The technology sector’s diversity problem has long been under scrutiny, yet it has managed to persist for decades as the industry experiences exponential growth through the proliferation of data and rapid consumer adoption. Despite both the ethical issues around tech’s lack of inclusion and the proven benefits of workforce diversity, women, people of color,\ and gender non-conforming individuals remain significantly underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM.

As tech’s impact scales, so does the danger of its unchecked homogeny, the ramifications of which can be seen vividly at both an individual and societal level.

“When it comes to building technology, right now the gatekeepers of tech are kind of a homogenous group [who] build tech solutions for the entire world,” said Alex Qin (pictured), director of technology at Gakko Inc. “But actually, the people who are best equipped to solve problems are those who have experienced them.”

Qin recently sat down with Lisa Martin, co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, and guest host John Troyer, chief reckoner at TechReckoning, during the DockerCon event in San Francisco.

With the insights gained from persevering through a career rife with prejudice, Qin is creating opportunities for marginalized groups to help close tech’s diversity gaps — and introduce some much-needed empathy into the powerfully trendsetting industry.

This week, theCUBE spotlights Alex Qin in its Women in Tech feature.

‘Tech isn’t the meritocracy that I thought it was’

When Qin initially joined her college’s engineering program with dreams of becoming an astronaut, she immediately fell in love with programming, despite the ever-present awareness that she was in the minority.

“As I entered the computer science world I realized … there’s not that many women here, and actually I’m treated very differently. … Because I loved it so much, I just kind of powered through,” she said.

In the academic and professional career that followed, Qin faced aggressive pushback to her progress from both teachers and contemporaries who constantly questioned her knowledge and abilities, and objectified her.

“People didn’t necessarily want to work with me, didn’t believe I was a good programmer, even though I was at the top of all my classes. … I couldn’t really escape the stigma attached to my gender in this field,” she said.

In her talk at DockerCon, entitled “Shaving My Head Made Me a Better Programmer,” Qin relays the appalling instances of sexual harassment and assault she’s experienced from men in tech throughout her career. After a number of incidents, one of her teams even decided Qin should be accompanied by a male chaperone at conferences to prevent against the targeted abuse she was receiving — a generosity laced with indignity for the professional.

“Nowhere felt safe. Not my job, not the tech world, not even code. … All this happened by age 22. I was one year into my career … just trying to do my job. … I seriously considered quitting programming and becoming one of the 50 percent of women in software who leave at some point in their career,” she said.

In an effort to forge a community and find ways to combat these issues, Qin began meeting with other women in the field who offered advice that included shaving her head to repress the physical femininity that appeared to be hindering her. The haircut succeeded in curbing her objectification, and for the first time Qin’s skills were valued by the industry at large, concretely proving her theory that the issue was rooted in the heavily biased perceptions pervasive in tech.

The revelation that these challenges were systemic encouraged Qin to build a new mission through tech.“When I realized that tech isn’t the meritocracy that I thought it was, I started on this new quest to make tech as diverse and inclusive as possible so that people from all backgrounds, all genders can learn to code … happily and safely,” she said.

Encouraging students to build tech for a better world

A homogenous workforce leads to dangerous blindspots, both in industry culture and the products and services it creates. While tech’s impact is scaling globally its internal representation remains shockingly low, an oversight that must be corrected to ensure corporate responsibility, according to Qin.

“Technology is a part of everything we do. It shapes how we interact with the world and each other. … The people who are building the technology we use every day have a huge impact on our how we live our lives and on our future,” she said.

Qin began her work expanding opportunities for underrepresented communities through initiatives like C4Q, an intensive technical job training program for low-income adults, and Skillshare Inc., where she focused on diversity hiring and built an engineering team of 40 percent women and 60 percent people of color. Qin extended her support to underrepresented youths through mentorship initiatives like Technovation, where she fostered innovation in teen girls like Priya Mittal, who have gone on to leverage those learnings into promising STEM careers.

Today Qin shares her insights with students at Gakko, a global education and design studio that hosts experimental education programs, including camps, coding and music classes, and builds experimental education technologies to reclaim the magic of learning for early learners aged three to five.

“We build beautiful story- and art-driven apps for kids … to be able to spend time more thoughtfully on tablets, Qin said. “They’re learning, it’s artful, it’s thoughtfully built.”

In addition to supporting young learners in their tech journeys, Qin is encouraging formerly incarcerated adults to venture into STEM through her program The Code Cooperative. “It’s an organization that teaches formerly incarcerated individuals computer literacy and coding so that they can build websites and technical solutions to the problems they’ve identified in the criminal justice system,” she said.

The Code Cooperative is completely donation based, giving students an accessible opportunity to learn digital skills as a pathway to equity and better work opportunities, as well as identify and develop solutions for the unique issues they’ve experienced. All the curriculum Qin develops are designed with empathy in mind, encouraging students to build tech for a better world.

Coding as an ethical endeavor

Representation is the overarching mission in all of Qin’s work, as a means toward both inspiring others to see themselves in tech and creating more equitable technology that serves the world at large.

“We teach our students how to code as an ethical endeavor … [how] to measure the ethical ramifications of their decisions when they build software so that hopefully the technologists of tomorrow … build code in a way that is best for humanity,” she said “They build code with empathy.”

The programmer also emphasizes the importance of diversity in her internal hiring practices and is pushing for other companies to do the same. “There’s a lot of candidates who fit this … homogenous image of what a programmer is, and so it can be easy sometimes to … just hire this person,” she said. “But in order to actually make a change you need to commit and … not compromise on the goals that we’ve set.”

Despite the long uphill battle to tech inclusion and the threat posed by a continued disregard to diversity, Qin’s work mentoring tomorrow’s talent helps her maintain an optimism around the possibilities for the industry.

“These kids are just coming up with the most beautiful solutions, more brilliant than any adult that I’ve met,” she said “I feel good about the future.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the DockerCon event:

Photo: SiliconANGLE