Chief Executive Officer, WPP plc
Interview with Cindy Rose, CEO, Microsoft UK
www.londontechweek.com.
About Cindy Rose
In a 2018 interview during London Tech Week, Cindy Rose, then CEO of Microsoft UK, discussed the company's role in the UK's technology sector and its approach to artificial intelligence. Rose stated that Microsoft's philosophy behind AI is "about augmenting human ingenuity," adding that "AI and humans working together can achieve much more than humans working on their own." She also described the company's publication of a book titled "Future Computed," which she said sets out AI principles for "designing, developing, deploying AI in a way that's responsible and ethical." Rose advocated for AI practitioners to adopt a "Hippocratic oath like doctors do to do no harm." Rose also addressed efforts to close the skills gap and increase diversity in the tech industry. She said Microsoft had taken public commitments including "working with children to inspire them to choose a career in technology by exposing them to coding," providing technical apprenticeship opportunities, and reskilling people already in the workforce, particularly in the public sector. Rose noted that she personally visits schools to speak with girls around age 11 or 12, as research indicates they make decisions about entering the field at that age, and she stated that over 100 of her employees had signed up to do the same.
Transcript (13 segments)
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Neal0:05
So we're here at the leaders in tech summit with Cindy Rose of Microsoft UK. It's great to meet you and great to have you here. Thank you. You're the headline sponsors of this event. Why London Tech Week or widely?
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Cindy Rose0:18
Well, thank you for having me. We're really proud to be headline sponsors this year for London Tech Week, and I think the event gets bigger and better every year. It's a really important event for us. You know, London is one of the technology centres of excellence in the world, and this is a week-long event where we can come together as a community and celebrate that fact and figure out collectively how we ensure that the UK remains at the forefront as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the AI revolution, whatever you want to call it, really evolves. And so that makes this a very special event for us. I was at the launch event yesterday with the mayor and a roomful of students who are studying tech, and it was a very special event.
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Neal1:08
So what makes London and the UK such a hotbed for technology?
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Cindy Rose1:10
London in the UK has always been a hotbed for technology since the days of Alan Turing code-breaking in Bletchley Park. But you know, this was our first outpost as Microsoft. We've been here for 30 years. We've invested in multiple data centers. We're investing in a store on Oxford Street. We've set up a Reactor to work with startups and scale-ups. We've got an R&D centre in Cambridge. So we continue to invest, and we continue to see this as an incredible opportunity for us to grow our business.
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Neal1:43
So you talked a lot about AI and your developments there, and the need to be ethical about that. Can you elaborate? I mean, what is your philosophy behind AI?
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Cindy Rose1:51
Well, our philosophy behind AI is really about augmenting human ingenuity. So we really believe that AI and humans working together can achieve much more than humans working on their own. And you know, we see huge opportunity for enterprise, commercial, and public sector to embrace AI to drive transformation within their organizations: how they relate to their customers, how they empower their employees, how they do their business and their products and services as well. But we think that with that opportunity comes a huge amount of responsibility – responsibility to ensure that we're bringing along the next generation, that we're reskilling the workforce with 21st century digital skills, responsibility to be ethical, responsibility to be responsible, and make sure that the AI is accountable, transparent. All of those things are incredibly important. We have to go into this new age in a way that people trust the technology, so that it's principled.
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Neal2:58
And you mentioned that you're encouraging practitioners in AI to take a note similar to that which doctors do in the Hippocratic oath. Can you talk a little bit about that?
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Cindy Rose3:10
Yeah, we recently published a book called 'Future Computed,' and it sets out our AI principles for designing, developing, deploying AI in a way that's responsible and ethical. And one of the things we advocate, as you say, Neal, is that AI practitioners adopt a sort of Hippocratic oath, like doctors do, to do no harm, because we really feel that AI should be used as a force for good. And that's what that is about. And we encourage all of our customers and partners to think about, as they embrace AI, what principles and ethics are they going to apply, and how are they going to put safeguards in place to ensure that it's a force for good.
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Neal3:48
You mentioned skills. Is that – I know Microsoft is doing a lot of work with encouraging that or closing that skills gap. What is it that we need to do as a tech industry to make sure that we've got the skills for the jobs of tomorrow?
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Cindy Rose4:04
Yeah, I think in some cases we don't even know what the jobs of tomorrow are. I mean, we did a piece of research recently that said 65% of today's students will be doing jobs that don't even exist today. So we've taken a number of public commitments. They're really around working with children to inspire them to choose a career in technology by exposing them to coding. We've taken a commitment to provide technical apprenticeship opportunities to young people. But what we've also committed to is reskilling people that are already in the workforce, even IT professionals who need to develop their cloud technology skills, their AI skills, and in particular in the public sector, we've taken commitments to train those folks as well. So I think the rest of the industry could do the same, working of course with government and with educators. It's a partnership.
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Neal4:58
But then of course, the other thing that's high on the agenda is getting more women into tech roles. I mean, obviously yourself, you are the leader of a very well known American diverse company. How can we go about encouraging more women or young girls into technology roles?
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Cindy Rose5:13
Yeah, that's a big, big subject. It's one I'm very passionate about, one we talk about a lot. And you know, the easy answer is there's no easy answer. There are a lot of different things that companies need to do in order to attract more women in, make them feel welcome, ensure that the industry feels relevant, and that they stay. And I think one of the things that I do is I go into schools and I speak to girls 11, 12 – that sort of age. Again, our research shows that girls that age are making decisions about whether they're in or out, and you have to get them at that point in their evolution, their growth, in order to really inspire them. I think unfortunately the industry has some misperceptions that leave girls to feel like it's not for them, it's not fun, it's not creative, it's not impactful, and the reality is nothing could be further from the truth. So I go into a lot of schools, I talk to a lot of girls, but just scaling that out – I've got over 100 of my employees signed up to do the same. We run a digital program where we invite hundreds, actually thousands, of girls to our headquarters. We expose them to coding, they get to see what a day in the life of a Microsoft executive looks like, feels like, and they leave us feeling inspired, and we are inspired by them. So I just think more and more of that.
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Neal6:43
Pretty Cindy, thank you very much.