Tech’s representation crisis has deeper roots than you think.
Since Reboot Representation was founded in late 2018, we’ve been laser focused on one goal: increasing the number of Black, Latina, and Native American women who are graduating with computing bachelor’s degrees as a means to diversify the vibrant and influential but largely homogeneous tech industry.
We’re not alone in this. Our corporate coalition partners, who pool philanthropic funds to invest in the programs and institutions that support our goal, are passionate about this issue. Our grantees, those very same programs and institutions, work day in and day out to support Black, Latina, and Native American women from high school to college and into the workforce. Other advocacy organizations (AnitaB, CodePath.org, Code2040, blackcomputeHER, Native Girls Code, digitalundivided, and NCWIT, to name a few) offer education, programming, and financial support. And this list doesn’t even start to account for the thousands of tech employees and leaders who want to see and influence change.
So, with all this passion and all these resources and all these actors working towards a shared goal, why haven’t we seen substantial progress in tech? And, more importantly, what will it take to get there? Of course, the answer is complicated, and our focus on computing degrees is just one piece of the puzzle. But after a couple years of working with corporate leaders, advocacy leaders, on-the-ground program managers, and students, we wanted to share how our understanding of this issue has grown. Our goals are simple:
- We want to strengthen collective understanding of the lack of representation in computing.
- We want to share the solutions we see having the most impact.
So with those goals in mind, we’re ready to dive in, starting with some sobering realities.
Read more on our Medium page here.