A dozen technology companies pledged $12 million over three years to support women’s technology education in response to a study sponsored by Melinda Gates that showed leading tech companies provide little philanthropic support geared toward women of color.
Called the Reboot Representation Tech Coalition, the group would like to double the number of black, Latina, and Native American women graduating with computer-science degrees by 2025.
“Twenty-first century life is full of reminders that technology companies wield outsized influence over our futures,” Gates wrote in statement posted on LinkedIn announcing the coalition. “As technology’s role in society grows, so does the urgency of diversifying the tech sector. It’s no secret that women are still underrepresented in tech at every stage of the pipeline.”
Women earn 19 percent of computing degrees, Gates wrote. And despite making up roughly 19 percent of the population, women of color hold only about 4 percent of computing degrees. Citing 2017 figures from the National Center for Women in Technology, women held 26 percent of tech jobs. Black women accounted for only 3 percent of the technology work force and Latinas only 1 percent.
Expanding the Pipeline
The technology companies announced their new support following a report by Gates’s investment company Pivotal Ventures and McKinsey & Company, which showed that many tech firms’ interest in supporting women wasn’t backed up by financial support.
The report, which was based on a survey of 32 technology companies and interviews with 100 tech experts, suggests efforts to increase diversity in the work force through changes in hiring practices is not enough. What’s lacking, according to Gates, is vigorous philanthropic support for increasing a pipeline of talent.
In 2017, about 5 percent of the $500 million the companies in the study gave through their philanthropic or corporate social-responsibility programs was dedicated to advancing women in tech careers. And a much smaller portion was directed specifically to programs to support, women of color.
The members of the coalition are Adobe; Applied Materials; BNY Mellon; Best Buy; Dell; Intel; LinkedIn; Microsoft; Oath; Pivotal Ventures; Qualcomm; and Symantec.
In her statement, Gates suggested she will continue to push for more corporate support for women in tech.
“Many tech companies acknowledge that they have a lot to gain by making diversity a priority,” she wrote. “As a philanthropist, I’m even more interested in what they can contribute.”
