'I didn’t realize how uncommon my experience was until I was the only black woman in my class declaring a computer science major at Purdue University.'
Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, we had PacMan everything. My father, who had a career in IT long before the industry boom, worked as a tech support lab manager for a video game company and created an arcade system in our home. Back when no one had computers, we had five. My dad taught my brother and me, along with other minority kids in our community, how to work them, how to build them, and how to think technically from a young age.
Obviously, we know that’s not the case today. Women of color are woefully underrepresented in technical environments. Black and Latinx womenof computer and information science occupations, according to a 2018 report from the Kapor Center. And it’s not getting better. The percentage of black, Latinx, and Native American women receiving computing degrees actually fell by nearly 40% over the past decade.
Despite these dismal numbers, there’s a real desire in the industry to improve representation. Often, that manifests as guilt. Guilt that progress hasn’t been speedier. Guilt that, even in 2019, many groups are disproportionately left behind. Guilt won’t change the current landscape. We need to move from guilt to action with actual strategies that will increase the participation of underrepresented women of color in tech today.
After one year of Reboot’s collective grant-making and a lifetime of experiences in tech, I’m sharing three must-have strategies to ensure we are diversifying the tech sector for all women, including underrepresented women of color.In the public imagination, a computing career starts with an early interest in computing, continues with a computer science major from an elite four-year university, and culminates in a dream job at a prominent tech company. Seems easy, right? Not for everyone.
Guilt won’t change the industry’s current lack of representation, but collective action will. When we understand the barriers that exist for underrepresented women of color and actively work to address them, we have the power to create lasting change. Technology empowers, innovates, and adapts. It’s our responsibility to do the same., a coalition of leading tech companies collectively investing in the increased representation of underrepresented women of color in computing fields.
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