There has been a lot of talk lately about bias in computing code and artificial-intelligence models. It’s perhaps not surprising, considering the demographic skew in most companies that develop these technologies. The issue is inspiring new efforts to keep human bias out of tech companies and products.

VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab at Stanford University examines bias in hiring and promotion at tech companies. It strives to educate companies about how diverse teams can potentially result in greater creativity and build products better suited to a diverse market. Last year, VMware Inc. granted the lab a $15-million endowment to develop practical solutions to prevent bias and attrition of women in tech.

“You have a lot of research in the academy … and then you have a lot of innovative practices being tested, but without, necessarily, the research foundation and the research frameworks to truly evaluate it,” Caroline Simard (pictured, left), managing director of the lab. Simard and colleagues are working to bridge academic theory and real-world testing and implementations. It is designing “intervention” programs with companies. Their goal is to prevent attrition of women and other underrepresented groups.

Simard and Shannon Gilmartin (pictured, right), senior research scholar at the lab, spoke with Lisa Martin (@LisaMartinTV), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Women Transforming Technology Conference in Palo Alto, California. They discussed the effects of bias in product design and the lab’s work to study and prevent attrition of female technologists (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

Sifting through noise for evidence-based best practices

“Since the VMware endowment, we’ve been able to really grow in our aspirations and the kind of data and the kind of research questions that we can ask,” Simard said.

One such question is how different subgroups of women experience the tech industry. The researchers are examining data on promotions, salary, social connections, work assignments, etc. They’re seeking out qualitative, in-depth stories that tell why some women stay in tech and others don’t.

The lab is developing evidence-based practices to help companies hire, promote and grant assignments fairly, according to Simard. “Then we roll it out, and we test the outcomes pre and post. We’re doing a lot more work now to disseminate what we’re learning through these interventions so that other organizations can implement a very similar approach,” she said.

One surprisingly effective practice for affecting change in organizations is simply to listen to all voices present, Gilmartin pointed out. “This is a skill and a talent and a group practice that is … so infrequently done, so poorly done, sometimes, but really key in the face of those barriers,” she concluded. 

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Women Transforming Technology Conference. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Women Transforming Technology Conference event. Neither VMware Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE