Jacqueline de Rojas

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs Podcast. Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book, and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:42

My castaway this week is Jacqueline de Rochas, one of the most influential women in the digital sector. She's been described as a titan of tech. She began her career as a troubleshooter for blue chip companies in the mid-1980s. These days she is President of Tech UK, the body representing 900 companies in the digital sector, and last year she received a CBE for her contribution to the industry.

Presenter1:06

In twenty nineteen even the Luddites among us are starting to understand how crucial to the country's fortunes tech is. It's growing twice as fast as the wider economy and is worth around one hundred eighty four billion pounds a year. So how do we make sure this vital economic organ remains in rude health, especially as it's one of the few sectors where job supply outstrips demand?

Presenter1:27

Well, the woman who speaks on its behalf wants to open it up to women and BAME workers, but also to those returning to work, to people with caring commitments, autism spectrum disorders, and to ex-service personnel. She says, Technology can be the great equalizer. It shouldn't matter who you are, where you're from, or what resources you have access to. Tech presents an immense opportunity, providing you have the skills, imaginations can run wild, and boundaries no longer exist. Jacqueline DeRochas, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Jacqueline de Rojas1:59

Thank you.

Presenter1:59

So I quoted you there saying that tech can be the great equalizer rather than it is a small but crucial difference there.

Jacqueline de Rojas2:07

Yeah, I think that's true. It's your opportunity to grasp, isn't it? And I think we as a country have been probably the most prolific country in terms of digital adoption. We're the biggest e-commerce market in the world aside from America and China. And you think, wow, okay, if we can create an e-commerce opportunity as users that way, then surely we can also create that as constructors of technology and innovation.

Presenter2:32

You became President of Tech UK in 2015 and have called diversity and inclusion your favourite subjects, so let's talk about them. Women make up less than a quarter of the UK's tech workforce, occupy fewer than one in ten leadership roles. There is a huge gender gap there. How do we begin to tackle it?

Jacqueline de Rojas2:52

It wasn't always this way, you know. You look at NASA, and we had.

Jacqueline de Rojas2:57

female computer programs. In fact, it was the domain of women, so we lost it. And we have come to a place where 17% of women in tech, 10% in cyber, 6% in engineering is absolutely unacceptable. And certainly when I look at the industry today, women are not attracted or inspired by it necessarily. And I think it's because it's the domain of men or a male culture.

Presenter3:26

And where did that come from? You said we had it and then we lost it? I mean, how?

Jacqueline de Rojas3:29

Yeah, I think honestly it's probably the advent of the first personal computer. All of the advertising was super male dominated and it started to become very much a male thing to have a PC and women just suddenly weren't attracted to using the computer. It was the domain of men. So what's the answer then? How do we start to change the culture? I don't think there's only one answer. Firstly, I would say we need to inspire girls at a much younger age. If we were starting a football team of significance, we would scout at age five, six. But in tech, we expect people to rock up fully formed at aged 18 plus. And I think we need to scout much younger. It's time to go to the music, Jacqueline. Tell us about your first disc today. My first disc is This Girl is On Fire by Alicia Keys. And the reason I chose it is I am not great at acknowledging compliments. And I'm much better at giving than receiving, I would say. So having grown up in a male-dominated technology industry, I spent my career striving to equal the playing field for women. And this for me is my girl and them.

Speaker 14:47

You can try but you'll never forget partner

Speaker 34:51

Uh

Speaker 34:52

She's on top of the world.

Speaker 34:55

Hottest of the hottest girls say oh

Speaker 15:01

Beat on the

Speaker 15:03

Put it down.

Presenter5:14

Back and down.

Presenter5:17

Oh, this girl is on fire. Absolutely fantastic. Alicia Keys, girl on fire. Jacqueline DeRuccus. BAME representation is another large part of what's been called the diversity deficit. According to one recent report, just eight percent of senior leaders are from a minority background. How do you feel about that statistic?

Presenter5:36

Uh

Jacqueline de Rojas5:37

I think it's depressing, frankly. We have one in four of our students are from ethnic backgrounds, and yet we don't see that reflected in the workforce. So we're quite happy to educate, but we're not quite so happy to employ, you know, and especially at leadership levels. So we definitely need to have more leaders who look like the people we want to attract. You know, there is a question of do we need to put some quotas in there for diversity? I'd like to see short lists for diverse candidates so that we have a complete line-up of all voices in the room. The question to ask ourselves is where are the others? When I join a board or I join a team, the first thing I do is take a mental photograph of the team at the top and a mental photograph of the team at the bottom and a mental photograph of the market. And if there's a mismatch, it's pretty obvious.

Presenter6:29

You're a member of the Government's Digital Economy Council, and you advise the business part of Government about what your industry needs. And as we're talking today, Brexit is five weeks away, and things are still quite unclear. But as things stand, what are your thoughts about the potential impact of Brexit?

Jacqueline de Rojas6:45

We certainly need certainty. We need to be able to make preparations for whether we are going to go it alone or not. The one thing we have an advantage in the technology sector is that we have a mobile and flexible workforce, so we can work wherever we are. On the other hand, we do need to have trade deals in terms of data, and we need to have agreements in terms of security. And I think perhaps our biggest issue is access to talent.

Jacqueline de Rojas7:13

If the borders are arguably closing and our domestic talent pipeline is quite low, then we need to figure out how we're going to create more opportunity inside the country by getting more talent into the country post-Brexit. That is probably our biggest challenge. Tell us about your second disc. Why have you chosen this? Sugar Sugar by the Archies. It just reminds me of childhood. I remember living in a council estate in Swindon and a young lad called Stuart who sat on the washing line walls, communal washing line walls, and he would belt out this song and it just feels to me like the mournful cry of a young man wanting to be something more than he was and that's exactly where I was at that time.

Presenter8:00

Sugar.

Presenter8:04

Honey, honey

Presenter8:07

You are my candy girl

Presenter8:11

You got me wanting

Presenter8:16

Honey

Presenter8:19

Oh, sugar, sugar You're my candy girl

Presenter8:26

And you got me wanting

Presenter8:31

Sugar Sugar by The Archies. Jacqueline de Rochesse, you were born Jacqueline Yoo in nineteen sixty two in Folkestone, in Kent. What sort of childhood did you have?

Jacqueline de Rojas8:40

Uh

Jacqueline de Rojas8:41

Yeah.

Presenter8:41

I was

Jacqueline de Rojas8:41

I was brought up above my father's Chinese restaurant in the High Street in Folkestone and he was a violent man. So my mother was a punchbag for whenever things went wrong for him. And I didn't want to be the person that he focused his attention on. So I think I spent my childhood being quite insignificant on purpose. We were quite religious. We went to church a lot. I think probably more out of safety and security than anything else. But it was a miserable childhood. And I think you build a sort of resilience around yourself, which means that you don't often ask for help. And that has carried with me right throughout my adult life.

Presenter9:25

In 1966 you moved to Swindon, your mother managed to get away, how did that happen?

Jacqueline de Rojas9:31

The Catholic priest Father Walmsley gave her money to escape, and we packed our bags and we ran away to my mother's parents, and my mother remarried a few years later to my stepfather.

Presenter9:46

And was that a happier situation for you to be in?

Jacqueline de Rojas9:49

It was happy for my mother because she found someone who would take on two half Chinese children and her. He was not a very fatherly stepfather, and that made life very tricky.

Presenter10:00

So you had a lot of challenges going on and how would you describe yourself as a child? I think I was

Jacqueline de Rojas10:06

I was very good at school. I loved the structure of school. I was smarter than I wanted to reveal, I think. When I was 16, I had my GCSE results in my hand, and my stepfather took them out of my hand and he opened them. He wasn't particularly well educated himself. And he said, What are you trying to do? Are you trying to show me up? You've done well. Yeah, and in that moment, I think there are times when there is a fork in the road. And for me, it was that moment where I thought, yes, I am going to show you how much potential I can unlock.

Presenter10:45

So who helped you during these difficult times? Because it sounds like an experience where you weren't pretty isolated.

Jacqueline de Rojas10:51

I flew into the arms of my teaching staff, I think, at school. So I loved my netball teacher, misses Culling, and I loved the nuns at school. It felt very safe to be there.

Presenter11:05

Nuns are interesting, aren't they, as role models? Single, educated women. Did you aspire to be in higher education, to go into higher education?

Jacqueline de Rojas11:14

I didn't, but I did always think I should be a nun so I could get rid of my Chinese surname and stop the bullying. Um I did sort of think wouldn't it be great to be called Sister Jacqueline? Tell me about the bullying. Well, when you've got a surname like you, you can imagine it was or you come here and, you know, in the playground. It was incessant, actually. And in the end it was just white noise and I blocked it out. But it was tough. My brother and I were the only half Chinese children in the school. I didn't realize I was half Chinese until I actually got

Presenter11:43

To school. It's time for your next track. It's your third disc today. Tell me about this one, Jacqueline. Why have you chosen it? So I've.

Jacqueline de Rojas11:49

Chosen China Girl by David Bowie, firstly because I didn't realise I was Chinese until I went to school, so it it's kind of my own personal anthem if you like, but also because David Bowie is someone who has reinvented himself so many times in such great ways and radical ways and I rather feel that I have also done that in my life.

Jacqueline de Rojas12:28

I could escape this feeling.

Jacqueline de Rojas12:32

My child girl

Jacqueline de Rojas12:36

I feel a wreck without my little child.

Speaker 112:42

I hear her heart.

Presenter12:45

China Girl by David Bowie. I believe Jacqueline DeRoca. That also takes you back to a short dabbling with punk, with a punk look for you.

Jacqueline de Rojas12:54

I did have a very short period where I was totally in love with punk music and I did dress as a punk for a while. Spiky hair. Spiky hair, but I could put it down when I

Jacqueline de Rojas13:06

Uh

Presenter13:06

Yeah.

Presenter13:07

Very sensible.

Presenter13:09

So, Jacqueline de Rochas, in nineteen eighty you began your university education with a course in business, and that took you to South Germany. Where did you get the confidence to apply to study abroad from?

Presenter13:21

Actually

Jacqueline de Rojas13:21

If I'm absolutely honest, it was about how could I get as far away from home as possible. And I literally found a leaflet in the library and it said, Would you like to study for a degree in European business? I didn't really know what Europe was then. And it also said, Would you be prepared to study for a couple of years overseas? And I thought, wow, this is actually also a major opportunity for me and to completely change my surroundings. So I thought, yeah, let's do it. I was quite brave, I thought.

Presenter13:55

Were you apprehensive about being there on your own?

Jacqueline de Rojas13:57

No, I wasn't apprehensive about that. I had applied to go to the Champagne region of France to do my degree, but of course I did tick the little box which said if I didn't get that course would I also be prepared to go to Germany? And it was nothing like my vision of what university was going to be like. In what way was it different? Well it was different because it was very Germanic and not very French and I had this romantic notion that I was going to sort of have fears and fly through university.

Presenter14:25

Reading books under trees, that kind of thing.

Jacqueline de Rojas14:26

Exactly. And it wasn't like that. No, it was sauerkraut and sausages. When I got there, I don't know why I thought this, but I thought only the German language lecture was going to be entirely in German. And when I realised that also productions, management, marketing, and everything else was in German, that was a bit of a shock. Yeah, and I. Peep. Uh

Presenter14:46

Whistle.

Jacqueline de Rojas14:46

What?

Presenter14:47

Yeah.

Presenter14:47

A great deal happened in your life in the mid eighties after university. You got your first job in tech, you got married, so you became Jacqueline Jones. It sounds like life was coming together very quickly. How did that feel from your point of view?

Jacqueline de Rojas15:01

What I wanted to do when I first came back to London was I wanted to be a newscaster on the BBC. That was my big ambition.

Jacqueline de Rojas15:09

Sadly they didn't come knocking and I've to this day I cannot

Jacqueline de Rojas15:12

Understand why.

Presenter15:13

Maybe today's the day. You should walk through that department on the way out.

Jacqueline de Rojas15:17

Maybe today is the day. But what happened was I was offered a job in technology recruitment and I took it and grasped it with both hands and I loved it actually. I loved putting people into technology roles and after two years I went to work for my largest client. Your biggest ambition though to be a newsreader, why? I thought it would be so interesting to declare something of significance on the news. I don't know, declare peace or maybe even war. I don't know. I always thought newscasters were great storytellers and to me storytelling really matters. Time to go with the music, Jacqueline. Tell us about the next piece we're going to hear. My fourth disc is Lily Was Here. It's an instrumental with Dave Stewart and an amazing saxophonist. And I just love the interplay of where the guitar speaks, the saxophone responds. And I am an aspiring saxophonist myself. So I love, love, love this piece.

Presenter16:53

Lily was here by Dave Stewart with Candy Dolpher on Sacks. Jacqueline DeRoccaus, you started in tech recruitment and then moved to a British software company that needed a German speaker. And it was there that you really discovered what you were good at, troubleshooting.

Jacqueline de Rojas17:08

Yes, I really went through a very long period of self-reflection and I asked myself a simple question which was what am I really good at? And when I stripped everything away and bored it all down, I thought actually I'm great at solving problems. But more than that, it was about the ability to see friction in the system. For example, communication. Mostly when there is friction in conversation, it's because the other person simply wants to be heard. And I think when you give people space, you can give them space to be amazing. And I created that environment. And I am so grateful that I branded myself that way in this industry because it's given me so much opportunity.

Presenter17:54

Uh

Presenter17:55

By nineteen ninety nine you were in a senior position at quite a large company and you had a decade of experience under your belt, but when you went for a promotion that you felt you were more than qualified for, you were turned down. Why?

Jacqueline de Rojas18:06

Uh

Jacqueline de Rojas18:07

Yeah.

Presenter18:07

Well

Jacqueline de Rojas18:07

I was told, well I asked for feedback actually and I was told, Jacqueline, we simply don't have women on the leadership team.

Jacqueline de Rojas18:16

And yes, that w that was a really big moment. And I'm a big believer in there is always a miracle if you look hard enough. And I had to look pretty hard in this scenario. And what I realized was that actually the miracle here

Jacqueline de Rojas18:32

was at least he told me. Because if I'd been there for another five years banging my head against the glass ceiling, I think I would have been distraught. So I went and got myself a job as a managing director somewhere else. And what was really funny, I then suffered from imposter syndrome because I got a job as a managing director. And then I sat in this big office with an assistant outside, a bar in the corner and a big boardroom table inside my office. And I thought, God, I don't actually know what a managing director does.

Jacqueline de Rojas19:05

And so I made the decision that what I was going to do was every time someone came in and asked me to make a decision about something, I would say no and ask for more information.

Jacqueline de Rojas19:16

How did that work out as a strategy? It worked out really well because I then got into asking very basic questions like.

Presenter19:17

Yeah.

Jacqueline de Rojas19:23

What outcome are you looking for? Why are you here? What are you trying to create? And so it served me well to be more consultative.

Presenter19:32

It's time to go to the music. Your fifth disc today, tell us about this one.

Jacqueline de Rojas19:35

This is for my daughter Stephanie. Roberta Flack, the first time ever I saw your face, because I remember having to grow up pretty quickly when I realised that I was now looking after this little bundle of joy. And she lay there looking at me and I just fell totally, deeply, completely in love with her.

Speaker 320:02

The first

Speaker 320:08

Ever I saw your face

Speaker 120:18

Thought

Jacqueline de Rojas20:19

The Sun

Jacqueline de Rojas20:24

Rose in your eye

Presenter20:35

Yeah.

Jacqueline de Rojas20:35

And the move

Speaker 120:38

Ooh like a

Jacqueline de Rojas20:38

Stop

Presenter20:39

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face by Roberta Flack, a beautiful song, Jacqueline DeRoches, for your daughter who's grown up loving music.

Jacqueline de Rojas20:47

She absolutely has. She's performing as Carmen in Fame, the musical, so I am so proud of her.

Presenter20:55

So your daughter was born during your second marriage, and that's where your surname comes from? My Colombian.

Jacqueline de Rojas21:00

My Colombian husband, yeah, who was my best friend and still is. So we had a delightfully short and crazy time salsering our way through the nineties.

Presenter21:13

By 1999, after a bit of salsaing, you were Managing Director at Informix. What sort of manager were you back then?

Jacqueline de Rojas21:19

Gosh, I would say there's probably people out there who wish they hadn't worked for me. I was a bit of an AlphaZilla, I would say. An AlphaZilla. Thinking I had to behave like a man in order to make it. And I was very directional. I was very clear about how we were going to grow and scale the business. Probably all the great ideas came from me. I learnt that I didn't need to be quite that aggressive. I had to let other people in and that maybe soft edges would serve me better.

Presenter21:54

And how important is preparation to you? I mean, obviously, doing a lot of self development, thinking about the way that you present yourself in a work context. Not everybody does all of those things. Is that a character trait of yours?

Jacqueline de Rojas22:06

I love to think that I do things effortlessly, elegantly, but that's an aspiration. What actually happens behind the scenes is I do an awful lot of preparation. And I think that's because my fear of failure is so incredibly high.

Presenter22:23

And does it ever hamper you, that that fear of failure?

Jacqueline de Rojas22:26

Yeah.

Jacqueline de Rojas22:27

Of course, because sometimes I don't take risks, I don't take risks soon enough, absolutely, of course it does. But I also think that perhaps when I put that hand in hand with my resilience, if I prepare and I do for some reason not get it right, I also have this opportunity to reframe it as a learning. So it never really manifests itself as failure.

Presenter22:53

A quote from you, Jacqueline DeRoccas I worship at the altar of efficiency. How close, I wonder, have you come to the Holy Grail?

Jacqueline de Rojas23:01

Gosh, efficiency is just my Bible, really, honestly. I can't bear it if someone walks past the ironing left at the bottom of the stairs at home. Why would anyone walk past that? Why would you not do something immediately? And so, yeah, I do worship at that altar, and I wished everyone else in my household also worshipped at that altar.

Presenter23:22

Don't They

Jacqueline de Rojas23:23

No

Presenter23:24

Yeah.

Jacqueline de Rojas23:24

And how do they feel about your religious proclivities, reefficiency? Um they love poking me in the eye, frankly, and they will walk past it specifically because I say don't walk past it.

Presenter23:30

Frankly.

Jacqueline de Rojas23:35

Time for some music, this is your sixth disc to do.

Jacqueline de Rojas23:40

My

Jacqueline de Rojas23:42

Mother is one of my biggest role models and this is for her. She has dementia.

Jacqueline de Rojas23:50

So I find that quite difficult to talk about. Not because

Jacqueline de Rojas23:55

I don't want to recognize her, but I've I find it hard not to have her the way she was. So this is for her.

Speaker 124:03

Finest Jews I ever knew

Speaker 124:09

For all the years I had with you

Speaker 124:13

And I would give anything I hope.

Speaker 124:19

He broke my life, my heart.

Speaker 124:22

My own

Speaker 124:24

I wish you everything I know.

Speaker 124:31

Just to have you.

Presenter24:34

Yeah.

Presenter24:38

Everything I own, buy bread for your mum, Jacqueline DeRocas. So many of the big conversations in tech at the moment are around AI, and this is an area where you see diversity as being extremely and particularly important. Why?

Jacqueline de Rojas24:54

Algorithms are making decisions about so many things for us today, whether you get a mortgage, whether you get a place at university, whether you get benefits. These are all decided by algorithms, machines, robots, whatever you want to call them. And we've got to decide who regulates, who says that the algorithm is safe or not. And my contention, which was helped by Dr Larissa Suzuki, a very young data scientist, who said to me, well, the only way is not to regulate through government policy necessarily because we're creating too much of AI too quickly. The only way to properly regulate is to have all our voices at the table so that we all do the right thing for everybody. And that's why diversity in technology really matters.

Presenter25:49

And what would you say to someone listening to this thinking, oh, I don't care who designs the tech that I use? I mean, it's not if I can see them. You know, what difference does it make to me? What would you say to them?

Jacqueline de Rojas25:58

Well, I would say, you know, for example, when the seat belt was invented, women and children died, and they died because it was invented by men of a certain weight and height. That's why it matters.

Presenter26:08

Now recently, we heard Facebook described in a Parliamentary Committee report as digital gangsters, and day after day we hear these headlines about fake news, misuse of data, grooming, that's online abuse of MPs. How do you think your industry should respond to these criticisms and to calls for increased regulation?

Jacqueline de Rojas26:26

Yeah.

Jacqueline de Rojas26:27

Yeah. Yeah.

Presenter26:27

What

Jacqueline de Rojas26:27

Well, thankfully, Facebook and other platforms have said that they are going to make changes to the way in which they use data. And I think what we've got to do is to shine a light on that and make sure that it happens and it happens at pace. I would like to see much more privacy in the hands of the individual. We have to as individuals also be clear about what we want to have out there and have control over that. And I think we will need regulation, but I think we need regulation together with the platform providers themselves because you've got to have that partnership in order to make it work.

Presenter27:07

I think the difficult thing for people to understand is the idea that regulation is too complicated. In a world and a sector that can produce driverless cars and algorithms that can make really important decisions about our lives and all of the kind of amazing advances we've seen with robotics and medicine and all that sort of stuff, why can't we create an algorithm that shields our children from inappropriate images online? Why can't we use technology to solve some of the problems of technology?

Jacqueline de Rojas27:37

And I think that's where we're headed. I think we absolutely are going to use and do use technology to shield the audiences from some of those things. The trouble is that things more often change online so fast that catching everything all the time is tricky. Having said that, I think we need to try a lot harder and we need to have a much more focused effort on making it happen.

Jacqueline de Rojas28:03

Time to go to the music, Jacqueline. Tell me about this one. Why have you chosen it? This one really makes me smile a lot. It's for my husband, Roger, my third and final husband. And I walked down the aisle to this piece of music by Ennio Morricone, and I am so grateful for him and everything he does for me.

Presenter28:58

Keemai by Enyo Morricone. Taking you back, Jacqueline Dorajus, to your third and final wedding. Marriage brought step children and you're now a grandmother. How are you enjoying that? Oh, baby Harvey.

Jacqueline de Rojas29:09

He's so gorgeous. I'm so happy to be a granny and my stepsons are just incredible people, and their other halves too.

Presenter29:20

Peter.

Presenter29:20

You've said in the past we are all role models, whether we choose to be or not. What do you most want people to learn from you?

Jacqueline de Rojas29:26

Yeah.

Jacqueline de Rojas29:27

Uh

Presenter29:27

I th

Jacqueline de Rojas29:27

I think that resilience is a really wonderful virtue, but that opportunity comes from revealing vulnerabilities. And that's something I wished I could have told my younger self. I learnt very late in life to be able to show my weaknesses and ask for help.

Presenter29:48

And what would you say to a young girl who's listening to this and wants a job in the tech sector, wants to do the kinds of work that you have?

Jacqueline de Rojas29:56

I would say find someone that can network with you into the industry, would just tell you about it. I work very closely with the Girl Guiding Association, and that is so special because it's girls of all ages, from eight upwards. And we've just introduced some STEM badges, science, technology, and engineering badges, maths. And the first badge, for example, is Consent Online. And it goes right up to AI, artificial intelligence. And it's so exciting. And they can do these in a paper-based way, so it's accessible for everybody. And they just learn something in a girl-friendly environment where they're not intimidated. So it's brilliant.

Jacqueline de Rojas30:39

Yeah.

Presenter30:39

Yeah.

Jacqueline de Rojas30:39

I'm surely g

Presenter30:40

Going to be casting you away as you know. How are your life skills? Do you think you could build a shelter, feed yourself, that kind of thing?

Jacqueline de Rojas30:46

I think I'd need some girl guiding badges before I go in terms of building a campfire. Um

Presenter30:52

Building a a shelter, but I'll get there. It's time to go to the music for your final disc, Jacqueline de Brockas.

Jacqueline de Rojas30:57

Why have you chosen it? I've chosen Perfect Symphony by Ed Sheeran and Andrea Pocelli. This was a moment for my family. We were at Wembley with Ed Sheeran at his concert last summer. And family and relationships mean absolutely everything to me, not having had a great family life myself. And so what we've created is very close, it's very supportive. And we all felt this moment of joy when Ed Sheeran was singing Perfect Symphony with Andrea Pocelli.

Jacqueline de Rojas31:33

You said you looked a mess, I whispered underneath my breath But you heard it, darling you look perfect tonight

Speaker 131:53

Say La Mi Adonna.

Speaker 131:57

Laforza del Liunda del Mare.

Presenter32:09

Perfect Symphony by Ed Sheeran and Andrea Bocelli. Jacqueline, I give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare to read on the island. You can also take another book of your choosing with you. What would you like?

Jacqueline de Rojas32:22

I would like to take Rebecca by Daphne Dumaurier.

Jacqueline de Rojas32:26

I've read it a thousand times. There's all the romance, there's all the disappointment. It's just a book of extremes, and I just love it. You can also have a luxury item. What would yours be? I think it would have to be my saxophone. I would have time to learn. No one could witness my failure.

Jacqueline de Rojas32:45

And I think that's quite important. And also I think it would be terribly useful for other things. I I'm sure I could collect rainwater in it if I needed to, and maybe the glint of it would attract a passing plane that might rescue me. All sorts of things really. No, it sounds like a great idea. You may have it.

Speaker 133:00

Thank you. Yeah.

Jacqueline de Rojas33:00

And finally, which track of the eight would you rush to save from the waves? Oh, I think that would have to be my girl anthem, the Alicia Keys Girl on Fire for the Sisterhood, for the Manbassadors out there all fighting for diversity and inclusion. Jacqueline De Rockhurst, thank

Presenter33:16

Thank you very much for sharing your desert island discs with us.

Jacqueline de Rojas33:19

Thank you.

Presenter33:19

Uh

Presenter33:30

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Jacqueline. I like the idea of her belting out this girl's on fire while on the island, when she's not practicing her saxophone, that is. Other digital ambassadors and innovators who've been cast away include Dr. Sue Black, AI specialist Demis Hassabis, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

Presenter33:50

In 2014, Kirsty spoke to computer scientist Dame Wendy Hall.

Jacqueline de Rojas33:58

Wrong. You can explain it to him in a second. It was something that you and your team at Southampton were responsible for. It was called microcosm.

Speaker 334:06

Yeah.

Jacqueline de Rojas34:06

Explain to me what it was and what you did that was so pioneering and important because it was.

Speaker 334:11

Well, first of all, it does it predates the web, but not the internet. But this was the late eighties when I was beginning to see the potential of what we call multimedia now. So it's clicking links, it's watching content. It's all that thing we do every day all the time. I got into the idea of hypermedia.

Speaker 134:20

So it's clear

Speaker 134:21

It's all that thing we do if we do it all the time.

Speaker 334:26

Now we do that all the time because of the web today, but in those days, it was research labs only. It was very pioneering. So we set about designing a system.

Speaker 334:37

that would enable people to create links between lots of different multimedia content. And we ha I had this idea that the links should be separate from the documents. So you might link your name to a picture of you and say, this is a picture of Kirstie. That's the semantic relationship, rather than just a pointer to another file.

Speaker 334:56

And in an essence that was the pioneering piece.

Speaker 334:59

We first demoed that system in 1989. I came back from the most wonderful sabbatical in University of Michigan Ann Arbor with lots of ideas.

Speaker 335:08

And nineteen eighty nine was the year that Tim Berners-Lee specified the web to his bosses in CERN. So it was all happening at the same time, but our system was out there before there was a web.

Jacqueline de Rojas35:18

Did it feel tangibly exciting? Did you feel like you were at the forefront?

Speaker 335:21

Yeah, yeah, I think so.

Jacqueline de Rojas35:22

Yeah.

Speaker 335:23

I just knew this was the way the world was going to go. I didn't think about the mobile devices we might have. I just knew that the idea that we'd have machines that would help us find information

Speaker 335:36

from a global network of computers was going to r revolutionize everything. I read you say that uh you didn't so much face a glass ceiling as a glass wall. Oh, well, I sort of did. I think I faced several glass ceilings. I mean, you know.

Jacqueline de Rojas35:47

Oh well.

Speaker 335:52

In the eighties it was really hard in the world of science and engineering then to succeed as a woman. Also in the university world as well. I I remember when I was put on my first committee at the university and I walked in and I was the only woman I was yet still then a young lecturer.

Speaker 336:09

And I walked into the room and it was full of men, and the chair was an engineering professor, and he said, Oh, look up, lads, there's a woman in the room.

Speaker 336:17

You know, and you think...

Speaker 336:18

Ah, okay. Well what are you gonna do if I'm not here? Tell dirty jokes? I don't know.

Speaker 336:22

And, you know, then I was the first female professor of engineering at Southampton. I had a lot of support from the dean at the time. But then I was the only female professor of engineering for ages. But now I feel I've got through some of the glass ceilings, but there's still a wall. I still see rooms that are full of men that I can't get into.

Jacqueline de Rojas36:42

Bill

Speaker 336:43

Yeah.

Jacqueline de Rojas36:44

Even though you're a member of the Royal Society, and so on and so on.

Speaker 336:46

Well, the number of times you you still see a meeting, not just in my world of engineering, but in big business, in government, in there's so many worlds where it's still a room full of men.

Presenter36:58

Dame Wendy Hall. My guest next week will be the actor Martin Freeman. He's a huge music fan, so I can promise you some excellent tracks. Do join us then.

Speaker 137:21

You know the way late at night, in bed, in the dark, your tired mind can wander and strange thoughts float like balloons escaping into the sky? Well Bunkbed is a podcast where Peter Curran and Patrick Marbur find the nearest faraway place from the hurly burley of daily life where tired minds can wander.

Speaker 137:47

Why don't you come along and eavesdrop and see if you like it? You can subscribe to Bunkbed on BBC Sounds.