Charts: Tech’s Pipeline Problem

Silicon Valley’s diversity problems start in the classroom.


Yesterday, I reported on some big problems with the way kids learn about computers and what they can do with them. “We teach our kids how to be consumers of technology, not creators of technology,” says Jan Cuny, who heads up research on computer education at the National Science Foundation.

Of course, a few kids do learn how to write their own programs and code their own visions, and it’s no secret that they tend to be male and white or Asian. If we want to democratize the tech economy, more kids need a chance to learn about the power of computing and what it could do for them. Here’s a by-the-numbers look at the scope of the problem:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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