Seite 2: Teaching STEM at schools

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Is there a way to give more people the opportunity to have a head start to get into tech and related jobs?

Honestly, my biggest worry is that we are still not teaching society to be more oriented towards science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. STEM programs are not embedded enough into our school system. I see this with my own children. It hurts me almost physically that their science class doesn't have enough experimentation. There's not enough things to play with and break. There's not enough teachers to take the time to set up an experiment and then just try it out. I think this playful attitude is the thing that we need.

Think about how many pupils in high schools learn how to code. You have French, English, German and Spanish as languages. Why don't we structurally, from a national program say: Everyone, when they graduate high school, must be able to speak at least one computer language. Whether that's Python or C or whatever. You have to have a sort of minimum level. We have this for English. Why shouldn't we have this for coding?

Talking about opportunity: especially women often have to decide between family and their job. How can people combine the wish for children and a family with a high tier, high end job?

I have three children, I've always had high end high tier jobs. I have an amazing husband and we really do approach it as sort of mini corporation. It's a task to do. I do think though that there is this thing that is actually making life more difficult: it is this whole notion of work life balance. I have to tell you that that notion is broken. There is no balance. There's either work or there is life. You are either with your children or you're at the office.

What I try to do is when I am at home, I am fully present. So when my children are talking to me, I don't check my emails in the background. When I'm with them I try to just be with them. To make eye contact, to play whatever we're playing or talk about whatever we're talking about. And that is the only thing I think we should do. And when I'm at work, I am all-in at work. I don't want to hear the "Ah he's hitting me." or "She ate all the peanut butter." I don't have time for that. So I am really all about work or all about life, but I cannot do both at the same time.

Do you think that job sharing is a good way to tackle this problem?

I think that if employers are struggling, there's other things to do. If we were selfless and egoless and everyone could share everything, I think would be beautiful society. Unfortunately it is not the one we live in. So I don't know that I would want to share my job to be very honest with you. That being said, I think that for companies there's other ways to make it more easy for families. I'm not just talking about mothers, I am talking about fathers too. To make it so people are able to have families next to their jobs.

I think the work life balance is almost forced down our throats, thanks to Covid. We were suddenly at home and met our children again. That that ability to be able to work from anywhere that cognizance that it's possible and that it's actually quite healthy to take a walk in the middle of the day with the dog - I think this is a really good thing. Companies should think about how do I make sure that this is facilitated for the long term and wasn't an anomaly during Covid. That we actually say: This is the most intelligent way for people to live on this planet. Let's adopt that. That's the first step.

The second one is perhaps having day care facilities in the office. If you demand that employees are in the office, try to examine how you then accommodate them. What kind of additional facilities do you have in the office to make sure that they can balance job and family well? I genuinely believe that people want to do their best for you. They want to be amazing, not just as employees, but they also want to be amazing mothers and fathers. And so if they want to do their best, why don't we enable them to do just that?

If people want to do their best, they sometimes only look at themselves. How do you perceive competition, especially between men and women in IT Security?

I'm all for competition. I never want to be hired for a job because of the gender I have or the color of my skin. Those are two things, I had no influence over. They were given. Unfortunately, I feel that very often, they worked to my disadvantage. People are less able to see me from my actual qualities and the decisions I make or the way that I think. That's the only thing that I really care about, because that I can influence. So, I'd rather have that they hire me because I'm the best person for the job.

You describe that you don't want to be judged by the color of your skin or your gender. But that probably happened at some point in your career. What helped you in such situations?

The truth is, it very often worked to my disadvantage. I think people automatically assume and that I am a secretary rather than the engineer in the room. They automatically assume that I don't know about the newest greatest thing. I actually think another thing is going to be on me soon, which is ageism. So I think I'm going to have to deal with all kinds of -isms in my life. The sexism, the racism and the ageism. And if we just get rid of the -isms, we would be so much happier. If we could again focus on creating an advanced society, if we could focus on getting off this planet or fixing it. I would rather focus on ideas and things we could do than necessarily the -isms that we unfortunately have labelled to us.

In which way can women assert themselves if they get a hard time by their colleagues, especially male colleagues?

I think the biggest thing is to find your allies. And that's not just women. I don't think that we can fix this problem with just women. Let me be clear: I'm not asking for women only societies where we have only women and their female role models. I don't think it works. I think you need men to be as equally if not more engaged and understand that only with a diverse team you will make the best decisions, the best product, the best team that can adapt to change.

Competition is not just between men and women. Competition is a global phenomenon. If we really want to do better, then we need to get out of our narrow minded naval staring, our: How can I compete with this person? We need to think much bigger. In order to compete on this national or international level, you have to know that those teams are focused on all types of diversit. Not just gender diversity, but even neurodiversity. And in order to get up there, you need to start at the root of the problem.

Ms. Baloo, thank you for your time.

Further information on the role of women for the history of IT is provided by this english interview podcast. The current german issue of MIT Technology Review (08/2022) also describes the broader picture of women in IT and science. (pst)