Google Takes First Steps Toward Closing Silicon Valley's Gender & Racial Gaps

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What’s the Latest?

Diversity was a hot topic in the tech world in June, as companies such as Google, Facebook, and Yahoo opened up about their disappointing diversity numbers. Google noted that women only make up 30% of its workforce. A paltry 3% of the company’s tech workers are African-American or Latino. In a rare act of corporate humility, the internet giant admonished itself for not doing enough to promote diversity in the workplace and within the industry as a whole. Since talk is cheap, Google has introduced a number of new initiatives designed to encourage women and minorities to pursue careers in the tech sector.

What’s the Big Idea?

Yesterday, Google announced that it would pay for thousands of women and minorities to learn code. An online application (linked below) states the following:

As a part of Google’s commitment to diversity we’ll be accepting applications from interested women and minorities from anywhere in the world. This opportunity is available to all traditionally underrepresented groups in technology (including, but not limited to, African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, persons with disabilities, women and veterans).

According to Business Insider, accepted applicants will receive vouchers good for three free months of code training.

Also recently introduced by the company is an initiative called Made With Code aimed at inspiring and engaging girls while fostering an interest in the creative aspects of coding. The Made With Code website features spotlights on women who code and allows visitors to participate in several fun coding projects.

Google has shown it wants to walk the walk in promoting diversity and closing social gaps. That its decision to discuss its own diversity woes led to other tech companies doing the same speaks to Google’s status as a trendsetter and its ability to actively bring about social change.

Are you a woman or minority interested in learning to code? Here’s Google’s voucher application.