The Boston Globe article Tech firms have a lot to do to fix diversity by Shirley Leung, one of my favorite business writers, makes clear that mentoring is a key ingredient in improving diversity in the tech workplace.
…..Google struggled to retain black engineers because Silicon Valley was too white. What if the tech sector borrowed a page from nonprofit groups like Posse Foundation and Year Up? The idea: Recruit black and Latino students, and then provide them the support and mentorship to succeed in the tech world.
and
A coalition of business, academia, and nonprofit types have come together to launch Hack.Diversity, a program to recruit black and Latino computer science and engineering students from local urban colleges. The pilot effort will place graduating students in internships at area tech companies and give them mentors and support to land a permanent job.
The first cohort in May will involve about 20 students from Bunker Hill Community College, University of Massachusetts Boston, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The inaugural group of participating companies are Carbonite, DataXu, HubSpot, and Vertex.
Where these mentors will come from, what their approach will be, and how they will be deployed might well be the subject of another Globe article. Shirley, what do you think?
Mentorphile 