What data companies have released show that the tech giants driving the American economy remain white and male-dominated. Outside of management, software developers and hardware engineers are often among the highest-paid jobs in the industry. Estimates are that fewer than 13 percent of computer engineers in the Valley are female. Far fewer are African-American women, it’s estimated, but few companies have released hard data breaking down the numbers by race and gender.
Twitter has. Reports show black or African-American women make up just 0.5 perfect of the microblogging site’s workforce. CEOs in the Valley say they’re working hard to boost diversity. But Apple recently reported only modest progress in improving the diversity of its overall workforce.
Other organizations working on the issue include the nonprofit group Hack The Hood, which is trying to widen the gateway to new tech jobs for minority and disadvantaged youth. There’s also the nonprofit Code2040, an internship program that aims to bring black and Latino engineering students into Silicon Valley. And in California’s Salinas Valley farm region, a program is targeting Latinos — a traditionally underrepresented group in tech — for computer science degrees.
Black Girls CODE’s Summer of Code included project-based camps in the Bay Area as well as Washington, New York City and Raleigh-Durham, N.C. The group says camps offer a place where “girls of color can learn computer science and coding principles in the company of other girls like themselves and with mentorship from women they can see themselves becoming.” About half of the girls participating received a scholarship to attend.
For some girls of color the path to a tech career remains riddled with obstacles. In schools, as we’ve reported, girls of color in America are six times more likely to be suspended than white girls and are often are subject to harsher and more frequent discipline than their white peers.
Article Appeared @http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/08/17/432278262/hacking-tech-s-diversity-problem-black-girls-code