It's the LAST DAY to donate and pick up any of our thank-you gifts at a discount. 🔥 Give Now!

EEOC wants to diversify the tech industry

Nancy Marshall-Genzer May 17, 2016
HTML EMBED:
COPY
Women are 45 percent more likely than men to leave the tech field. wocintechchat.com

EEOC wants to diversify the tech industry

Nancy Marshall-Genzer May 17, 2016
Women are 45 percent more likely than men to leave the tech field. wocintechchat.com
HTML EMBED:
COPY

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is searching for solutions to the lack of diversity in the tech industry. It’s starting with a hearing on the issue this week. But some in the tech diversity sphere already have ideas. 

Solution 1: Increase the pipeline of women and minorities majoring in computer science. That solution is from Lisa Dezzutti, president of the nonprofit Women in Technology. But then, she said, you have to keep them in the tech field. Women are 45 percent more likely than men to leave it. Dezzutti thinks they may feel isolated on the job.

“There’s a single woman in the room,” she said. “I think that women still feel, perhaps, that they are excluded from social networks at their jobs.”

Tech companies are trying another solution: money. That can entail funding nonprofits like Dezzutti’s and groups like the Hidden Genius Project, which tries to get young African-American men into the tech pipeline.

Brandon Nicholson, who heads the project, maintains that Silicon Valley has to do more, though, than just throw money at the diversity issue.

“They’ve not put in the same amount of innovation into that as they have, in some instances, into some of their ideas or products,” he said.

Nicholson has a solution. He teaches young African-American men to be entrepreneurs so they can start their own tech companies someday. 

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.