At Tuesday’s launch of the 18th Annual Rainbow PUSH Wall Street Project Economic Summit, the focus on economic advancement and equal opportunities for African Americans and other minorities turned to technology and how the future of the community could be found in the forefront of technological advancements.
Intel’s Diversity Commitment
Intel CEO Brian Kraznich spoke with Reverend Jesse Jackson about the company’s commitment to diversity and backed it up by confirming the $300 million pledge over five years to reach “full representation of women and under-represented minorities at Intel by 2020,†according to Kraznich.
The funds will be used to create a workforce pipeline to help train and hire under-represented engineers in the company, namely women and minorities.
The initiative will also promote females in the gaming community, and help sponsor minority gaming sports teams, according to Chief Diversity Officer Roz Hudnell.
“I think that it’s a breakthrough,†the Rev. Jackson said. “But now other companies are going to have to match that, or do even better. And that should create an avalanche of opportunities and economic business.”
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NYTM and Silicon Harlem Team Up
Tuesday evening brought New York Tech Meetup and Silicon Harlem together to showcase the latest and greatest in minority startups, and featured five diverse startups with innovative ideas and requests from the community for support.
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Companies like Blendoor and Plexx were dedicated to helping underemployed workers find a stable career path, while SpareChair and Mask encouraged collaboration between people from different backgrounds in different ways.
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Van Jones and His Fight For Programmer Parity
Black Enterprise spoke with #YesWeCode founder and former White House Special Advisor for Green Jobs Van Jones about his efforts to improve diversity in the technology industry.
Jones was optimistic about the massive steps taken in the first month of 2015. “2014 was the year people talked about diversity,†Jones said to Black Enterprise. “I think 2015 is the year people do something about diversity.â€
Jones’ #YesWeCode is aspiring to become similar to the United
Negro College Fund, but focused exclusively on funding coding education. “So our job is to help finance people who want to go to the coding boot camps,†said Jones, who founded the company in 2013.“In three to six months someone can go from making zero dollars in this field to making $70-80 thousand a year. When you have that kind of return on investment you can create a revolving loan fund that can become a perpetual motion machine, so a relatively modest amount of money invested in coding education can give results for a very long time.”
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(Image: Thinkstock) The Urban Tech Boom
Silicon Valley isn’t the only place where startups are popping up. At the Urban Tech Boom panel, Bruce Lincoln and Clayton Banks, co-founders of Silicon Harlem, discussed how cities like New York and Atlanta were getting in on the tech boom.
Panelist Lance McCarthy, Ph.D., cofounder of Black Silicon Valley, a 100,000 square-foot innovation center in Atlanta, Georgia said his goal was to provide black startups with “the three C’s. Contracts, Contacts, and Capital.” Dr. McCarthy discussed his partnership with Garage Technology Ventures, a seed and early-stage venture capital fund, that will give minority startups access to its $60 million equity fund.