We’ve heard tech industry leaders promise to do something about their lack of diversity for a while now. Two recent Fast Company articles, written by pros with firsthand knowledge of the issue, explore what it will take to create lasting change.
Michael Ellison, CEO and co-founder of the nonprofit CodePath, noted that the share of Black technical workers at Facebook, Google, and Microsoft is still below 4% at each company.
“The root cause is not just the low number of Black students who are trained in software engineering, which makes up about 6% of all computer science graduates,” he wrote. “The problem comes down to our whole system for training, finding, and retaining underrepresented engineers.”
Pervasive barriers to entry remain throughout the fintech industry as well. Lauryn Nwankpa, head of social impact at LA-based fintech company Dave and a speaker at Urban Tech Connect 2020, detailed ways for industry pros to foster diverse talent and put their insights into practice.
“Fintech companies can be the solution if they do it right,” she wrote. “A new breed of neobanks and tech-driven financial services companies have an opportunity to change the deeply entrenched racism that plagues our financial system.”
In today’s Plug In South LA Beat, our regular curation of must-read innovation and tech news, we’re taking a deep dive into how the tech industry’s current system fails Black talent — and the ways that we can transform it:
This is How Big Tech is Failing its Black Employees
I’m a Black Woman in Fintech. My Industry Has to Overcome its Racism to Survive