The new website brings together opportunities for parents and learners – Facebook opted for this term instead of students, so all would feel welcome; it’s basically a hub for finding relevant online classes to take, jobs in the CS field, or companies to join.
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The actual site isn’t really the key here – there are countless others that do the same thing – but Facebook’s direct involvement and the 1.5 billion users that come with that are what make it stand out.
“When we think about what is happening with computer science and programming and skills and the skills gap, we know that unless we help these parents and guardians, the same problems we’re dealing with in our immediate world will simply continue”. It’s an effort to boost diversity in Silicon Valley by providing underrepresented students and their parents the resources to get a head start on a career in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).
The results mirror a previous survey, in which a large sample of urban, low-income Black and Latino students expressed intense interest in programming, computer technician, and computer design careers.
TechPrep helps connect people to resources that include games, books, in-person opportunities, and community events to help teachers and parents guide kids to computer science and programming.
“There was great self-confidence about their own potential among Black and Hispanic learners despite their underrepresentation in the industry”, she says in a news release. “In the United States, this lack of access is prevalent in a number of underrepresented groups including Black and Hispanic communities” wrote Maxine Williams, Global Director of Diversity at Facebook.
The research reported that 50% of Blacks and 42% of Hispanics said they would be good at working with computers, compared to 35% of Whites and 35% of Asians.
Educating parents is a critical step in getting more young people into tech. McKinsey’s study also found that a majority – 77 percent – of the parents or guardians of these young people don’t know how to encourage their ambitions.
Apple’s second annual report notes the company has hired more than 11,000 women around the world over the past 12 months, a 65% jump from the amount of women it hired the year prior.
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