Feb 21, 2017 09:26 AM EST By Amanda Foster, UniversityHerald Reporter

Melinda Gates is not only the co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She is also an American businesswoman and philanthropist that worked at Microsoft. But she confesses that she almost left the company because of it being a male dominated environment.

Which is why Melinda Gates is pushing for diversity in the tech industry. More and more people are pushing women and young women to join the STEM world. And Melinda Gates is doing the same thing because she admits that she knows the problems women face in the tech work force.x

Melinda French, which is her maiden name, is a valedictorian from Ursuline Academy of Dallas. She attended Duke University and earned her bachelor's degree in computer science and economics. She receive her MBA from Duke's Fuqua School of Business thereafter. She then joined Microsoft and worked on projects such as Publisher, Expedia, Encarta and Microsoft Bob.

Now, Melinda Gates sits down with Seattle Times and cites her experience with Microsoft back in 1987. She loved the work she did with Microsoft at the time but disliked the bitter male dominated culture. She almost left but she did not. Instead, she pushed for diversity. Now, she is pushing women to have interest and access to the STEM field. Microsoft has rewarding tech jobs that can also be offered to women.

She believes that a diverse team means better products, as reported by On MSFT. Now, as Melinda Gates works on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, she is working on raising awareness and helping in zeroing out issues concerning poor women in developing and poor countries, and also in the United States.

Melinda Gates challenges other companies to look at their team and ask how many women are in it. She stresses that if it is less than two, that is too few.

Watch the TIME video clip below where Melinda Gates talks about how women doubt themselves:

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