Intel Pledges $300 Million To Improve Diversity In Tech

AmiMoJo writes: Intel CEO Brian Krzanich announced plans to improve diversity not just at Intel, but in the wider tech industry. Krzanich wants "to reach full representation at all levels" of the company by 2020. For instance, Intel's workforce is currently four percent black; if the company were to adjust its numbers to reflect the number of qualified workers in the tech industry, that number would increase to about six percent.

To help address one of tech's underlying diversity problems — that there are fewer qualified women and minorities available to hire than there are white or Asian men — Krzanich pledged to spend $300 million over the next three years. According to the New York Times, much of that money will be allocated "to fund engineering scholarships and to support historically black colleges and universities."

"I have two daughters of my own coming up on college age," he said to the NYT. "I want them to have a world that's got equal opportunity for them."

Comments

Waste of money

[aglider]

If you don't understand the problem first, there will be no real solution later. Why don't we have "diversity"?

Re:Waste of money

[jythie]

I don't know, it is hard to go wrong with scholarships. It may not address underlying issues, but it will get more people into the pipeline that might not have been able to otherwise, which means more mentors and role models down the road. A crude solution, but still stands a chance to do some good.

Re:Waste of money

[Nemyst]

It also further exacerbates jealousy and a feeling of inequality from the disgusting straight white males (do I need to add more adjectives there?) we keep bashing. Perhaps this'll come as a shock, but not all white males are rich. By having a scholarship for pretty much every state of being but white males, you're going to segregate the people who already love what they're doing and do it because of that in spite of the monetary problems. You're telling them that they're not worth fussing over.

Re: Waste of money

[kaliann]

Nursing is hard. Veterinary medicine is hard. Biological sciences, particularly at the graduate level, are hard.
All of these are heavily female dominated.

Women don't avoid hard fields simply because there is challenging material.

It's almost like the situation is more complex than "Tech is just too tough for delicate ladybrains".

Re: Waste of money

[Penguinisto]

...and at least some assurance that motherhood wouldn't throw them completely off their career track.

And therein lies the rub. Unless he mandates a hysterectomy before hiring at Intel, that biological clock will be there, ticking. There isn't shit that you (or the Intel Corporation) can do about it, either. I know quite a few women in tech (including Intel employees) - the highly successful ones are childless, and have no inclination of having kids (the only exception is a former manager of mine - and she has an MBA, not a CompSci degree). The reason why? They forewent the child-rearing thing and went all-in when it came to technology - just like the guys do.

When you bear a child, your priorities change - hard. All the sudden, that project/application/datacenter/whatever doesn't seem so damned important anymore, and your life's focus changes. It's not sexist to say that women in general are affected by this a hell of a lot more than men are. Guys are generally used to sucking it up and getting on with the business of focusing back on that whole hunter-gatherer thing - it's how we're wired. There are exceptions in either direction of course, but they're not the general rule. Generally, the business of getting that little snot factory raised, educated, nurtured, and prepared for the world becomes a woman's focus much quicker than it does for a guy.

Even with compromises (day care, schools, etc), it still changes the top priority for most (not all - most) women. This in turn throws the statistics off pretty hard for careers that require constant education and constant renewal.

Re: Waste of money

[Penguinisto]

That's the thing - it isn't that they put their careers "over" their families - they do it because of their families. That woolly mammoth isn't gonna kill itself, you know (or the modern equivalent? 'That mortgage ain't gonna pay itself.')

Most guys would love to stay home all day and help raise the kids, enjoying every moment - instead they have to get out there and make double-damned certain that the wife and kids were provided for, and kept secure, safe, fed, and warm. That's the hard-wiring I'm talking about. Some guys manage to do it (e.g. stay-at-home dads) - good for them! (no, really - I'd be totally envious of such a situation.) Most guys however don't get to do that - they have to get out there and work for the long haul, for the family.

That's why I specifically wrote "sucking it up" - not because they want to, but because they have to.

Re:Waste of money

[malkavian]

Ok, and let's get equal leave for paternity, money spent getting males into Vetinary sciences etc. where they're underrepresented, and a whole host of things that are directed at women. Plus, the same chance of being the stay at home partner when children arrive (males are vastly under represented here. Oh, and compulsory genetic testing at childbirth (so every male will have the same knowledge that the child is theirs as the mother has), so on, so forth.. But you know what, a male will never have the same bond with a child as the mother, because that's biologically impossible. What's the big picture here? The sexes aren't equal in all things; one sex has advantages in some areas. People make their own choices along the way. This insistence that there must be equal everything at each step, and that the company must have x people in post to match a general demographic of population by discriminating based on sex or skin colour is atrocious. I'm all for meritocracy (hell, my hiring practices of the past decade have had me hiring in approximately 50% ethnic minorities, as they were flat out the best candidates for the job that presented at interviews). This "discriminate against one group so we can get a demographic match up" is just plain silly.

Re: Waste of money

[ShanghaiBill]

To all the people who say "women don't want to work in tech", note that women were the MAJORITY in the early days of computing, right up until the advent of personal computers.

Most of those jobs were for data entry clerks. A man would write a program with pen and paper, hand it to a woman, and then she would sit at a card punch machine and type in the program. Once personal computers became common, the man could type in his own program, the paper and pen went away, and so did the woman "tech worker".

So it's quite probable women WOULD go into tech fields ... if they had encouragement

The problem with this hypothesis is that it doesn't explain why woman have been so successful in fields like law and medicine, where they not only faced blatant discrimination, harassment, and discouragement from their peers, but also institutional barriers. Yet women fought through all of that and prevailed. So if you think that "discouragement" is the explanation, you need to explain why it only happens in tech.

Re: Waste of money

[LynnwoodRooster]

So how do you explain all those single moms who manage to do both?

Disclaimer: I was brought up by a single mother...

The truth is, the vast, VAST majority do no such thing. They typically have others (friends, daycare, relatives) take care of the kids during the day/afternoon/evening whilst mom is working. They are "out of the picture" as much as a father who goes to work to earn money and comes home at night to spend time with the family, eat, and sleep. The concept of a "hero-mom" who works 8+ hours a day AND is home for the kids all the time is a highly-flawed one.

And 60% of college students are female

[Anonymous Coward]

What are we doing to combat the critical under representation of men in college?

delusion

[Trailer Trash]

"I have two daughters of my own coming up on college age," he said to the NYT. "I want them to have a world that's got equal opportunity for them."

Yeah, I'm sure a couple of rich white girls whose father is the CEO of Intel are going to have all sorts of problems finding "equal opportunity" in the tech industry unless he acts quickly.

Re:Hire the best person

[halivar]

I think the goal here is to try to make more women and minorities "the best person for the job" via education, which I find far more laudable than quota-driven diversity-by-fiat that degrades team and product quality.

Why only in Tech?

[fey000]

I'm curious why this type of "diversity" drive only pops up in tech-related office jobs? Where is the drive in getting more men into child care jobs or social services? Why not more women in construction work? Why not more women in the army? Why not more women in sanitation, mining, welding, or fishing?

As it stands, it doesn't seem like diversity is the goal at all.

Re:why the hate

[serviscope_minor]

If you work your ass of for 10 years, making sure to be the best, only to get passed by for a rookie on a "diversity" quota,

Is that any different from working your ass off for 10 years, making sure to be the best only to get passed by because you're not a man? Is it possible for science to identify bias using a randomized, controlled trial?

Why yes!

http://blogs.scientificamerica...

So the thing is you're assuming everything is equal and therefore quotas are hurting men. The thing is that they're not equal and women are demonstrably being passed over in favour of men simply by vitrue of not being male.

So what do you think should be done. Unless you have a good rebuttal for that study, something is clearly messed up.