Who is she? by Sarah Yalaju

WHO IS SHE?

May 2017 1

RAFiA Santana “Very Little Sleep” 2015

Students working at a Black Girls Code workshop.

The Diversity Problem in Tech

Education: Racial Bias & Imposter Syndrome

Organizations Making a Difference

THE DIVERSITY PROBLEM IN TECH 7

FACEBOOK’S ‘PIPELINE’ EXCUSE: BLACK WOMEN IN TECH SPEAK OUT ON DIVERSITY FAILURE Claire O’Connor

s far as excuses go, Facebook’s .latest seems particularly lame and disingenuous.

Last week, the social media giant shirked blame for its failure to grow its black and Hispanic workforce, who represent 2% and 4% of its overall headcount respectively. Instead, Facebook’s head of diversity Maxine Williams blamed what those inside tech refer to as “the pipeline” in a statement picked up by the Wall Street Journal: “Appropriate representation in technology or any other industry will depend upon more people having the opportunity to gain necessary skills through the public education system.”

The company’s excuse provoked immediate backlash from people of color and other underrepresented minorities either working in tech or trying to, like Dartmouth College undergraduate Kaya Thomas. In a post shared widely on social media, the computer science student and iOS developer took Facebook and its Silicon Valley peers to task for focusing on whether potential employees are a “culture fit” — an ambiguous gauge often used to defend discrimination. “Most of tech recruiting is currently not built to look for great talent,” wrote Thomas in her post. “I’m not interested in ping-pong,

beer, or whatever other gimmick used to attract new grads. The fact that I don’t like those things shouldn’t mean I’m not a ‘culture fit’. I don’t want to work in tech to fool around, I want to create amazing things and learn from other smart people. That is the culture fit you should be looking for.” Kathryn Finney: “The challenge for tech is this: black people are your customers. If you don’t figure this out, you’re going to have a big problem.” Then, of course, there’s the data — which you’d think a company like Facebook, reliant as it is on algorithms, would’ve parsed before blaming education for its diversity ills. There simply isn’t a pipeline problem as long as there are twice as many black and Hispanic computer science graduates as there are actual hires from these minority groups. For longtime tech entrepreneur and investor Kathryn Finney, this just serves as further evidence that Silicon Valley’s multi-billion-dollar firms don’t really care about diversity, beyond lip service.

emails saying to meet in the park for Ultimate Frisbee at 1pm on a Sunday. The implication is, ‘you should be free.’” Finney intentionally founded her accelerator program for startups led by black and Latina women, Digital Undivided, far away from Silicon Valley, in Atlanta. She wants to ensure the young women she’s funding are able to have active social lives outside their jobs, she said. Stephanie Lampkin: “The leaking pipeline creates an environment where people don’t want to apply.”

For former Microsoft engineer Stephanie Lampkin, who launched job match app Blendoor to help close the minority hiring gap, the way these companies brand themselves to potential employees just compounds other problems, like retention. “The numbers have gotten worse since the ’90s,” she said. “The leaking pipeline creates an environment where people don’t want to apply.” She cited messaging platform Slack as an example of a Silicon Valley unicorn at least trying to address its diversity woes, noting … “They’ll give money to a coding program that they’ve managed to hire or poach some women and people of color seen as for kids, but just enough to show they “superstars” within the industry.As for kind of care,” she said. “The chalFacebook, Lampkin finds its decision to lenge for tech is this: black people blame education for its abysmal hiring are your customers. If you don’t figure record a little rich given how much this out, you’re going to have a big is made of Mark Zuckerberg’s college problem.” Finney sees the importance dropout status. placed on “culture fit” as particularly toxic, with the cliquish nature “The irony is,” she said, “Facebook was of Silicon Valley companies actively founded by someone without a college driving minority candidates away. degree.” “What they’re really saying is, there aren’t enough black and Hispanic graduates who fit in,” she said. “For us, there are things we value that aren’t valued by these companies. Sundays are not days to hang out. For some of us those are family days, or days we go to church. There’ll be these

“They’ll give money to a coding program for kids, but just enough to show they kind of care. The challenge for tech is this: black people are your customers. If you don’t figure this out, you’re going to have a big problem.”

Sondra Perry “Young Women Sitting and Standing and Talking and Stuff (No, No, No)” (2015).

ANNIE EASLEY was an African-American computer scientist, mathematician, and rocket scientist. She worked for the Lewis Research Center (now Glenn Research Center) of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). She was a leading member of the team which developed software for the Centaur rocket stage and one of the first African-Americans to work as a computer scientist at NASA.

EDUCATION: RACIAL BIAS & IMPOSTER SYNDROME 13

A CONVERSATION WITH NETTRICE GASKINS February 23rd, 2017

ORG

GANIZATIONS MAKING A DIFFERENCE

BLACK GIRLS CODE : THE NEXT STEVE JOBS WILL BE A WOMAN OF COLOR Whitney Johnson

n March 2011, while attending a Berkeley Women Entrepreneurs Conference, Kimberly Bryant, an accomplished tech engineer with experience both broad and deep, found herself engaged in a discussion about the dearth of women working in the technology field. Observations ranged over the territory of shortages of women currently available in the resource pool, and a stagnant, even dwindling pipeline of women, and particularly women of color in STEM sectors. Bryant had an epiphany, a moment of realization that if the problem was going to find its solution, she needed to take it upon herself to personally do something about it. Some of the best leadership advice ever given may be contained in the clichéd couplet, ‘If it is to be, it is up to me.’

Shortly thereafter, Bryant founded Black Girls Code (BGC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to equipping girls from underrepresented communities with coding skills through participation in workshops and other training vehicles, with the end result of “seeding the tech pipeline with the girls from the younger generation who will be come to tech leaders and creators of the future.” BGC has a stated objective of reaching over one million young women of color by midcentury, and transforming technology

to represent the diversity of the United States’ population, and even the world’s, within the ranks of the sector’s employees, rather than just its consumers. The 2015 McKinsey report is only one of several studies that highlight the positive impact of a diverse workforce on the corporate bottom line; Bryant is committed to battling the systemic biases that have minimized the role that women, and particularly women of color, as well as other underrepresented groups have played in the technology explosion—it is not only financially right; it is a social and moral necessity. Her primary goal at present is to develop a sustainable business model that will allow BGC to reach girls ever farther afield and achieve the lofty 1M goal. Bryant has drawn inspiration from David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell, which resonates with her as the founder of a small startup stretching to become a global business against daunting obstacles. “It’s shown me that with skill and strategy, even David can conquer a giant. ”

Bryant’s efforts have garnered multiple awards, from the White House Champions of Change for Tech Inclusion award in 2013, which celebrates people “who are doing extraordinary things to expand technology opportunities for young learners—especially minorities, women and girls” to being named on Business Insider.com’s 2013 list of the 25 Most Influential AfricanAmericans in Technology. In addition to her leadership of BGC, she is currently participating in the PaharaAspen Education Fellowship, a two-

Kimberly Bryant, Electrical Engineer and Founder of Black Girls Code

year program that targets innovative leaders in educational initiatives who are focused on improving the quality of the education experience available to low-income children. Fellowship participants collaborate on the development of strategies to deliver improved learning opportunities and enhance the leadership qualities of those who serve them. Ask Bryant to identify which of her many achievements she is most proud of and the answer is that over twenty years later, her defining moment is graduating from Vanderbilt University School of Engineering with a BS in Electrical Engineering. During the four years she spent as an undergrad she was one of a handful of women in the school of engineering. She describes them as some of the most difficult years of her life, demanding fortitude and grit to persevere as a woman in a field dominated by men, and not at all

racially diverse. Times are changing, albeit slowly, but evolved enough that Bryant dares to dream that the next Steve Jobs could be a girl of color. That is the future she envisions and has taken upon herself to promote.