Diversity & Inclusion in the Tech Industry
Consider the history: That Time When Women Stopped Coding
- What occurred during the same time as the beginning of the decline of women in computer science?
The introduction of home computers.
- Why does it matter that males had been playing on computers growing up?
Because it is now more likely that a male individual grew up with the experience handling computers compared to females, as computers were seen as a “boy thing” during the 80’s-90’s. It is very likely this resulted in less enthusiasm in young girls to enter the computer science field.
Why diversity matters to your tech company?
- When are diversity efforts most successful?
When these effort are lead by the leaders of an organization.
- Why do diverse companies perform better?
Because more diversity adds more ways to look and solve problems, resulting in better and faster solutions.
- Give an example of how a diverse company can serve a diverse user base or vise-versa.
When considering the use and flow of an application, it will be helpful to have a diverse group. We think of the top left the start of a document, but depending where you are from and what is your native tongue, this might not be the case. Diversity would bring in people with the natural knowledge on what feels natural for the order of a website based on their heritage and can help make the application more inclusive.