Many businesses find themselves on the brink of being monocultural. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. (HPE) is fighting that trend with several diversity initiatives. The company is working on acknowledging team members who do not have a digital footprint, like project organizers.

Allison Randal, distinguished technologist at HPE and board member of the OpenStack Foundation, talked with John Walls and Brian Gracely (@bgracely), cohosts of theCUBE, from SiliconANGLE Media team, during OpenStack 2016 in Austin, Texas. Diversity seems to be a career path for Randal, who has been coding since she was a child. In addition to her duties at HPE and OpenStack, she is a research linguist.

Taking an active role in diversity

Randal’s perspective on monocultural workplaces is that those companies are only getting “half, one-quarter, or less” of diversity potential. To that end, Randal looks at OpenStack as a “commons” or as an “open door” for vendors, customers and developers to walk through.

She warned Walls and Gracely that companies “cannot sit back” and “expect everything to grow in a healthy way.” OpenStack is about “access and innovation” but “customers come in on different levels.” Randal broke these levels out into three rungs: getting open source, effective engagement and “sustainable forest.”

During the interview, Randal also discussed the impact the Women of OpenStack initiative has made on the industry.

And regarding HPE as a 75-year-old company, Randal remarked it is “not as traditional” as its age implies. Certainly, with these compelling diversity initiatives, including mentoring students, we will be seeing diversity continuing to expand at HPE, as well as throughout the industry.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of OpenStack Summit — Austin. And make sure to weigh in during theCUBE’s live coverage at the event by joining in on CrowdChat.

Photo by SiliconANGLE