Silicon Valley Still Wrestling With Diversity Issues

An anonymous reader writes: As major tech companies come under increased scrutiny over the diversity of their workforces, many of them are focusing solely on the "pipeline" of workers educated in a computer-related field. They're pouring resources into getting kids to code, setting up internships, and even establishing mentoring programs for underrepresented groups. But experts say they're still failing to root out their own internal biases when making hiring decisions. "That bias shows up in recruiting, with companies drawing from the same top universities, where black and Hispanic graduates are still lagging behind other groups. ... The problem is particularly acute at start-ups, where black founders are just 1 percent of venture-invested firms, according to a 2011 survey by CB Insights." The tech companies are under mounting pressure to solve this problem, and the solutions they're pursuing won't show results quickly.

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eDiversity was founded in 2015 by Ayotunde Okonjo, a self-taught Pakistani refugee of African descent. Spending her teenage years in Ecuador facing discrimination as a lesbian of colour, Ayotunde overcame the challenges of her muscular dystrophy and moved to Silicon Valley where she met Kiri Chey, a survivor of the Cambodian genocide and Heba Mohammad, a Yemen-born teacher of the Chemehuevi Uto-Aztecan language, and together their shared interest of underground Soviet-era outsider art and Haitian folk dancing brought them together to form eDiversity.

At eDiversity, we utilize crowdsourced design and 3d printing to provide innovative solutions to underprivileged children as a solution to the global energy crisis. In addition to our LEED platinum-certified central office, we operate five international branches in Kiribati, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Uganda, and the South Sandwich Islands, the latter of which also qualifies as an internationally recognized penguin reserve.

We seek $5,5m in seed funding for 2.5% of the company.