SAN MATEO, CA--(Marketwired - Jun 22, 2016) - Arcadia Data, a big data industry leader specializing in unified visual analytics and business intelligence software, will host the first-ever tech conference sketch comedy event highlighting the barriers to access for women in the technology industry. 'Night of the Living Data' will debut on June 28, the opening night of the 2016 Hadoop Summit, and all proceeds will benefit Girls Who Code. Major players across the big data industry are uniting around the cause, with event sponsors including Cloudera, Intel (Women in Big Data), MapR, Paxata, Pivotal, Qubole, Rackspace, Simba Technologies and Zoomdata.

Arcadia Data commissioned the performance in an effort to shake up the typical tech conference conversation and shine a spotlight on the often-fraught gender politics of Silicon Valley. Written by a team led by a former Silicon Valley engineer, the performance will satirize big data and explore through humor why there are so few women in technology. Juxtaposing these themes shows how professionals across industries can rally around the important cause of empowering girls and women to pursue opportunities in the tech sector.

"At Arcadia it's our business to make big data accessible to everyone. In the same vein, we believe providing equal access to technology and education is critical to data innovation in the marketplace," said David M. Fishman, VP of Marketing at Arcadia. "Gender diversity isn't just about open doors; it's about fighting monoculture. In big data we don't just want to answer the questions, we want to question the answers. As an industry, we can't do that if we only hire people just like ourselves."

Eliminating barriers to talent in the workplace is a core value for Arcadia Data. Three out of four of Arcadia's founding engineers are female and roughly 30 percent of Arcadia's engineering team is comprised of women.

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the fraction of female computer science majors has dropped from one in three to one in five in the last 30 years. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that by 2020, there will be millions of new jobs in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), data analytics and a range of computer disciplines.

"We face an unprecedented tech labor shortage, and yet we're still only drawing from half the pool of available candidates," said Cornelia Davis, Senior Director of Technology at Pivotal, a Platinum Sponsor of Night of the Living Data. "This event will not only get attendees thinking harder about the perils of the gender gap in Silicon Valley, it will also benefit efforts to educate and equip young women with a passion for technology for future careers in these fields."

Night of the Living Data will feature original live sketch-comedy from San Francisco's leading comedy troupe, Killing My Lobster.

Event Details:
Date: Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Time: 8:00 p.m. PDT
Place: The Montgomery Theater, 271 S Market St, San Jose, CA 95113
(Across the street from the 2016 Hadoop Summit)
For free tickets and event info: Follow @arcadiadata on Twitter.

About Arcadia Data
Arcadia Data has built the first unified visual analytics and business intelligence (BI) platform for big data native to Hadoop. The Arcadia Data Converged Analytics Platform™ allows enterprises running Hadoop to build apps with drag-and-drop ease; it provides secure, accelerated access without first extracting big data into the complex stack of legacy data management technologies. Arcadia Data's world-class team draws on decades of experience in high-performance distributed data architectures and applications. The Arcadia Data platform is deployed by some of the world's most data intensive companies, including Appboy, HP and MarketShare Partners. To learn more, visit Arcadia at www.arcadiadata.com.

About Killing my Lobster
Killing My Lobster is San Francisco's premiere sketch comedy troupe. Established in 1997, their mission to create smart, fast and fearless sketch comedy that makes people laugh, is delivered via monthly stage shows in San Francisco and classes offered to students throughout the year. Their vision is a world in which San Francisco is known worldwide as a center for comedy and KML has influenced a generation of funny people whether they are comedians or not. To learn more, visit www.killingmylobster.com.