Tracy Chou

Tracy Chou is an entrepreneur and software engineer, known for her work advocating for diversity and inclusion in tech.

She is currently the founder and CEO of Block Party, which aims to fight online harassment with a consumer app to filter and manage toxicity on social media. As featured in NPR and Consumer Reports, Block Party has been described by users as "phenomenal", a "proper mental-health saving tool", and the "solution to block out the trolls distracting from the important work you're doing".

Tracy co-founded and serves as an advisor to the non-profits Project Include, which works with tech startups on diversity and inclusion; and #MovingForward, which works with venture capital firms to establish a fair and equitable fundraising environment. In 2013, her Medium article “Where are the numbers?” helped jumpstart the practice of tech companies disclosing their data on diversity.

She has worked as a software engineer and tech lead at Pinterest, a software engineer at Quora, and a technical consultant for the U.S. Digital Service in the executive branch of the federal government during the Obama administration. She has also been an investment scout and advisor to a number of Silicon Valley venture capital firms.

Outside of tech, Tracy is on the board of the digital art non-profit Rhizome, and was a co-founder of the political organizing and training group Arena.

Tracy has been named Forbes Tech 30 under 30, MIT Technology Review 35 Innovators under 35, and Fast Company Most Creative People in Business, and been profiled in Vogue, ELLE, and other media outlets. She graduated from Stanford with an M.S. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, where she was a Terman Scholar and Mayfield Fellow and elected to Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi.

LECTURE TOPICS

Tech Diversity: How did we get here and where do we go from here? 

Tracy describes how we got to where we are in terms of the lack of diversity in tech, why it matters, and ongoing efforts to address the issue. 

VIDEOS

Introduction Video above courtesy of Red Hat