Opportunities: Building Inclusion

Engineering the Future

The data are clear: Diverse teams make better decisions 66 percent of the time, and if you include diversity of age and geography, diverse teams make better decisions 87 percent of the time. And yet, diversity in engineering itself is lacking. How do we make engineering more inclusive?

In this episode, host Wanda Sigur will speak with Megan Smith, the CEO and founder of Shift 7 and the third chief technology officer of the United States, and with Dr. Gilda Barabino, the president of the Olin College of Engineering, about how we can widen our networks and include everyone on a team. They will speak about the work required at all levels of engineering to make sure that everyone is included.

For more information about the National Academy of Engineering, please see our website.

Guest Bios

Megan Smith is an award-winning entrepreneur, engineer, and tech evangelist. CEO and founder of shift7, a company working collaboratively on systemic social, environmental and economic problems -- finding opportunities to scout and scale promising solutions and solution makers and engage proven tech-forward, open, shareable practices to drive direct impact, together. Smith served as the third U.S. Chief Technology Officer and Assistant to the President from 2014-2017 -- working on issues from AI, data science and open source, to inclusive economic growth, entrepreneurship, structural inequalities, government tech innovation capacity, STEM/STEAM engagement, workforce development, and criminal justice reform. Smith spent over eleven years as vice president at Google leading new business development including acquisitions of Google Earth, Maps, Picasa, she led Google.org, co-created WomenTechmakers, and SolveforX. Earlier she was PlanetOut CEO, at General Magic where she worked on early smart phones, and Apple Japan. Board member of MIT, Vital Voices, LA Olympics 2028, Think of Us; Co-founder of the Malala Fund and UN Solutions Summit; Algorithmic Justice League advisor and member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Academy of Engineering.

Dr. Gilda A. Barabino is the second president of Olin College of Engineering. She served as Dean of the Grove School of Engineering at the City College of New York and held appointments in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering as well as at the City University of New York School of Medicine. Dr. Barabino has also held academic and administrative appointments at Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory University and Northeastern University. At Georgia Tech, she served as the inaugural vice provost for academic diversity, and at Northeastern, she served as vice provost for undergraduate education. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the Biomedical Engineering Society. She is Board Chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest interdisciplinary scientific society.