n so-called STEM subjects around the age of 11 and then quickly lose interest when they’re 15. “Conformity to social expectations, gender stereotypes, gender roles and lack of role models continue to channel girls’ career choices away from STEM fields,” said psychology professor Martin Bauer of the London School of Economics, who helped coordinate the survey of 11,500 girls across 12 European countries.
Dell Technologies’ Youth Learning programs have provided 2.6 million underserved K-12 students with access to high-quality technology education. We collaborate with partners including Girls Who Code, which is building a pipeline of young women to work in computing, and CSforALL, which aims to bring computer science education to all of the country’s school districts.
Getting real about where we need improvement
Industrywide problems require industrywide solutions. That’s why we’re a founding member of Reboot Representation Tech Coalition, a Melinda Gates initiative to double the number of black, Latina and Native American women graduating with computer degrees by 2025. Twelve tech companies—including Dell Technologies and our fellow Reboot founders Intel, Microsoft, Adobe, Oath and Salesforce—have committed a collective $12 million toward this goal, and new members continue to join. In addition, this coalition will work together to leverage best practices from our companies’ women’s leadership development programs to create an ecosystem that enables women of color to excel in tech.
Beyond investment to create the curriculum that matters
Through our new Project Immersion program, we are partnering with select historically black college & universities (HBCUs) and minority serving institutions (MSIs) to develop curriculum that cultivates the skills diverse students need to succeed in today’s tech industry. Our inaugural spring semester classes began in January 2019. We have served more than 100 science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) students at The University of Texas at Austin and three HBCUs in Atlanta: Spelman College, Morehouse College and Clark Atlanta University. We brought in teachers from across Dell Technologies to teach subjects like cloud infrastructure (Pivotal) and cybersecurity (SecureWorks). Dell Technologies’ Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Brian K. Reaves, led a session to provide perspectives from the C-suite on the critical business acumen skills required of future leaders in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. And our employee resource group members from the local chapter of Black Networking Alliance (BNA) helped guide the technical workshops.
“This program is personally meaningful to me because as a computer science major, I am interested in cybersecurity, but am still learning about what it actually entails,” said Yvonne Akuamoah, a Project Immersion student at Morehouse College. “My institution doesn’t offer any cybersecurity course, so this was my first real exposure to the field.”
We held a roundtable with HBCU students and faculty to gain insights into how we can continue to attract and retain underrepresented talent in STEM. Additionally, we are scaling Project Immersion to other universities, starting with Georgia State University, one of the most diverse universities in the nation and physical hub for the Georgia FinTech Academy. We are also exploring opportunities to partner with additional HBCUs/MSIs to offer the program online.
Helping non-IT pros make the switch
Career changes are common in today’s dynamic workplace, and we want to help more professionals pivot their careers to tech. Northeastern University’s ALIGN program serves women and underrepresented minorities from non-IT fields who are pursuing master’s degrees in computer science.
Through our partnership, we have provided five Dell ALIGN Scholars with financial support and future co-op positions at Dell Technologies. We aim to double our reach this year, and are working with other companies and universities to expand ALIGN around the U.S.
“This program encourages me to believe that I am able to learn a completely new to