Diversity in tech is getting a complete upheaval with the help of women already in the industry. Together, they’re launching Project Include, a nonprofit with the goal of meeting tech’s drastic need for diversity.
Ellen Pao, who gained fame from last year’s court case against gender discrimination in Silicon Valley and as the former interim CEO of Reddit, has launched a new diversity initiative to span across niches within the tech industry. The funding team expands seven women in tech, from Pinterest to Slack, these women are teaming up to provide valuable insight to how tech can improve conditions in the niche for marginalized workers in the field. They also plan to provide recommendations and data to early to mid-stage startups.
As the site reads:
We want to provide our perspectives, recommendations, materials, and tools to help CEOs and their teams build meaningful inclusion. We know how hard change is from our own experiences.
We are focusing our efforts on CEOs and management of early to mid-stage tech startups, where we believe change is possible and can have a broad impact on the industry and beyond.
We want the girls, people of color, and other underrepresented groups that we are encouraging to pursue STEM educations and future tech jobs to have real opportunities to succeed. Ultimately, does your company give everyone a fair shot at success?
Initiatives like this are important because they place responsibility directly onto the businesses and startup founders. More importantly, they also provide the support and resources needed to bring these solutions beyond the surface diversity as they can tend to circle around. Hopefully, the success of Project Include will inspire more nonprofits and spaces in tech to become more inclusive within the field.