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Tim Cook interview on diversity suggests women speakers to present at WWDC keynote

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Mashable has conducted an interesting interview with Tim Cook on the eve of WWDC, one of Apple’s largest events of the year. Although WWDC is known for its product announcements, Apple will announce the next versions of iOS and OS X as well as a streaming music service, the interview revolved around Apple’s efforts on company employee diversity.

Asked about the lack of women at keynotes, Cook says “you’ll see a change tomorrow”. This suggests that women will indeed feature more prominently at Apple’s presentation. In the last ten years, the number of women at Apple’s events comes in at the low single digits, most recently Christy Turlington Burns. Apple’s developer sessions have better gender diversity in their speakers but these are viewable only by registered developers, not the general public.

Cook says improvements in diversity are the ‘future of our company’. He says that diverse groups of employees produce better products.

And that future, according to Cook, should be diverse: “I think the most diverse group will produce the best product, I firmly believe that,” he says. Even without taking its values into account, Apple is a “better company” by being more diverse.

Apple is working on outreach programs to high schools and colleges to find talented women. For WWDC, Apple expanded the scholarship program to target groups like the National Society of Black Engineers, App Camp for Girls and La TechLa. It’s latest diversity report was not stellar and it is clear Cook wants to change this. Apple’s own software features more diverse emoji since iOS 8.3.

As has become customary with WWDC, Tim Cook met the scholarship winners a day before the show kicks off, for photos and signatures. In the interview, Cook says “I view these people that I talk to today as the future generations of the company”.

Watch all the events as they happen on Apple.com with the video livestream. Stay tuned to 9to5Mac for coverage of all the announcements as they happen and readup on what to expect in our comprehensive roundup.

 

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Comments

  1. Almog (@Almogos) - 9 years ago

    So finally Angela Ahrendts will talk about retail at the keynote :)

    • irelandjnr - 9 years ago

      Where does it say that?

    • Lester Nelson - 9 years ago

      My guess would be Lisa Jackson with an update on Apple’s green initiatives (just because I think Apple has accomplished more in that sector that they’re able to brag about) but I’d love to see Angela Ahrendts present about Retail. She’s certainly an engaging speaker (much like Ron Johnson was), in the interviews I’ve seen.

      • rogifan - 9 years ago

        This is a developer conference. What do environmental initiatives have to do with that? Same with retail. That’s not something developers care about. I know the broader media attends the keynote but Apple should have been focused on new products and technology not this ancillary stuff.

    • rogifan - 9 years ago

      I don’t think Apple should be talking about retail at a developer conference. It doesn’t have to be a high profile woman on stage. It could be an engineer within Federighi’s org.

      • acslater017 - 9 years ago

        I’m pretty sure Apple has talked about retail, in some fashion, for like 10 straight WWDCs. If nothing else, they assure developers that producing software for Apple’s platforms reaches enormous, lucrative markets.

  2. joshblinney - 9 years ago

    iOS 9 rainbow wallpaper sounds good

  3. André Hedegaard - 9 years ago

    Sigh, if there AREN’T any women in high positions at Apple, then why force it?

    I don’t want to hear about some jogger girl wearing Apple watch on her daily runs, I want competent men to demo the products like we’ve always seen.

    Least of all to hear about Angela Ahrendts wearing burberry, prada and D&G handbags on stage!

    This is a tech company, not a socialite hippy student “self empowering” women diabolical gathering!

    • Andy Brooks - 9 years ago

      it took me a second to realize you were being sarcastic and actually mocking people who oppose women and diversity in tech. sadly, thats exactly the kind of narrow minded stupidity you see in the world.. I hope to see that change. Im very proud of Cook and Apple for leading the way. the future looks bright!

    • acslater017 - 9 years ago

      Sorry buddy. Woz was a hippy, Jobs was a hippy. Jobs didn’t have a degree and he wasn’t an engineer. He also spent inordinate amounts of time talking about they layout of retail stores and how Apple was essentially technology + liberal arts (AKA the humanities).

      So a modern company like Apple is going to have engineers, but also marketers, artists, designers, environmentalists, accountatants, and retailers. It’s part of what makes Apple different other hard technology companies – a respect for the human side of things.

  4. PMZanetti - 9 years ago

    Nothing worse than forced diversity.

    I could care less what gender/race is speaking to me at a keynote, as long as they’re there on their own merit and not because of the pathetic faux feminism trend.

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Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Benjamin Mayo

Benjamin develops iOS apps professionally and covers Apple news and rumors for 9to5Mac. Listen to Benjamin, every week, on the Happy Hour podcast. Check out his personal blog. Message Benjamin over email or Twitter.