fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
“Most people of color working in tech know that there’s a diversity problem. But I’ve never experienced anything like Coinbase.”
By: Damon Beres
Tags: Diversity In Tech, Coinbase, Cryptocurrency

The New York Times on Friday published a report that details allegations of a racist culture at the cryptocurrency startup Coinbase.

One particularly striking passage:

One Black employee said her manager suggested in front of colleagues that she was dealing drugs and carrying a gun, trading on racist stereotypes. Another said a co-worker at a recruiting meeting broadly described Black employees as less capable. Still another said managers spoke down to her and her Black colleagues, adding that they were passed over for promotions in favor of less experienced white employees. The accumulation of incidents, they said, led to the wave of departures.

Only 3 percent of Coinbase’s employees are Black, a relatively low number even in the context of the largely white tech industry. (A few points of contrast, per the most recently available public numbers: 4.9 percent of U.S. Microsoft employees are Black; Facebook, 3.9 percent; Apple, 9 percent; Medium, 9 percent.)

Read the full story here:

Earlier this week, Coinbase attempted to get in front of the story with a blog post. “Although the [Times’] story will likely allege that a number of Black employees and contractors referenced in the story filed complaints with the company, only three of these people filed complaints during their time at Coinbase,” the company said. “If we’re made aware of any new allegations that warrant investigation, we will absolutely investigate them — as we do all allegations of misconduct.”
What is Masters of Craft?
Tags: Diversity In Tech, Diversity

Let’s take a trip back in time. It’s in 2019. Times are better than they are now — no pandemic. People are in the office. Desks, walls, cubicles, random chit chat sounds all around. Ah, such a familiar and incredible feeling, like smelling roses by the cornerstone.

I know you miss it. I do too. It was incredible to be surrounded by people. Being able to laugh and joke with colleagues. High-fiving each other over small wins. Grabbing a fresh-brewed coffee and chatting with another only 1ft away. It’s amazing to remember that feeling. It’s also funny how life changes and evolves in just one year.

—

I started writing this blog last year with the determination of wanting to share stories of people like me. Brown people. Women. Asians. Immigrants. People of color.

I started with great momentum, interviewed a bunch of senior leaders in positions at big companies. But I never took it anywhere — why? Well, imposter syndrome kicked in. The voices that tell you “you aren’t good enough” blasted every day when I thought about Masters of Craft. It’s terrible to have so much anxiety. And no it’s not normal to feel this.

It’s exactly a year from this idea, that I think maybe now is the right time to launch this blog. For you. For me. For the sanity of the future. Maybe these small stories inspire you — to be a better you. To be a better person of color that is a catalyst for change. I know we as a collective can do it.

So join me on this journey of highlighting stories of professionals that are leading the industry AND are people of color. Learn about how people got started in their careers, and how to navigate work environments that maybe aren’t so nice to POC. Read about diversity, inclusion, and equity from real people of color. Engage, understand, and share what you learn in the changing world.

It’s Time for People of Color to Shine.

Subscribe now for more stories to come ahead dear friend. If you do have any requests or want to contribute to this publication, please email hello@mastersofcraft.com

Thank you, friend!
Conversation Contracts for the tough discussion
By: Alexis J
Tags: Inclusion, Psychological Safety, Diversity And Inclusion, Workplace, Diversity In Tech

Workplace diversity is one of the best goals any company could have. With diverse talent comes innovation, increased profitability, high retention, and so much more. With diversity, inclusivity must follow alongside it because it is the key ingredient to ensure positive workplace productivity.

The first step I mentioned in building an inclusive workplace has conversation contracts.

Conversation contracts are verbal (and can be written in the employee handbook) agreements among employees at the beginning of meetings, round-table discussions, presentations, or even basic conversations that will provide a psychological safety net for everyone participating. Why is this needed?

When thinking about inclusivity, you want to think of everyone in the room. Backgrounds, experiences, lifestyles, race, religions, gender, etc., all play a part in how each of us views EVERYTHING. With everyone’s intersectionality at play, you want to provide an environment that allows for authentic, vulnerable, nonjudgmental, and trust in each conversation.

Below are some conversation contract points I’ve used in the past to facilitate tough conversations.

Assume Positive Intent

Space for Learning and Failing

We’re Talking Not Debating

Practice Active Listening

Ask for a Break When Needed

These points and many others equip the conversation with a framework for everyone to work within.

The goal isn’t to shy away from the tough conversations. The goal is to learn from each one and make systemic changes within the workspace. The goal is to have someone learn something new from another colleague. The goal is to provide a milieu where everyone can pull up to the table, take a seat, and not have to leave one percent of themselves outside the door.
Dear people with “diversity specialist” in your job title…
By: Patricia Ehrhardt
Tags: Platitudes, Diversity In Tech, Diversity And Inclusion, White Privilege

Greetings and happy Monday…again

I came here today to hopefully shed some light on some things that white people might think are benign decisions but that really disclude the exact group of people you claim to want to include.

This is going to be a VERY unpopular take but remember, I am a Black woman, over 40 and in tech. I have tons of insight, if you are willing to listen.

Hot Take: When you have the word “diversity”, or “inclusion” in your job title and you lovingly display a photo of all your white female co-workers thinking to yourself , “Now THIS is diversity, you go girl!” this is 100% not diversity. Equality for white women in the job force is NOT equality for ALL women and is NOT diversity in anyway, shape or form. Especially if all the white women aren’t even in different age groups.

Another hot take: When you post a job, after claiming you are a “diversity inclusive specialist”, that states you don’t care about experience, just passion for learning, then list that the candidate must have 5+ years experience as a software engineer…this too is not inclusive and you are not a specialist at anything diverse. This is called empty platitudes and it is offensive.

Solution: Stop being so completely EXCLUSIVE and start taking chances on people, especially Black women who have literally spent thousands of hours learning, teaching ourselves and others and creating technology that y’all use.

It is exhausting falling for your “inclusion” empty promises and “diversity” lies when you really don’t know or have not taken the time to understand what that even is.

Again, no offence to white women in tech or white ppl but you also might want to stop hiring white, straight, young people in positions that are responsible for diversity and inclusion.

Happy Monday folks, and this is why I can’t have nice things and also why I am super picky about who I want to work with next.

Resources:

I found a cool site for kids and me, while searching for simple music based projects to add to myCV.

True story, I have a secret love affair with the Raspberry Pi. If you have $30-$60, buy one or three Raspberry Pi’s off of craigslist or whatever non-Bezos revenue based site you like, and check out ProjectsRaspberryPi and build something. I will too.
Female Founder Office Hours — The Story and What Happens Next
By: Jeevan Sunner
Tags: Female Founders, Venture Capital, Women In Tech, Office Hours, Diversity In Tech

The story

At Playfair, we saw female founders facing two key problems:

Lack of funding 💰 — For every £1 of venture capital investment in the UK, all-female founder teams get less than 1p (Diversity VC and British Business Bank). Lack of access to investors, especially outside of London 🌎— Startups that land in VCs’ laps via so-called ‘warm introductions’ are 13 times more likely to be funded by them than startups which come to their attention via ‘cold’ pitch deck submissions (Diversity VC and British Business Bank). This has only exacerbated the need for founders to find ways of getting in front of investors and in doing so, restricting access to those who cannot secure warm introductions. This is an even bigger problem outside of London as typically most VC funds are physically based in London.

There are plenty of theories around this disparity, ranging from the lack of women in core-STEM workforces (representing only 24% of the total workforce)(Wise Campaign) to investors statistically being more likely to back entrepreneurs with similar backgrounds, putting female founders pitching to an all-male investment team at a disadvantage (Funders Club).

Regardless of the reason, we recognise that it is the responsibility of the entire ecosystem and all the players in it to make a change.

And that’s why we launched Female Founder Office Hours. Through our two-part events, we facilitate female founder-investor introductions with four key pillars in mind:

Access 👐 — To circumvent the ‘warm introduction’ and ‘cold outreach’, we give founders direct access to VC investors.

👐 — To circumvent the ‘warm introduction’ and ‘cold outreach’, we give founders direct access to VC investors. Remote 🌍 — Virtual Zoom meetings give founders the opportunity to join the event from anywhere in the world, even during a pandemic.

🌍 — Virtual Zoom meetings give founders the opportunity to join the event from anywhere in the world, even during a pandemic. Collaboration 🤝 — Playfair, Tech Nation and 60+ VCs working together to bring change.

🤝 — Playfair, Tech Nation and 60+ VCs working together to bring change. Founder driven💡 💰. With no set agenda, founders drive the meeting and have the opportunity to pitch for funding or simply ask for advice and mentorship.

Screenshot of all founder and investor attendees

We kickstarted Edition I of Female Founder Office Hours in October 2019, welcoming 45 founders and 11 investors. This grew to 53 founders and 15 investors in Edition II.

It’s now officially a year since we first launched the initiative and since the first event, we’ve grown substantially to facilitate the following in Edition IV last week:

🤝 624 office hour meetings

👸 156 female founders

👫 61 VC investors from the UK’s leading funds

A special thank you to the investors who have supported the initiative from day one, including Oksana Stowe, Belinda Gurung, Bethany Greer, Alexia Arts, and to all the investors who have joined us along the way.
Welcome, Cohort 13!
By: Andy Orr
Tags: Community College, Diversity In Tech, Applied Baccalaureate, Student Success

Twice a year, every fall and winter, Green River College’s Bachelor of Applied Science in Software Development onboards a cohort of new students. Recently, we had the privilege of welcoming Cohort 13 to the program via a virtual advising workshop over Zoom.

Twenty six students attended the workshop, which included activities around being successful in the program, winter quarter class planning, as well as an AMA-style Q and A with faculty members Ken Hang, Tina Ostrander, Josh Archer, Susan Uland, and Tyler Schrock.

At Green River College, we’re helping create a new, more diverse generation of software developers to fill jobs right here in Seattle-Tacoma. At the heart of that enterprise? Students like this.

Welcome, Cohort 13!
How do you remain inclusive during challenging times?
By: Alexis J
Tags: Inclusion, Authenticity, Diversity And Inclusion, Workplace, Diversity In Tech

How do you remain inclusive during challenging times?

Look, since the pandemic started, we’ve all sat on a roller coaster of managing and struggling. We’re in our homes, glued to our phones, laptops, tablets, and TVs, consuming content that can be divisive among friends, family, and coworkers. But at the end of the day, as corny as it may sound, we are all in this together. But how can we work together when our differences in lifestyle, education, opinions, and more are so vast?

I believe this is where inclusive strategies come into play! When the workplace is truly diverse, inclusivity is paramount because it provides a landscape for everyone to work together cohesively, which yields better outcomes in every facet of the workplace. Inclusivity requires everyone to be their authentic selves. But before someone can be fully themselves at work, they have to know that the environment supports differences.

You can implement three inclusive strategies that can foster and reinforce your inclusive culture.

Step 1: Create Conversation Contracts. It’s hard to have tough conversations when you feel like you can be judged, misheard, or invaluable. Conversation Contracts create a safe space for everyone to feel invited to speak their mind honestly and freely.

Step 2: Invite Everyone to the Table: every employee should feel like “an insider.” Provide equal access to all resources and opportunities while involving as many people as possible to collaborate and participate in the decision-making process. Doing so leads to increased role satisfaction, commitment to the organization, individual well-being, and task effectiveness.

Step 3: Work with a Growth Mindset. When you can help employees shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset, it provides an environment that encourages diversity. With actively listening, respect, and appreciating another way of thinking; allows for innovations in the workplace. Studies show growth mindsets for all employees can increase productivity, collaboration, insights, and skills.

B.M Ferdman writes in Paradoxes of inclusion: Understanding and managing the tensions of diversity and multiculturalism, “In inclusive organizations and societies, people of all identities and many styles can be fully themselves while also contributing to the larger collective, as valued and full members.” Basically we can all be different, but each of us can contribute value to the goals.

Like I mentioned above, we’re all in this together. Whether we’re winning or losing, we each have a part to play. Whether you’re in a marginalized group getting traction for equality or a person who is a member of a non-marginalized group trying to learn more about others, support for all employees to be their authentic selves at all levels of an organization is true inclusivity.

I love talking about inclusive workplaces; send me a message to discuss more!
Writing Women In STEM: We’re so much more than just hackers.
By: Dm Shepard
Tags: Women in STEM, Diversity, Women In Tech, Writing Life, Diversity In Tech

Me at work in one of the electrical substations

Maya Angelou once said, “If there is a book you want to read, and it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”

There’s a lot of discussion about diversity lately. One of the places in literature I would like to see more diversity is in careers for women of all backgrounds. We’ve just elected a woman to one of the highest offices in the land, but when we look around at literature, the career fields that are written about for women can be listed on one hand. And they typically play on repeat in books.

And I get it, I really do. As a woman who as worked in STEM for the last 25 years, there just aren’t a lot of us here. It’s one of the reasons I decided to start writing and publishing my own stories. I just wasn’t seeing women like me.

I want to see female veterans portrayed the way we see male veterans in romance. I want to see female engineers and scientists save the day. I want to see my fellow female computer scientists portrayed as more than just hackers. Seriously, the world of computer science is huge, and way more than someone in a dark room trying to “hack” a computer.

I want to see a woman with a chronic illness or disability working in a real career and operating as a main character in a story (yes, I will whole heartedly admit, this stems from my experiences dealing with MS). Not just a side character, or someone the hero has to swoop in and save.

I’ve had relapsing/remitting MS for 20+ years, but it hasn’t stopped me from having a rewarding career as an electrical engineer, working in some of the toughest environments on earth.

If we show young people the diverse careers in STEM, and the ways that it can apply to them, only then can we hope to attract more young people in to these fields.

We need to show that disabled does not equal useless or hopeless. Not just for those who are suffering, but for those who have never encountered serious chronic illness or disability.

(My biggest pet peeve is people who tell me I can’t possibly have MS — I’m not in a wheel chair)

Thanks for reading my rant. My horror novella, The Dark Land, is currently available on Amazon.
How Do We Lead In Diversity?
By: Abhinav Jain
Tags: Diversity, Trump, Diversity And Inclusion, Trump Administration, Diversity In Tech

Trump’s rise to power in 2016 signalled a backlash to diversity that all of us around the world still need to reckon with. His presidency was in part a reaction to his predecessor and the public perception that so-called ‘minorities’ have gained too much power in the United States.



Trump’s rallying cries from “build the wall” to “lock her up” emboldened the racist and misogynistic hatred that had been lurking beneath a veneer of political correctness.

The resistance against diversity could also be seen in the workplace. The contempt that some workers feel towards a diversifying labor force. Typically (though not always), the backlash comes from cis-gender straight able-bodied white men who believe they have been left behind in a changing world.



They accuse corporate diversity as upending the right order of things when in reality, diversity initiatives have served to help the marginalized.
Diversity Equity and Inclusion workshops and courses that I’m excited about
By: Tara Robertson
Tags: Dei, Diversity And Inclusion, Professional Development, Workshop, Diversity In Tech

photo by Jacob Lund from Noun Project

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) is a growing business. There are numerous DEI tech startups, DEI companies, DEI consultants and DEI certifications. I’ve been underwhelmed by the certifications offered by academic institutions as they are overly theoretical and don’t seem to equip learners with practical skills to do DEI work. Here are some trainings and workshops that are coming up that I’m excited about.

On October 23rd Paradigm’s Joelle Emerson, Dr. Evelyn Carter, and Courri Brady are offering a 1 hour free webinar on Creating Your 2021 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategy.

Dereca Blackmon’s Inclusive Mindset for Committed Allies (free if you have LinkedIn Premium, unsure of the pricing if you don’t.) Dereca is the CEO of Inclusion Design Group and the former Assistant Vice Provost and Executive Director, Diversity and Inclusion Office at Stanford. She’s a dynamic speaker and I imagine this will be good. This 1 hour class is asynchronous, so you can do it at your own pace.

Nicole Sanchez’s Building a More Inclusive Workplace: A 5-week series for measuring and improving DEI at your company (in partnership with O’Reilly. Nicole is the Founder and CEO of Vaya consulting and has been the VP of Social Impact at GitHub and a lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. She is a thought leader and practitioner I admire. This class starts on November 3 and runs for 5 weeks, once a week. O’Reilly offers monthly or yearly subscriptions to their learning platform, so as an individual you would need to pay $49USD for for 2 months).

Dr. Dori Tunstall is offering Hiring for Decolonization, Diversity, and Inclusion in the Creative Industries Micro-Certification ($675 CAD or ~$515 USD) through OCAD U’s Continuing Studies department. Dori has been a leader at OCAD in effectively using cluster hires to shift increase the number of Black and Indigenous faculty and to start to shift the culture of the university. This class starts on November 18th and runs for 5 weeks, once a week synchronously with 3 optional synchronous sessions for students to share their work with each other.

What other trainings would you recommend?
Diversity Inc: How Data Geeks Exposed Diversity Reporting in the Fortune 500
By: Nick Canfield
Tags: Diversity, Social Change, Fortune 500, Diversity In Tech, Data

Photo by Ali Yahya on Unsplash

It’s frustrating. Actually, it’s outright bonkers, and intentionally so.

There are 500 companies on the aptly-named Fortune 500 list, yet only a small portion track and publish workplace diversity statistics.

Worse yet, they track their data in different ways. One stat might be labeled the same, but if you read the fine print, it might be tracked differently across companies. Women % in tech might actually be self-identified women who work in anything that uses a computer.

Inconsistency between stats is just the beginning.

Although many are better than others with tracking and sharing data, companies are still in the dark ages of .pdf diversity reports shared at yearly intervals. Only some publish their stats on corporate responsibility webpages, but none actually allow easy data exports.

In short, analyzing the state of diversity in business today is a nightmare, even for publicly traded companies.

It would take days, no, weeks to compile all of these diversity reports from around the web into a centralized and comparative database for the world to view. Such a database would allow companies to compare and hold each other accountable for promoting diversity in the workplace. It would allow companies to showcase progress in historically problematic areas such as hiring women in tech.

Such a project would be a great service to the public as well as to each of the Fortune 500 companies, and it’s exactly what DJ Krebasch has done at DEI Score.
Black is…a beautiful struggle
By: Abidemi Ogunbowale-Thomas
Tags: Creativity, Storytelling, Diversity And Inclusion, Diversity In Tech, Accenture

Transcript

Black is

Such a poor definition of a dynamic race.

Like we were faceless,

Nameless,

Back in those days when they enslaved us.

But you know,

We weren’t always slaves right?

Our heritage has kingdoms, kings and queens.

But when I was young, I struggled with identity.

What does it mean to be black?

I found myself painting the caricatures on my face like the minstrels.

Is this what I need to do to fit in?

I abbreviated my surname to avoid awkward introductions.

Shout out to the wisdom of parents,

They didn’t name me to blend in.

Then I encountered the refining fire,

Eternal gaze

Like really?

Am I truthfully,

Beautifully,

And wonderfully made?

Mother said be excellent.

Dad said work twice as hard.

So I started to become bolder

And peeled back the mask

To reveal the identity

I’d worked so hard to mask.

My early recollection of Nigerian culture was at weddings.

Moving side to side to talking drums and naija beats.

Not to mention my dad waking us up on Saturday mornings with his music,

DJing on the decks.

You see,

Now I’m eclectic.

But it wasn’t always so.

Back then

At 10

The music I would step to

Was pop.

I didn’t realise my miseducation, like Lauryn Hill

Till my aunt gave me tapes,

You remember those, back in the day?

I discovered my love for African food and Super Malt.

Remember when I used to take it and then get caught

Aunties like, ‘who said you can take that?’

Freeze like a statue, look back.

I was like ‘my..my..my..my mum said I could.’

Switch pan

My confidence continues to grow,

Have I truly found my flow

Until

Another stereotype hits

Like

You can only truly be black-ish, if you’re eloquent in speech, attire and presentation.

Doesn’t that really reinforce the inferior stereotype?

Oh we’ve really got to burst the bubbles from the left and the right

So many influences trying to define my identity.

Some kinda wonderful, beautiful struggle that subtly through the mindset tries to hold me back.

Captive

To what it means to be black.

And though thanked-less,

I’m thankful

For inspirational figures around us

That remind us that it’s okay to be you.

Black is

The beautiful struggle to be me.

Free.

And if not for me,

Then for my beautiful young son

Who arrived at 28 weeks

Peace.
The Only Black on the Equity Cap Table
By: Nathan Pearson Smith
Tags: Wealth Inequality, Blockchain, Venture Capital, Diversity In Tech, Black Wealth

This post is late, but an important one. My investment career is a recent one, but one which has presented me with a multitude of opportunities that are not open to everyone.

On one side, for me personally, it’s a major accomplishment being the 1st ethnic minority person on a companies cap table, but I certainly take no pride in being the only. In 300 words or less, I will attempt to explain why providing access to early-stage deal flow is an important part of my work and mission.

My Modus Operandi is to open up access to the same deal-flow I have worked hard to access, to other individuals and give them the opportunity to capitalise on quality wealth creation opportunities.

I don’t have the numbers on the amount of % of ethnic minorities that participate in seed or private rounds of blockchain projects, but I would imagine the number is so small it’s not worth the mental math effort. I’m either 1 of 1 or 1 of 2. I want that number to change, and the buck stops with me.

Obtaining financial freedom is less of an achievement when you achieve said freedom on your own, but your peers are still stuck in the rat race.

It is imperative to me that more people from diverse and disadvantaged communities are given an equal footing to compete. I myself fit into this demographic and only through tapping into my natural talent at an early age was I able to pull myself out of an unpleasant life trajectory that was set in stone for me.

This post is about financial inclusion. It’s about democratising access to wealth, creating opportunities for #blackwealth and showing future generations that their opportunities in life should not be limited by what is in front of them, but should be inspired by what they can go beyond.
Setting up a diversity and inclusion working group: A workshop kit
By: Nufar Galin
Tags: Workshop Facilitation, Inclusion, Diversity, Women In Tech, Diversity In Tech

Before you start:

A few important factors will determine how successful a diversity working group can be. The first one is leadership buy-in. If you’re a lone ranger in a team that doesn’t see this as a priority, it will be a lot harder to effect change. Once you’ve established that this is a priority, and have leadership sponsorship that is more than lip service, get to work. Gather your people, kick off the work, establish a baseline, set goals, and GO!

If you need articles to prove why diversity and inclusion matter, beyond the because it’s 2020 or because it is right, there’s plenty out there for how it leads to better business outcomes, including McKinsey’s comprehensive report, Harvard Business Review, and Catalyst, to name a few.

I wrote this a long while ago, and neglected Medium entirely, so some of it is more pre-covid-workshop appropriate. However, collaborative post-it workshops are still pretty easy to do- you can use Miro, Lucidchart or any other collaboration tool for running multi-participant workshops.

Setting up a working group

Try to cap it off at max. 10 people. It’s near impossible to accommodate the calendars of that many people if you try to have any sort of continuity and followthrough, and workshops with more participants than that can drag and get derailed. Depending on how large the company is, how many functions there are etc., make sure different areas of the business are represented (so that each team has a diversity champion in it, rather than one team being in charge); different life experiences and background (make sure the diversity working group isn’t just ‘women and people of colour’ but actually includes a broad range of participants, ages, family status, educational background, ability/disability etc.). Try to make sure there’s at least one member of senior leadership in the group, and a senior member of the people/HR team.

For this, an email/slack/carrier pigeon with a call-to-arms (and in my case, a few emojis to break the wall of text) is enough to get people interested.
Brava! Awesome piece!
By: Rosalyn Barnes
Tags: Diversity In Tech, Diversity And Inclusion

Brava! Awesome piece! You are a talented and intuitive designer; and your passion, hard work ethic and determination will serve you well. I pray that you, me and our 20+ cohort comrades will catch a break and get roles soon. #d&i #JobsBeforeISAPaymentsDue
Representation.
By: I. Raleigh
Tags: Diversity In Tech

More diversity of people, more diversity of thought.

The world is so aware at this moment that there are fractures in our communities; in our society. People, who would not find themselves represented, have made it known: they exist. As we continue to create a life as digital as it is real, it is imperative we consider the makers and keepers of our digital lives.

Technology, specifically software can be defined as the transfer of thought into machine. This happens in the form of what most would call an algorithm. When we think about an algorithm, we think about the famous (though fictitious) scene from the Social Network where the actor scribbles some math on the window. This, though may technically fit the definition, is a gross oversimplification. Not just of the effort, but of the process.

Our thoughts come to us in a moment of inspiration. For the creators of software, a thought may sound something like, “Our users want…”

We all have a limited understanding of the world. There are seven billion of us and counting, no one person could hold on to all of these experiences at once. When we say, “Our users want…” we mean “The users who have an experience like mine want…”

These thoughts, get shared at a meeting where teams of people collaborate.

These thoughts, get written onto whiteboards, distilled into requirements, and passed off to the Software Engineers so they can figure out the best way to write the code.

The problem is these ideators, these engineers, only know what they know. The leaders who hire them know this. And those leaders love to optimize.

Their solution, is that we must have only the best and the brightest. We only hire people who have the privilege to get into certain schools, experience summer internships at certain companies, and do only one thing in their spare time: code.

Because the best and the brightest are a function of privilege in America, that means BIPOC will be left out. Statistically, we have less of it.

Thoughts, though ephemeral, can be immortalized in these algorithms. In this code. Thoughts when converted into code by engineers, will get to make decisions for millions and millions of people. Every credit card swipe, every like, every post, every picture, every bill paid, every loan applied for, every face recognized, every barcode scanned, every ticket purchase, every border crossed. Some person’s thoughts, will be making these decisions for you.

Let me be clear: the thoughts written on a whiteboard, distilled into requirements, and passed off to the engineers, will determine what happens to millions of people.

Representation. More diversity of people, more diversity of thought.

The world is full or racism, full of sexism, full of phobias towards LGBTQIA+ people. These are thoughts. Without representation, these thoughts will become code. That code will decide our lives.
Happy 7th Birthday codebar!
Tags: Software Engineering, Diversity In Tech, Diversity And Inclusion, Community

7 years…WOW! We’re not entirely sure how that happened or where time has gone. On Wednesday 23rd October 2013 we ran our very first codebar workshop in London hosted by the team over at Revoo with 16 people.

This wasn’t from our firstworkshop but it’s one of the earliest pictures we can find. Taken on December 14th 2013.

Things have grown and changed a lot since then, but our mission still remains. Creating a safe environment for minority group members to learn to code.

Since our first workshop, we have started codebar chapters in 35 cities around the world, and helped over 12,100 students learn to code. To celebrate our birthday we’re extremely happy to launch our new stats website. This website pulls data straight from our database so we can see how things are progressing and growing. And giving you more of an insight into the growth of codebar.

See our new stats website ➡️ stats.codebar.io/

codebar would not be what is without YOU!! Our extremely amazing, dedicated, loyal, lovely, wonderful community. codebar couldn’t happen without its coaches dedicating their free time to help students learn to code. codebar couldn’t happen without its wonderful 150+ organisers over the 7 years organising and running the workshops. codebar couldn’t happen without our hosts offering up their space so we can run our workshops so we want to say the biggest (honestly the absolute biggest) thank you to everyone over the last 7 years.

Cheers to the next 7 years 🍾🍾🍾
They Don’t Teach You Hunger in Business School
By: Loop Club
Tags: Hiring, Diversity And Inclusion, Digital Marketing Agency, Diversity In Tech, Startup Lessons

I’ve been thinking a lot about hiring.

In the eComm growth industry, you’re typically lauded and fly fast up the ranks if you have a combination of the following:

fast

intuitive

ability to sell

strong creative instincts

adherence to direction

What’s less on industry directors’ radars are whether you can play an instrument, read de Beauvoir, or broke a restaurant’s sales record during a weekend rush.

And why would they be?

In performance based marketing, performance is key — and you can typically predict optimal performance with students of the industry.

But my cofounders and I come from weird places.

Tim Keen, an Aussie immigrant, toured with a band for years, studied violin performance and pharmacology, and created websites for clients funded by his own bank account — all while trying to build credit in the US.

Tim Gachot, a France-born Cali-raised former engineer (and an aerospace grad school drop-out), once shucked oysters in a French fish factory and has spent years oscillating from motion graphics, to startup mentoring, to photography, to improv.

Me, a Chinese adoptee and Philosophy major who worked full time at bars throughout college slinging tequila. I spent a quick stint at film school before deciding on a career as a slam poet before deciding on a career as a teacher before… In a heavy year I was an SEO writer, taco server, marketing intern, and Uber driver.

None of us are “classically trained” in digital marketing.

But we all seem hellbent on one thing: a commitment to trying everything. A hunger for learning differently than we had the time before.

Now in a position where I’m frequently vetting professionals for our team, I keep coming back to what seems to be a long-standing myth about marketing success: background = expertise = performance.

A clear equation in most industries.

Not so clear in growth marketing.

Our biggest successes have come from us realizing traditional models might not work, that you have to get ahead of the problem with a solution before a problem even exists. That you have to always be moving, challenging, breaking rules, and trying. You won’t find 100% YoY growth in a marketing guide.

Our track records help train, of course.

But hunger can’t be taught in business school. Our clients don’t meet growth goals because we learned how a couple agency’s processes work.

A stubborn dedication to a constant iterative imagination reigns supreme in my hiring process — and among everything we try, our clients know we always try something new.
This is a truly a despicable thread of responses…
By: Chad Hamre
Tags: Programming, Minorities In Tech, Inclusion, Diversity In Tech, Software Development

… and a nearly perfect microcosm as to why we continue to struggle to attract diverse talent to computer science. Do you not see the irony in you mostly White men berating a Black man for applauding a long overdue linguistic update that nearly all big companies have/are already embraced? Come on people! Take a step back and think about it with empathy and kindness. Being empathetic and kind is a big part of what it takes to be a great software engineer. Think of this as your chance to practice.
Let’s Not Talk About Accessibility but Inclusivity
By: Angela Sanchez Mezquita
Tags: Programming, Diversity, Diversity And Inclusion, UX, Diversity In Tech

Let’s Not Talk About Accessibility but Inclusivity

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Inclusivity Versus Accessibility Versus Diversity

As a UX designer, I’ve faced a lot of projects where the client particularly asks “to be accessible.”

When using the word “accessibility” in our industry we normally mean that our products have to be accessible for those with disabilities, and as designers, we should make sure that everyone can access and enjoy our products.

When accessibility just includes this group of people, we are leaving many others out of our range. That’s the reason why I prefer to use the word “inclusivity” instead of accessibility.

In the context of product design, inclusivity means making our products the most usable by the widest range of people including, but not limited to, people with disabilities.

And what about “diversity?” That term is so trendy now and you can hear it in almost every big company.

Although the term diversity embraces all people regardless of their situation, culture, ethnicity, age, gender, sexuality, etc., have you ever thought that a group of diverse people could feel non-inclusive?
Being Mistaken for Arthur Hayes
By: Nathan Pearson Smith
Tags: Blockchain Startup, Venture Capital, Cryptocurrency, Bitmex, Diversity In Tech

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Laker legend, NBA Hall-of-Famer. Not to be confused with Nathan Pearson — Smith, or Arthur Hayes.

Yes. That really has happened…

Yes. Arthur and I look nothing alike…

Earlier in March, I attended a blockchain conference in Amsterdam and was invited to speak on a panel alongside 3 other industry names, it was my first speaking engagement outside of the UK. Anyone who looked at the itinerary would have seen I was speaking and let’s face it, you would not have had to look far to recognise the only black speaker on the day.

Nevertheless, that day I was still mistaken for Arthus Hayes, the CEO of Bitmex, one of the largest crypto derivatives exchanges. Although he’s an individual I highly respect as he sits near the top of the crypto foodchain, we both work in crypto and that’s where the commonalities end. If had to choose something I would want to have in common with Arthur, Ethereum addresses would be my no.1 and interactions with the SEC would be far down the list.

There is only one Arthus Hayes, but I as argue that there are only 30-40 black people working in crypto full-time, that’s not enough for one of us to be mistaken for the other. I went full-time into crypto in 2018 and at the time, depending on the role, pre-requistes about which university you went to or what Wall Street firm you worked at, were largely not neccasary. Hiring teams were more interested in your understanding for Bitcoin and Blockchain and I would like to think, those same traits I showed in 2018 that got me hired, would still apply in 2020.

The blockchain and crypto industry is still maturing, in technology, in age, and in diversity. As someone who has been in the space for 2 years, it’s decentralised approach to hiring, it’s willingness to hire on passion and drive, rather than qualifications is something I think it should be commended for. Diversity isn’t one of those things, yet.

Nathan Pearson-Smith

18 Ventures
Recently, Tamr joined The Board Challenge as a Pledge Partner.
By: Koa Labs
Tags: Diversity, Diversity And Inclusion, Theboardlist, Tamr, Diversity In Tech

Recently, Tamr joined The Board Challenge as a Pledge Partner. This means we are commiting to add at least one Black director to Tamr’s Board of Directors in the next twelve months. Black leaders are significantly under-represented in America’s boardrooms, including ours. It’s time to accelerate change and set an example for others.

At Tamr, we are resolute about the need to promote diversity throughout our company, management team and board of directors. The makeup of people at Tamr, and those in its board of directors, should reflect the makeup of the communities we serve and we are committed to driving this change. Joining The Board Challenge pledge is a critical step to strengthen Tamr as a company. Research proves that a diverse board of directors brings greater perspectives to their organizations, leading to stronger companies with demonstrably better long-term outcomes.

Speaking personally, I believe diversity is a core American strength and should be a central pillar of the technology community and the larger business community. As a serial entrepreneur, seed investor, CEO, and member of dozens of boards over the past 20 years, I recognize the importance of true and full racial and gender representation at the board level, and the impact leaders can have to make a positive change.

I’m incredibly excited to be involved early on with The Board Challenge as a pledge partner, and am thankful for Dave Girouard (co-founder and CEO at Upstart) and Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (founder of theBoardlist and co-founder of The Board Challenge) for inspiring us to join. I strongly encourage other companies to join us and take the pledge — here is a link to request more information.

The Board Challenge is a movement to improve the representation of people of color in corporate U.S. boardrooms by “challenging” companies to take the pledge to appoint a Black director within a year of taking the pledge. Begun in just September, over 60 companies have already taken the pledge, including industry leaders like Nextdoor, Salesforce and Best Buy. Founding pledge partners have already appointed five Black directors to corporate boards.

I will continue to post updates on our progress and hope to have exciting news to share soon!

Stay up-to-date with The Board Challenge by following #TheBoardChallenge on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
Recruitment for and within real and complex life trajectories
By: Carolina Amieva
Tags: Diversity, Recruitment Process, Recruitment, Tech Recruiting, Diversity In Tech

How many times do we judge someone by mainly “years of experience” in a certain subject or tool? Is that a real variable to know if someone is a senior or a junior at something? Is that “senior” and “junior” even a thing anymore?

If we go into the real world, we see complex work and life trajectories. We can’t just cut short and look for what we already know and if there is something missing explicitly, we just assume that person is lacking it.

For example, if I’m looking for an X position I will just consider the previous positions with that same title? What if that person developed those skills for that position within different industries and tasks? Is there only way of acquiring skills and experience in something?

I think that we have to start considering people as a whole in the complexity of modern life.

Education: Not everyone goes to university after school, some even don’t go at all. Some choose not to go, and some couldn’t due to life circumstances. Is that bad or not sufficient for the role if you are lacking formal superior education? In these modern days of online courses, certifications, online tutorials, and practice while learning, does university is the only way of acquiring knowledge in something? If we think, the other way around, someone with the highest education possible, let's say a Ph.D. automatically, are super qualified for certain tasks or skills?

We have to start thinking not so much into titles but more about what does each type of education brings to the table? What kind of mindset and soft skills does that person achieve while studying that formally or informally?

Work experience: some people started working before finishing up studying (sometimes out of necessity). Some waited to finish their studies. Some worked in different areas and industries. Some change countries and careers. Some had the same job for a long time. Some take gap years to travel, do charity works, explore, be with their family. Some like to change jobs and explore.

What is the real value (that maybe we can't quantify but do qualify) of a candidate that has experienced multiple types of roles, within different areas, industries, countries, have different types of education, courses, and so on?

In conclusion, Are we seeing that person as a whole while recruiting or just cutting that tiny automated part that we need to do this task quickly?

I know it can be time-consuming, but if we want to improve quality while hiring we have to start thinking about real people in real-life situations. Not everyone is the same, we are all different, and within that diversity, we can build so much potential.

We just have to start thinking outside standardized templates and automation tools, we have to start handcrafting our recruitments and make them more human (friendly).
Female Founder Office Hours Edition IV: Meet the Investors Part III
By: Jeevan Sunner
Tags: Female Founders, Venture Capital, Women In Tech, Office Hours, Diversity In Tech

5. What advice are you giving to startups on how to navigate Covid-19? Are you giving the same advice to scale-ups (post-series B)?

Caroline McGrath, Entrepreneur First

Every crisis is an opportunity. EF’s last cohort, who started seed fundraising in the middle of lockdown, raised more money and much faster on average than our cohorts six and twelve months prior. There is money out there and investors are willing to write cheques. That being said, every startup, of any stage, needs to crisis-proof their narrative: in short, how does what you are doing fit in with the “new normal” for businesses and consumers?

Jocelyn Lee, HearstLab

We advise seed-stage companies to think about several different financial scenarios (worst case, base case, best case) based on COVID impact — how it will impact their business and what recovery will look like. At least 18 months of runway is advisable. We urge startups to be clear-eyed and decisive on cutting costs where possible, but it’s also important to balance that with supporting commercial demands. During this time of uncertainty, it will be more difficult to land enterprise partnerships, so we’ve emphasised the value of doing more nimble pilots to validate product market fit.

Heather Roxborough, Optum Ventures

The pandemic has caused a massive acceleration in the adoption of digital health technologies and many of the companies in our space are working hard to address the expanded market need. In addition to the solid advice that many investors are giving around financial planning, we’re telling health-tech startups to think creatively about how they can accelerate to meet these new opportunities and also to think carefully about how they will position themselves in the post-COVID era.

Kate Ronayne, Longwall Venture Partners

Assume that everything will take longer than you’ve planned and try to start early — whether that is engaging with investors for future rounds, talking to customers, securing supply of key components. Spend time thinking about how communication will be impacted by increased remote working and discussing what processes and behaviours are needed to keep this effective. And look for the opportunities which the changing world might offer your sector.