In a recent speech to the National Society of Black Engineers, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates implied that the reason African-Americans are underrepresented in the Tech Industry is primarily due to the disproportionate dropout rate in our community.
I have three thoughts about this:
- It’s interesting that Mr. Gates would draw such a conclusion since dropping out of college didn’t seem to stop him from entering the tech industry.
- The very audience listening to this speech contained enough black tech professionals (and engineers at that) to meet any industry’s or firm’s recruiting needs.
- Eureka! That must be the explanation why Microsoft doesn’t have a single African-American on its senior management team and only one token on its board.
I like talk, but I like action better.
Or use my
1 response so far ↓
1 Keenan // May 7, 2008
I consider myself a young professional and even moreso an urban graduate(for the definition please e-mail me). I want to fully vest myself in the tech arena but, I find it every hard to find african american mentors or professionals in technology to assist me with the questions I need to know in order to perfect my craft and help other do so too. So I figure 1 reason he hasn’t had much luck finding qualified AA in the technology field is due to our lack of guidance. Many of us like myself don’t have very clear roadmap on what to embody in order to become a CIO or Tech entrepeneaur.
IntelligenceinAbundance.com
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