Lack of Diversity in the Tech Industry
What John Boitnott says in his article, "8 Initiatives That Show Tech Wants to Solve its Diversity Problem,” is true. It really is no secret that the tech industry has a diversity problem. It’s a well known fact and the awareness is spreading fast especially now in this era of libertarianism. From “Girl Develop It” to even the hashtag #ilookLikeanEngineer, the attempts to fill in the gaps are increasing. However, I realized that the main focus towards increasing diversity in the tech bubble seems to be aimed towards the gender gap. As a woman entering the web development field, I even saw myself focusing on the concerns of entering the “brogrammer’s” world. After reading several articles regarding this issue, I realized that this goes beyond feminism. The diversity problem in the tech industry is huge: it encompasses not only gender but also ethnicity and educational background, and the roots of this issue could also be deeply engrained in our public education.
During my research, I found some shocking statistics from this “Diversity in Tech” article. It included that "Blacks and Hispanics only represent 9.2% of the tech industry (Gilpin 2015).” Not only is minority representation low among venture-capital backed company founders, but it is also very low in high school and college engineering courses. Critical disparities like these are bleeding in the tech industry, but that does not mean people are not doing anything about it. In fact, efforts to solve Tech’s diversity problem is tremendous, and many big companies are tackling it head on. Some examples mentioned by John Boitnott include Google’s NextWave program which provide "financial support and other resources to help entrepreneurs from underrepresented communities (Boitnott 2015).” Airbnb is trying to close its gender gap and women now make up 49% percent of its world wide staff. These efforts are not only grand in scale but also popular, allowing more light to shine on this issue. Yet, people are still wondering: Are we really tackling down this problem the right way? from the inside out? And what about the future?
These questions led me to this TechCrunch article written by Juan Maldonado on why he thinks tech has a diversity problem. He believes that the fundamental issue is our education. He says,
"when we talk about solutions for the lack of diversity in tech, I get frustrated to hear the conversation just focus on the top of the funnel.”
Juan believes that in order to permanently improve diversity in tech, we need to make "investments in the earlier stages of life” as in early public education (Maldonado 2015). This will eventually lead to a wider "funnel" of future developers and founders. What do you think? I think I agree with Juan in that the Tech diversity issue is not something we can solve from one side, but that all aspects need to be taken into account.
There is still so much that I have yet to learn on this issue, but I do believe that there is evident progress in solving the lack of diversity in tech. Many innovative programs are opening more doors for diverse people to join the tech field. People are making an influence themselves through technical outlets like the web, and the awareness is picking up momentum. Tips and solutions recommended by top companies and universities are accessible online, and I do have hope that the tech industry will be able to fix many of the imbalances that are present now.