Black women are creating a pipeline of diversity in the tech sector

By Jessica Floyd, the Grio

EXCLUSIVE: According to a report, Black women represent only 1.7% of the tech industry’s labor force.

Black women are leading the charge on the revolution to increase representation in the technology sector. 

Latoya Elder and Sherrell Dorsey have developed mentorship programs and literary resources to help Black job seekers who want to pursue tech jobs without limitations. 

“In so many situations, us as Black women, we weren’t told that we deserve to be at these tables. We weren’t even told that there’s room for us at these tables,” Latoya Elder, founder of Her Tech Unicorn told theGrio.

According to a report from Anita B, Black women represent only 1.7% of the tech industry’s labor force. To address this underrepresentation, Elder is connecting Black women with the goal of providing personalized career development. Within the Her Tech Unicorn network, women receive interview prep, career coaching and salary negotiation tips. 

Elder’s main reason for launching the organization was to address what she saw as a lack of engagement from large companies…

Like Elder, Sherrell Dorsey wants to help build a pipeline for Black job seekers to secure jobs within the tech industry. Dorsey thinks tech jobs will provide the flexibility and salaries needed to support the unique lived experiences of Black Americans. 

For starters, Dorsey’s book, Upper Hand: The Future of Work for the Rest of Us, provides salary ranges for common tech positions and explains how the salaries vary depending on the location of the job. 

Continue reading the original article to learn how Elder and Dorsey help prepare women for tech jobs.

This isn’t the first discussion about tech’s “whiteness” problem. Engineer Olympia LePoint agrees that we need more black women in STEM.

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