking to my professors in the Computer Science department, they became my role models for showing me what it meant to be passionate about coding and technology. I was able to look to them to inspire me in the field. I still, however, felt like I was lacking a role model in terms of what direction I wanted to take in finding a job. My professors provided me the inspiration but they all took the career path of continuing on with academia and using their knowledge to apply to unsolved problems or to teach classes. I knew I wanted to find a job in the tech field and didn’t believe that the path I wanted to take would exactly align with the path they had taken. I honestly was very lost in trying to decide what I wanted to do and luckily for me, there were some people on the ultimate frisbee team who had come to similar conclusions I had about what I wanted to use my computer science degree for. It was these people who challenged me asked me the right questions about what I wanted to do. They were older than me so they knew which questions to ask and had reached the same crossroads I had or would soon reach. I know for a fact that having these influences in my life helped me get to where I am today. I don’t know exactly where I am headed but I do feel that I am where I am meant to be and I owe most of that to the people I’ve met along the way.

Who Has to Know?

Boeing is fighting a battle and trying to find the balance between the regulation of work and the inhibition of work. A lot of the code reviews sounded like they were preventing progress being done and creating hurdles for these companies and programmers to jump over instead of steering them and making sure they stayed on course. However, some of the regulations put in place did seem to ensure that the company was not mishandling their finances.

These workers were ethical of leaking the information to the public however Boeing was rightful in firing them. The reports stated that the employees tried to make their reports internally but their efforts didn’t produce any results or changes. If the Boeing employees did all they could within the system to try and change it and there were no other solutions to remedy the situation, then they were correct in exposing the wrongdoing to the general public.

Boeing should be allowed to make any decisions regarding their employees that they want. The fact that they did not try to go to the proper authorities first in order to correct the wrongdoing Boeing was making shows that they were more concerned with creating a problem instead of trying to create a solution. By firing these employees Boeing is setting a precedent that they are discouraging their employees from bringing up issues they may see. Hopefully this scandal helps Boeing change how they handle claims such as these but still encourage employees to internally report if they see any issues that arise.

Whistleblowers that try to expose wrongdoings through media create vulnerabilities in the company. It may be naive of me to say but I think there are processes in place and authorities who are properly equipped to handle the situation. In some cases media should be used as  a last resort but to me giving protection to all Whistleblowers seems like it would do more harm than good. There are many ways legislation such as this could be taken advantage of so by keeping the process clear and making sure that process is effective, whistleblowers should get an opportunity to speak out just not to the media.

The problem with whistleblowing is that it is done for numerous reasons. Some people believe that the information they are in possession of should be shared and that discretion should not be left up to them. Revealing the information of wrongdoing should be something that is reported to the authorities and not the general public.

Diversity in technology: pipe problem or pipe dream?

I’ve always considered myself lucky when I think about my path to becoming a Computer Scientist. As many of the articles had stated, in my mind I imagined a career in programming as someone who sits behind all day and fulfills the stereotype of “nerd”. With this image in my head, I dismissed all the programming classes in high school and just thought ‘eh not for me’. It wasn’t yet as glamorous as all the other sciences like biology or chemistry but engineering as a field itself intrigued me because of the challenge it would present and the ability to incorporate elements from other fields of learning. I applied to most of my colleges as a biology or neuroscience intent and it was only the summer before my freshman year that I thought I’d give engineering a shot.

My senior year of high school I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life or what kind of career I wanted. I knew I wanted to do something that could potentially change the world or at least be a job that I would be proud to hold because I was helping others. I applied to liberal arts colleges, schools from coast to coast, private, public, etc. all in search of a place that would challenge me and also help form me into the person I wanted  to be. The decision ultimately boiled down to two schools: Notre Dame and MIT. I had applied to MIT to please my dad and had fun with the application. I wrote essays describing being the only girl on the ultimate frisbee team, fried chicken and how sometimes swim practice felt like I was dying. I was surprised at my acceptance and visited the campus and it was exactly as I had expected it to be. I honestly don’t know what it was that ultimately pushed me to decide Notre Dame (maybe the work of the Holy Spirit?) but the one thing that I am sure of is that if I had gone to MIT I might never had made the switch to become the person I truly wanted to be: a Computer Scientist.

Even though many complain about the pace of the Notre Dame Computer Science degree and the engineering work in general, I knew that the set up of it worked to my advantage. There are very few degrees people can receive in which the bulk of your knowledge comes from solely what you learned at University and was not introduced at an earlier age. This was my saving grace because it made CS approachable and although I was intimidated by those with previous knowledge, I did not feel my professors present that kind of pressure.

I looked around one of my classes and realized that the distribution was about 25% female but looking around I knew every single girl in the class. One of the biggest parts about being a woman in this field is that it is more difficult to find a female role model or someone to help mentor or present what a possible path would look like for a woman in the field. Living in Lewis and being surrounded by women engineers was extremely helpful in creating an environment where I felt supported. I’m currently living with two female CSE majors and my best friend is also a CSE major; having these influences in my life has made it easier to feel included in the CS community and thus I have not feel like I’ve faced major barriers as a woman in CS at Notre Dame. As I read the articles and as I move into the workforce I do realize that I am privileged to attend Notre Dame and that the problem of diversity is very real and apparent.

The biggest problem and a barrier we must first overcome is to acknowledge that the problem does exist. I hear stories all the time about how communities are not supportive of women but also hear stories about how women are getting special treatment and critiques when efforts are made to single out women and make sure they feel included. The first question I had to ask myself is why is diversity necessary. It would be naive of me to say that the world operate in a fair and just manner and that each person in the world should be able to get what they deserve. I realized that diversity in the workplace, especially in technology, is important because as programmers we are crafting the future. The world is being consumed by technology at a rapid rate and it seems ridiculous to think that the people who are allowed to do that don’t represent the population they are targeting. A diverse workplace is the only way to solve the problems of a diverse world.

The argument that some companies use to address the problem in diversity by claiming that there are less applicants in minorities applying and that is why there are fewer does seem fair  but it is also an indicator that we need to tackle this problem at a lower level. Introducing coding at a younger age and encouraging women to take the field seriously and as legitimate options for their future.