By NNPA
WASHINGTON, DC — Walker’s Legacy is proud to announce its ‘Women of Color in Tech’ tour powered by Comcast and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund to showcase multicultural women in technology. The national event series will explore opportunities and resources for minority and women entrepreneurs to grow and expand their entrepreneurial endeavors and will highlight key pro-grams and initiatives of Comcast.
While it seems that women in tech are slowly closing the gender gap, it may not be happening as quickly as we think. Statistically, women simply make up less of the industry. According to TheMuse.com, only 28 percent of software jobs, and 25 percent of IT jobs are held by women. Even more shockingly, women hold only 11 percent of executive positions in Silicon Valley and own only 5 percent of startups. Those numbers dwindle even lower when it comes to women of color.
“Championing women of color in technology is one of the most important causes for Walker’s Legacy today,” says Natalie Madeira Cofield, founder and CEO of Walker’s Legacy. “Through this partnership, we look forward to highlighting women of color leading in areas of STEM while also discussing important solutions for challenges they face as entrepreneurs and business leaders.”
The ‘Women of Color in Tech’ event series will focus on accelerating, supporting, and learning from outstanding female tech entrepreneurs and executives to create a positive trajectory for other women in the space.
Businesses see the most success when hiring diverse candidates, and women in tech today are proving that. Companies with female leaders have proven to be three times more successful than those with male CEOs.
“Last year, TMCF and Walker’s Legacy entered into an MOU with the hopes of collaborating on programming that could help create more pipelines for the talented women attending our 47 member-schools,” said George Spencer, TMCF executive vice president of business development and innovation & entrepreneurship. “Today, we are pleased to support the ‘Women in Tech of Color’ national event series because all of our students need to see and be inspired by positive examples of minority women succeeding in the tech industry.”
