Changing the face of the tech industry
Despite all their wealth and brainpower, technology companies realize they need help identifying and recruiting more women, blacks and Latinos who can write computer code, design websites and build mobile applications.
Some of the entrepreneurs and activists eager to assist them showed up at a diversity summit organized by longtime civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and his Rainbow Push organization.
They want to build on the momentum Jackson created this year when he got Silicon Valley leaders such as Google, Facebook and Apple to acknowledge that they haven’t been doing enough to make their workforces look more like the overall population.
A few catalysts for change:
TECHNOLOGY DRILL SERGEANTS
When Gregorio Rojas was interviewing people for engineering jobs at TMZ.com in Los Angeles, he was shocked and disappointed that there weren’t more applications from women, Latinos and blacks. It didn’t make sense to him or his wife, Liliana Monge, given that the jobs were located in a diverse city. They decided to do something about it 14 months ago by starting Sabio.la, a “boot camp” for computer coding.
It was a cause easy for the couple to embrace because both of them immigrated to the U.S. when they were children. Rojas, now 39, came from Colombia and Monge, now 37, from Mexico.
Sabio.la holds intensive training sessions over 20 weekends to make it easier for mothers raising children and other people with jobs during the week to attend. Half of Sabio’s graduates so far have been minorities, according to Monge.
TAPPING THE COLLEGE PIPE L INE
After graduating from Harvard University, Laura Weidman Powers decided to get her graduate degree at Stanford University. There she realized that Silicon Valley had a diversity problem. As an African-American, she was struck by how few blacks and Latinos attended technology industry networking events. That’s the main reason she is co-founder and now CEO of Code2040, a non-profit that lines up summer internships at technology companies for black and Latino college students from across the country.
In the past three summers, Code2040 has placed 50 students in internships at companies such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Survey-Monkey. Each internship must pay a minimum of $1,000 per week. Virtually all of Code2040’s internships have led to full-time jobs so far, Powers said.
Code2040’s name refers to the year that most of the U.S. population is projected to be comprised of minorities. Powers is trying to ensure it’s not 2040 by the time major technology companies are employing workforces that reflect the population.
MAK ING CONNECTIONS
After selling a location-sharing application that he created for mobile devices, Wayne Sutton decided he wanted to help other African-American entrepreneurs succeed in technology. He moved from his native North Carolina to San Francisco two years ago and is now raising money for a $5 million fund at Buildup.vc. He is earmarking the money to invest in earlystage startups run by minorities beginning next year. Besides bankrolling good ideas, Sutton also intends to provide advice and connect the entrepreneurs with other key players in Silicon Valley.