[Jun8]

I am fed up with all the bla bla around this issue. Really. Look, if you think there is racism in the tech field (let us define this narrowly as prejudices against blacks; prejudices against Indians and Chinese are, I think, a bit different), stop writing cute, angry blog posts; instead write about what the solution is and what you are doing about it.

That there are too few blacks in the tech industry is a fact. The reason is actually very simple (as others have commented): African-Americans are underrepresented in CS, EE, and other tech fields. This is similar to the issue of the dearth of women in these fields. Now, the reasons for this are complex and are not easy to solve. So, instead, while waiting for the root causes and biases to go away, be pragmatic and solve the problem at hand.

The solution is easy, but is not affirmative action or specialized VCs or quotas: It's as simple as increasing the demand of black (or women) programmers.

How to do this? I am working as a software mentor for two FIRST Robotics Teams in Chicago South Side, these teams are almost all black and this is their first exposure to programming (unfortunately, we have to use C++ for first exposure!) So, I alone have the power to introduce 5-10 black programmers to tech community! Assume I have 20% success, which is really lousy, that means 1-2 programmers. If 1K people do this, that's 1K more black programmers on the market.

Another example: Finding that the teams on the Apps for Metro Chicago challenge were all-male, my friend Pallavi quickly assembled an all-female team of college students, who won the second prize (http://www.metroplanning.org/news-events/blog-post/6262) and were featured in the local press.

So, same as starting a company: you don't need anybody's permission to start helping kids to solve this problem.

[kenjackson]

The problem is for this to work at scale you really need to make programming/entrepreneurship desirable for your African Americans. This is easy for sports and entertainment, because the stars are so visible. But who knows who Peter Thiel is outside of a very small niche. Vinod Khosla?

And this is why I think the black incubators make sense. You can bring the idea of an incubator into the inner city and recruit young people of color and if a handful get modest success it will begin to breed something in their community.

All this is easier said than done and maybe even misguided, but I think that's the idea.

[Jun8]

You are right. However, not knowing successful entrepreneurs (while being able to name 20 different rappers) is not unique to black high schoolers, so it's up to the mentor to create motivation and make these stories known, e.g. take them to the Social Network movie and explain that that guy in the hoodie is now worth billions, much more than Jay Z.

I don't know about the misguided part, but it's definitely not easier said than done, a lot of people are doing it (although juggling work and a kid is demanding). The response I'm getting from the kids is just awesome.

So, for ordinary engineers like me, the solution is simple: mentor those who you think are underrepresented.

BTW: it's a pity that in FIRST girls around encouraged much, most teams are more than 95% boys.

[michaelchisari]

take them to the Social Network movie and explain that that guy in the hoodie is now worth billions, much more than Jay Z.

A white, upper-middle class student at an Ivy League, versus a black guy with a single mom from the Bed-Stuy housing projects. I don't think it's a very good comparison.

And I say this as a white guy with a working middle class upbringing who works on social networking software, and I still have a real hard time identifying with Zuckerburg.

[dholowiski]

"prejudices against Indians and Chinese are, I think, a bit different" - Please explain.

[kchodorow]

He's saying that black people and women are under-represented in CS. I think most people would agree that Indians and Chinese people are not underrepresented, but also can face prejudice.

[known]

http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/sep/29/un-says-indias-cas...

http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-tech-...

[thret]

This blog would be more interesting if he would just name the customer in question.