Tech Talk

08 Jul Entrepreneurship Datebook: Workshops, events this week in South Florida

CIVIC INNOVATION: Free networking event and panel discussion on “The Big Business of Civic Innovation” hosted by Digital Grass, with participatory ideation led by Silicon Valley's Carla Mays, 6 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, July 8, The LAB Miami, 400 NW 26th St. More info and RSVP: digigrass.com.

08 Jul Jesse Jackson Is Taking on Silicon Valley’s Epic Diversity Problem

IN MAY 2014, the Reverend Jesse Jackson traveled from his home in Chicago to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California, to address the search giant's annual shareholder meeting. Technology isn't what you would call a core area for the 73-year-old civil rights leader, who carries an old-school flip phone and oversees a website, Rainbowpush.org, that looks like a relic from the GeoCities era. But Jackson had a bone to pick. Despite Google's mission to make the world's data "universally accessible and useful," it had been fighting for years to stop the release of federal data on diversity in its workforce. "There should be nothing to hide, and much to be proud of and promote," Jackson told the company's executives after politely requesting its diversity stats. "I ask you, in the name of all you represent, to pursue this mission."

08 Jul Innovate Finance dubs UK a fintech diversity hub

Innovate Finance says financial technology is one of the easiest places to find diversity in business, and the UK has it in spades

07 Jul Diversity in Tech: 2015 STEM Index Indicates Positive Trends for Minorities in STEM, But Race, Gender Gap Worsens

New data from the 2015 STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) Index, the second-annual study of growth in STEM jobs, careers and educational pathways carried out by U.S. News/Raytheon, shows Silicon Valley's lack of diversity is still rooted in education. The gender and racial gaps in STEM fields have widened since last year. The 2015 STEM Index was created as a way to track the growth of STEM degrees and jobs against baseline statistics pulled from the year 2000.

07 Jul Addressing Diversity in Tech Should Go Beyond Gender

I commend companies for continuing the diversity discussion within the Venture Capital and Technology communities. It takes courage and self reflection to publicly admit that you are not currently where you need to be. However, I believe companies could be even more proactive. A recent KPCB report broke down the company’s employee gender diversity but omitted ethnicity data. A note at the bottom of the report read, “We plan to add ethnicity data to this page in time."

06 Jul Twitter employs only 49 African Americans despite diversity pledges

Twitter employs just 49 black people out of a total US workforce of 2,910. The tiny number of African American staff – 35 men and 14 women – represents just 1.7% of Twitter’s US staff. The Rev Jesse Jackson, president of the Rainbow/Push Coalition, who has long campaigned for tech companies to be more transparent about their lack of minority employees, told the Guardian that black people are “becoming intolerant” of Facebook and other Silicon Valley companies’ lack of progress in making their offices more diverse.