4BMONEY
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11, 2017
SAN FRANCISCO Google is hoping
the stereotype-busting message
in the new film Hidden Figures
will encourage more women and
people of color to study computer
science.
The film, which hit theaters
Friday, tells the true story of Afri-
can-American mathematicians
Katherine Johnson (Taraji P.
Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Oc-
tavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson
(Janelle Monáe) who overcame
racism to play critical roles in
NASA’s space program in the Jim
Crow South of the early 1960s.
It’s adapted from Margot Lee
Shetterly’s book by the same title.
The women in the film are called
computers for calculating the
math that launches shuttles and
rockets into space.
Google is showing Hidden Fig-
ures to students across the coun-
try, and it has created a coding
project around the film’s uplifting
message to change popular per-
ception about what computer sci-
ence is and what computer
scientists look like.
“It’s such a phenomenal story
of these incredible women,” said
Lauren Baum, who works for
Google’s Made with Code pro-
gram that teaches basic coding to
girls. “When you see it and when
you see their energy and their
passion and the fact that they ac-
tually were the people behind
launching John Glenn into space,
that is something that students
everywhere will really aspire to.”
Women and people of color are
frequently “hidden figures” in the
tech industry, too. The film is be-
ing released as Silicon Valley
faces growing pressure to bring
greater diversity to the ranks of
those building technology and
working for tech companies. Sev-
en of 10 Google employees are
men, status quo for major Silicon
Valley technology companies.
Also largely unrepresented in the
tech sector are African Ameri-
cans and Latinos, particularly in
technical and leadership roles.That’s a pressing problem for
Google and the industry at large.
Latino and African-American
buying power is on the rise, and
Silicon Valley companies have
ambitions that lap the globe. Hav-
ing women and underrepresent-
ed minorities brainstorming and
building, not just using, tech
products is quickly becoming a
business imperative.
Gender and racial stereotypes
often deter women and people of
color from studying computer
science and from pursuing ca-
reers in the tech industry, Google
says. One of the problems: The
perception that coding is the
province of white nerdy men.
Google has worked with Holly-
wood to change how computer
science is portrayed on television
and in film. The Internet giant
has also funded research into the
structural and social barriers that
keep underrepresented students
from studying computer science.
Using a basic coding program
introduced Friday, students can
create personalized statements of
equality inspired by Hidden Fig-
ures such as “Genius has no race”
and “I believe in equality.” In
partnership with AMC movie
theaters and local school districts,
Google is hosting viewing parties
in Austin, Atlanta, Boston and
New York over the next couple of
weeks. At the parties, students
can watch and discuss the film
and try their hand at coding.HOPPER STONE
Hidden Figures tells the true story of African-American mathematicians who overcame racism
to play critical roles in NASA’s space program in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s.
With ‘Hidden Figures,’ Google
is looking to smash stereotypes
Jessica Guynn
@jguynn
USA TODAY
GOOGLE
Google’s Made with Code is
helping students create mes-
sages of equality inspired by
the film Hidden Figures.SAN FRANCISCO Uber is going to
make urban traffic and mobility
data gleaned from its millions of
drivers and riders using the Uber
app freely available to all.
The data, which shows anony-
mized travel times between
points in cities, will be available
on a public website called Uber
Movement. Uber says it will first
invite planning agencies and re-
searchers to access the informa-
tion and then make the website
free to the public. The first cities
will be Washington, D.C., Manila
and Sydney.
The San Francisco-based com-
pany decided to release the data
when it realized it had “this very
valuable but untapped resource
for understanding a city’s trans-
portation infrastructure,” said
Andrew Salzberg, Uber’s head of
transportation policy.
Pegged to a transportation
conference in Washington on
Sunday, the release is also likely a
bid to gain some goodwill in cities
with which Uber has often had
fights over regulation.
The announcement comes as
Uber, Lyft and other ride-hailing
companies face demands from
cities that they provide more in-
formation about their riders —
demands they long have opposed.
The most recent square off is
in New York City, where New
York’s Taxi & Limousine Com-
mission will hold a public hearing
on Thursday to demand that Ub-
er give the city information about
where and when drivers drop off
passengers, something taxi driv-
ers already are required to do.
Uber Movement doesn’t map
individuals’ rides but rather seg-
ments of rides, focusing on travel
time between specific points, Jor-
dan Gilbertson said. “We’re using
ride data as a proxy; we’re taking
periodic GPS trace pings during
the rides,” he said.
For example, the Uber datashowed changes in travel times in
the Washington area when parts
of the regional Metro were shut
down for repairs.
The Uber data will give cities a
low-cost way to do high-resolu-
tion travel time analysis. Robust
traffic data of the sort needed by
planners often is either expensive
or out-of-date.
“For us in the planning con-
text, it’s very interesting,” said
Jascha Franklin-Hodge, Boston’s
chief information officer. “Often-
times, cities and state transporta-
tion systems use things like toll
transponders to show how long it
takes to get from one place to an-
other. But those are on fixed
routes. What’s interesting is this
allow us to look at a lot of differ-
ent routes.”
The Uber data makes it possi-
ble to reliably estimate how long
it takes to get from one area of a
city to another by analyzing mul-tiple trips over time. To protect
the privacy of drivers and passen-
gers, only areas with relatively
high trip volume are included.
The company has been beta
testing the program in Washing-
ton. The data initially will be
available in a limited number of
cities, which will be added to over
time. Uber currently is active in
450 cities worldwide.
While the data isn’t compre-
hensive enough to allow city
planners to rely solely on it, it will
be helpful. It also should be a
boost to public engagement with
planners, Franklin-Hodge said.
“This gives people tools to ask
us questions. That’s really power-
ful. We believe in having an in-
formed public and having
conversations that are rooted in
facts, so the more facts that are
available, the better,” he said.Uber will give cities
free travel-time data
Company had opposed providing info about its riders
Elizabeth Weise
@eweise
USA TODAY“This gives people
tools to ask us
questions. That’s
really powerful.”
Jascha Franklin-Hodge , Boston’s
chief information officer
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