Oak Rocket CEO Dao Jensen’s Inspirational Story: Celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

The month of May celebrates Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, reminding everyone of the valuable and important contributions that Asian Americans have made to this nation while overcoming many forms of adversity.

OakRocket CEO Dao Jensen (pictured) recently shared his story as a Vietnamese refugee who was raised in Minnesota by entrepreneurial parents.

“I have always been inspired to achieve great things. At 17, I was the first Asian woman elected youth governor of Minnesota,” Jensen said. “In 2013, I founded Oak Rocket, formerly known as Kaizen Technology Partners, as the first West Coast female minority-owned company in the AWS cloud. Only women-owned businesses do.”

Jensen spoke with theCUBE Industry Analyst Lisa Martin in an exclusive interview with Women of the Cloud at SiliconANGLE Media’s live streaming studio, theCUBE. They talk about how Jensen began her path as a tech leader, her advice to others looking to advance their career in the tech industry, and what she has done over the past five years. We discussed the biggest changes in technology we’ve witnessed. (*Disclosure below.)

Labor force equality

Cloud adoption consulting and services company Oak Rocket’s portfolio includes customers such as Jackson Hewitt, Gainsight, SolarCity, Jim Breuer and Nasdaq. Establishing strong relationships with these customers is just as important as having advocates, advocates and sponsors, Jensen said.

“When you’re in the cloud, it’s important to not only learn about the cloud, but understand the data center world and the software world and how they interact,” she said. I was. “It’s also important to attend industry events and network with experts so that you know what’s going on at least every other year, if not every year.”

The adoption of inclusion, diversity and equity in the tech industry has improved over the years, but more needs to be done to ensure all employees feel fully equal and heard. is. Attracting talent is not enough. Equal representation in all roles is necessary to reduce the sense of isolation felt by underrepresented groups.

“Ultimately, it hinders global innovation and global economic distribution, because it is often women who care for families and the next generation,” says Jensen. “We need to enable these efforts through mentorship programs and executive succession.”

Since joining the tech industry workforce, Jensen has seen first-hand the many evolutions and innovations taking place within the latest technology revolution. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are not new technologies, but the ones that are becoming increasingly available to the general public are relatively new developments.

“AI is now a word because everyone can see it on their smartphones and use it from an everyday perspective,” says Jensen. “These technologies are revolutionizing the world and are now becoming an integral part of our daily lives. I think we are improving to

Technologies like AI and ML have the potential to make the jobs of technicians easier by automating previously tedious tasks. According to Jensen, the biggest step the world can take toward a more inclusive and technologically advanced future is to make education accessible to everyone. Fortunately, this is much easier than it was a few years ago, especially with the increased availability of online classes due to COVID-19.

“When I first joined Sun Microsystems, I didn’t even know what Java was or who Sun was,” says Jensen. “To help underrepresented groups and give them the opportunity to grow slowly and give them a competitive edge in the world of technology, the greatest thing we can do is educate and broaden people’s thinking. I think that’s it.”

The conversation ended with Jensen giving advice to his younger self. Her first piece of advice is that sometimes things happen for a reason. She gave the example of entering Harvard with her doubts in her own youth. Another piece of advice she gives her younger self is to not get in her way.

“Don’t get in the way of yourself. Live the life you love, the life you love, the life you love. Don’t mind going against the mainstream and inspire others to do the same,” she said. Told.

Below is a full video interview with Dao Jensen, part of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the “Special Program Series: Women of the Cloud” event.

(* DISCLOSURE: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for a special “Women of the Cloud” program series. Neither Amazon Web Services Inc., sponsor of theCUBE’s coverage of the event, nor any other sponsor, makes any editorial contribution to theCUBE or SiliconANGLE content. I don’t have admin rights.)

Photo: Silicon ANGLE