Diversity in Tech

By Sheri Doahue

 I thoroughly enjoyed listening to episode 4 of the Technically Human podcast "Tech Represents: Black Millennials go digital" with Aaron Samuels, and thought that the topics he touched on were very relevant. I really liked hearing the founding story he shared about the media company he co-founded and how it arose from the community he was part of while in undergrad. I think many people take these types of shared experiences and communities that we create in college for granted, especially once we have graduated and find ourselves in the corporate world with very few people we know or who are similar to us. For Samuels and his friends, it seems that on top of being in a new environment outside of college, the feeling of isolation also stemmed from the lack of diversity at the big companies they were working at, like the ones in Silicon Valley. Not only can tech help ease the problem of isolation by connecting black people together through a digital community, but also allows for the organization of such conventions Samuels created in order to address the root of this feeling of isolation: the disproportionately small number of black people who work at these companies. By addressing this problem and bringing in more diversity to the corporate world, the problem of isolation can be resolved, and hopefully, members of these "isolated" communities will now be able to find people who look like them and have a shared experience at the proverbial dining hall table. Even though there are at least hundreds of black people working in Silicon Valley, and therefore not one person is truly alone, the belief of an individual that they are alone is powerful enough to prevent any of them from finding each other. By raising awareness about this small community, connections can be made to strengthen their voices to advocate for and introduce new members into this community.

By hiring more people of color, companies can not only solve this problem of isolation that their black employees feel, but can also contribute to bettering the design of tech by including them in the conversation. When designers and engineers who create these products are representative of the people who use them and are affected by them, then these innovations can be more effective at what they do in order to better serve everyone. By having black people working at all levels of the corporate hierarchy, it ensures that the tech that is designed does not overlook the needs and safety of black people, like the example about the AI used for bank applications, or the camera sensors on self-driving cars. This allows for a future where there are no systems put in place that oppress people simply by their design, and that this snowball effect will impact many aspects of business, tech, and society to create positive change.