It may come as a surprise that Brenda Darden Wilkerson (pictured), the new president and chief executive officer of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, wound up in tech by accident. But, according to Wilkerson, this is a common scenario for women who work in computing. For years, she’s worked to change that through exposure and education initiatives.

“I only learned about computer science accidentally,” said Wilkerson, who entered university as a pre-med major. Wilkerson subsequently built her career on that accident, working first as a software entrepreneur and then as an educational administrator. She is known for her work mandating computer science training in Chicago Public Schools.

Wilkerson spoke with Rebecca Knight (@knightrm) and Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during today’s Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Orlando, Florida.

While lobbying on Capital Hill to make computer science a core requirement, Wilkerson had a chance encounter with a college-aged woman with a story similar to her own; she’d fallen into technology by accident. “I thought, how can this still be happening?” she said.

Tech for all; all for tech

Wilkerson has since doubled down on her efforts to expose the general population to computer science. She believes that students should begin computer science training as early as kindergarten.

“I’ve seen girls, many times, that have been talked out of getting into a technical field,” Wilkerson said. Through early exposure, young girls (and boys) can see that information technology is for them — not just a micro-elite of nerds, she added.

Wilkerson is bringing her passion to democratize tech to her new station as Anita Borg president. “I really want to think about how we dig into intersectionality.” she said.

The institute will be reaching out to partners and individuals in tech and non-tech industries “so that more people that bring their unique lenses and experiences can help us create solutions, products, services that serve better,” Wilkerson concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.

Photo: SiliconANGLE