Increase IT Diversity

My favorite columnist, Eugene Kane of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, made the following statement in a recent column:

It was clear the blogosphere in Milwaukee is similar to most institutions in town: predominantly white and filled with folks who only want to talk about race relations if they can blame all of the problems in the black community on Ald. Mike McGee.

I agree that there is a startling lack of diversity in the blogosphere, and in the technology industry in general. I have worked in the IT industry for more than 16 years, and in that time the only thing that hasn’t changed much is the predominance of white males.

For some reason white males get the gig as the uber-geek, especially in the highly technical positions.

Are white males the only ones who are willing to spend most of their waking hours dreaming of ways to create a fully-meshed network or deploy redundant SANs?

I certainly hope not.

As I have previously stated, I believe that there are plenty of unemployed or underemployed folks who have the aptitude and desire to join the IT workforce. All that they need is a chance.

In order to increase diversity in the IT industry, I propose that the following measures be pursued.

• Encourage training schools such as ITT Technical Institute and PC Pro Schools to create campuses within the city of Milwaukee, especially in areas that have high unemployment rates.
• Encourage local businesses to create on-the-job-training programs for entry level IT positions.
• Create a program to salvage retired computer equipment from local businesses and provide this free gear to people who cannot afford a computer.
• Provide free broadband connections to homes where someone is training for an IT career through a registered program.
• Hold IT related job fairs in Milwaukee’s inner-city and other areas that have high unemployment rates.
• Broadcast public service announcements on television and radio that promote IT related careers and provide training related information.

These are the same ideas that I proposed in my previous posting, but they are important enough to reiterate.

Instead of finding ways to outsource IT jobs overseas, we should be finding ways to give everyone in this country an opportunity to have a fun and exciting job that also pays pretty darn good.