Is the lack of diversity a problem in the technology industry? I think the answer to this question depends on the scale of the problem you are attempting to tackle. Are you looking at the diversity problems of individual firms in the technology industry, or are you looking at diversity in the industry as a whole? I believe that both problems are something that need to be addressed, but come from different causes and thus have different solutions. If an individual firm is having a diversity problem, like having significantly lower numbers than the industry average, the firm must look inward to see if there are any cultural biases. However if we are addressing the industry wide problem, like the technology industry having lower minority representation then other industries, we must look at our culture as a whole. What ingrained problems do we have in our society to cause these issues?
There are certainly cases where companies can fall behind industry standards in terms of minority representation. It’s on the company to recognize a problem, which is often the hardest part, and then rectify that problem. This problem can be very hard to address, as it can be deeply ingrained in company culture. The Forbes article gives a good framework for attempting to fix this problem in a company’s culture. The first step is to get an outside source to assess the company’s culture for discrimination. This is extremely important. Since the problem stems from inside the company, attempting to fix it with only company resources might prove fruitless. Outside training is often important, as many employees will have cultural biases without even realizing them. The rest of the steps deal with programs aimed at improving minority workers already at the company, but I want to focus on these first two steps. Programs to aid minorities are certainly important, but I think the programs focused toward’s non-minorities are more pertinent to our problem. The first step is to remove the cultural biases at a company, allowing the company to achieve higher diversity. Then a company can focus on its minority programs.
Now when the scope of our question changes from individual firms to the industry as a whole, the cause of our problem changes and thus our solution must be different. Unlike a problem at an individual company, the problem at the industry level isn’t necessarily a fault of the industry. There may be cultural problems inherent in the tech industry, but I do not believe that is why we see such a large lack in diversity as compared to other fields. I believe it it is because of cultural problems across society as a whole. There is certainly a stigma of the typical “tech person”, and there are certainly groups that are left out of this stigma. One example is women. Since society typically thinks of women as less tech-oriented then men, we see less women pursuing tech fields. It’s not because women are “worse” at tech fields, is that many don’t even think of it as an option. This is a cultural problem that doesn’t need to be addressed at the industry level, but at academia. I think Notre Dame has done a great job at this. There are many resources available for women in STEM fields, and resources that attempt to recruit women into STEM fields. In my personal experience I think it has helped. To me at least, it appears that there are more and more women studying computer science since I have been at the university. In summary the industry wide problem is not a problem that has to be solved at the industry level, it needs to be addressed by academia.
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