Celebrating the Voices of Underrepresented Genders in Tech

| By Catherine Gao

I first became interested in the technology industry in sixth grade when I created a website about saving the trees. It was really cool to work on a project that brings awareness to environmental issues. I knew then that I had a passion for creating products that create social good. During my first two years in college, I majored in Information Systems at Montgomery College. Later, I transferred to the University of Maryland where I created a campus club called Ladies in Tech and worked in technical support. I also gained a strong interest in UX design and product management through class projects. In the fall, I will be a Human-Computer Interaction Master’s candidate with a goal of starting my UX Research career thereafter.

The challenges I encountered while being in the career/education aspect tech industry is the lack of resources and support for Black women in tech. Women make up 26% of the tech industry and out of that already small number, only 3% contain Black women. The support is strongly needed to not only help the tech industry reach 50/50 by 2025 but also to provide a “seat at the table” for Black women looking to start their careers in tech. This support could be made up of programs that provide career and internship opportunities and learning support.

The tech industry can hire more people from diverse and marginalized genders and groups. If companies want to create, improve, and design more inclusive products, they have to hire the diverse talent to do so, but they shouldn’t stop there. They should continue to make sure their employees from underrepresented genders feel heard and valued by building a diverse and inclusive organizational culture.

I was lucky enough to have met mentors earlier on through conferences and networking events, like the Grace Hopper Conference, and even more mentors I could relate to as I progressed throughout my career. Since there are so few women in tech, it was extremely hard to find women interested in UX and data science.

I am currently a Data Analyst Intern at Nvolve, Inc, a nonprofit dedicated to providing opportunities to girls in STEM. I am working as the lead analyst on a project that addresses the impact COVID-19 has on clinical trials. I am also excited to announce that I will be listed as a co-author on two upcoming publications related to the project!

My name is Naomi Hardy-Njie. I’m 16 and I’ve been involved in the tech space since I was 12. My interest in coding began when my mom put me in a camp at Microsoft called Color Coded Kids, and from then on I joined Black Girls Code DC and attended their workshops.

One challenge that I’ve faced is not being able to have computer science classes in school. I had a slight disadvantage with starting late and not knowing much about coding. One obstacle that I’m still facing to this day is not seeing many female role models in the tech field.

The tech industry can promote the involvement of women in tech by getting underrepresented genders interested at a young age. Many people I’ve met have said that they heard about careers in tech from television or social media because it’s not taught in schools nor is it promoted. Getting the word out about the deficit of talent for jobs in tech and training young women and non-binary people to fill those jobs would promote their interest in tech.

Be open to the experiences and hardships that women and non-binary people face. Not only that, but listen and to take it into account instead of downplaying their experiences.

Never give up. I cannot tell you the number of times I wanted to give up when my code didn’t work or I didn’t get into the camp that I wanted. As I continued to gain more experience, I was able to get where I wanted to be in the tech industry.

My friend and founder of CoderChicks, Deepika Kannan, and I are working on hosting a virtual coding workshop for young women and non-binary people very soon. We are very excited to be able to interact with CoderChicks scholars.

I am a 20-year-old, rising senior, Information Science major. I became interested in STEM in fifth grade! I went to a week-long STEM camp that I found to be super fascinating and I knew I wanted to learn more about tech. In high school, I was apart of a program called LEAD (Learning, Engineering, and Design) that further developed my interest in technology. It was in this program that I first learned about coding, and I fell in love. Although I loved coding, I’ve been super creative and people-oriented. So when I got to UMD, I decided to major in Information Science instead of Engineering because they described Information Science as the intersection of people, information, and technology. I finally ended up in UX/UI when I took an introductory Info-Sci course and realized I could merge my creativity and love for coding into one career.

Specifically in UX/UI, I have struggled because the field is really starting to bloom as we speak. It’s hard to find mentors or people actually in UX/UI careers who can give me advice. It’s even harder to find Black women who can help me.

As a whole, it would be awesome if the tech industry had more widely publicized national and global groups that are made for underrepresented genders.

Representation. I can’t get over how important representation is. We need to work to change the narrative of what someone in tech “looks like”. If all we ever see on TV growing up are nerdy, white men portraying hackers, that’s the image people plant in their minds of what someone in tech looks like. I would love to see more women and non-binary people have their voices amplified in tech spaces. Let the world see that there is a diverse pool of people in tech and you don’t have to fit a certain stereotype to enter this field. There are people that look like you. There are people who can support you.

I was not inspired by anyone in particular when I first joined the tech field. I think that goes back to what I said about representation. I didn’t even know Black women were in tech. I had never met one. I think a lot of my drive and devotion to break out in this field stems from me wanting to see more people that look like me. I love proving people wrong. I love it when I walk in a room and feel people looking at me like I don’t belong, and then I ended up being one of the smartest people in there. I’m thankful enough to have the confidence to do that, but now I want to be a role model for someone else so they don’t have to muster up the courage or the strength to be the only Black woman in the room. In the back of their heads, they’ll know people like me exist and they’ll find comfort in that.

I was always interested in technology and how machines worked, but I never pursued it because I never saw myself represented in the technology industry. Whenever I saw software engineers, they were always White men who tended to be introverted, while I am a Black Latina woman who is pretty extroverted. It was not until I applied for a Girls Who Code internship the summer going into my senior year of high school. During the program, I got to see lots of women in a lot of different technology fields. I did not know all the different aspects to tech from software engineers to project management to telemarketing, and after Girls Who Code, I was sure that I wanted to go into technology.

One of the biggest challenges since becoming interested in tech is the feeling of belonging. In my first computer science class at UMD, there was only one other Black girl in a class of over 150 students. While some people are very good at being the “only one” in the room, it really affected my self-confidence and performance. I was scared to ask questions in class or reach out to TAs for assistance because I didn’t want to feel like I was representative of all Black girls if I did not understand a topic in class. I am getting better at telling myself that I belong in technology, but honestly, it is still something I continue to struggle with today.

Hire us. If you want to include us then hire us, promote us, and let us show you how valuable we are in the industry. Technology needs diverse perspectives. If they want to be inclusive, quite frankly, then include us.

A lot of the time there is the notion that there “aren’t enough” women or non-binary people who want to go into technology, but in my opinion that is not necessarily true. Who wouldn’t want to go into a fast-growing career field? Who wouldn’t want to be able to make the newest technological advancements? The women and non-binary people are here! The problem is not the lack of interest but the lack of support for women and non-binary people in those fields. The biggest change that needs to happen is support. Universities and corporations alike need to not only recruit diverse groups of students, but to support those same students once they are on campus, or in those fields. Underrepresented people need counselors, tutoring, and encouragement. Most importantly, we need to feel accepted.

Find support groups and other underrepresented people on campus. This way you have someone that can listen, understand, and support you when you most need it.

I am writing diversity and inclusion bills with the Student Government Association to support underrepresented students. I am also interning for a book called A Blessing: Women of Color Teaming Up to Lead, Empower, and Thrive, as well as working on writing a chapter in the Black Book about activism on UMD’s campus.

My name is Shilpa Gupta. My education took place mainly in India. I did my Master’s in Computer Science in 2017 in the U.S., and I have been working at Facebook since my graduation. My journey in tech started when I decided to study computer science at my undergraduate school. I never used computers much before that. I did not have any opportunity to learn to code before I became an undergraduate. But this field fascinated me. At that time I saw it as an opportunity to show that I have what it takes to be a computer engineer. Everyone was talking about how much hard work this field of work required, and I liked challenges, so I decided to pursue a career in this field. I also come from a middle-class family background in India. I saw pursuing computer science as my opportunity to create a better life for myself.

One of the bigger challenges for me was lack of guidance, especially for women in the field. I did not know anyone who I could reach and ask questions about the field. In my family, I am the first engineer. There were times during my education and career when I doubted my decisions. If I had someone to ask my questions to, things would have been easier for me.

There is a need to give voice to underrepresented genders in tech. I notice the problem of being a minority very clearly which other members of the tech community, especially people who are better represented, might not see and realize. We have to make the larger community realize the benefits of having a diverse workforce. We have to give a voice to underrepresented genders so that they can talk about how underlying policies and behaviors of people which might not seem harmful at first, are affecting the minorities in harmful ways. As a result of that, we can possibly identify areas of improvement and invite a more diverse set of people to pursue a career in tech.

I think we need to advertise tech as something which is more than coding. Working in tech requires a very diverse set of skills but most people do not see it that way. Tech is seen as a bunch of geeky guys sitting and coding. Tech has the requirement of being able to plan a project, understand the requirements, collaborate with different types of people, and many other skills. We also need to have more role models from diverse genders in the tech.

If I have to give one tip, it would be to be yourself. You contribute to the tech industry by bringing your perspective and experiences to the industry: this is the value you provide. At the start of my career, I tried to imitate what other folks were doing in order for me to be as successful as them. Later, I realized that I am unique, as all of us are. I have to sharpen my strengths so that I can bring in the perspective that others can’t. Only by idolizing different people for their strengths, rather than idolizing any particular kind of behavior, can we invite a more diverse workforce to tech.

At Facebook, I am working on a system that serves as a proxy for the network traffic going from Facebook machines to the public internet.

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