The reveal of gender and race wage gaps in the tech industry was among the findings compiled for a new ChartHop report. Just how far has the US come in narrowing unfair wage gaps? Unfortunately, not very, according to a just-released report from ChartHop. There have been some, if minor improvements. The new 2020 Charting Better Workplaces report finding that men earn 22% more than women is an improvement over 2018’s report, which found men earned 30% more than women. Still, it’s a slow slog to close the gap, and one that might surprise those who assumed equity would be in practice by now. The report was compiled from compensation and demographic data of more than 16,000 employees and revealed that employers need to exact change to close gender and race gaps. The report also noted that while most human resources (HR) departments do not have an option for non-binary designations yet, the number has increased, and that the salaries of non-binary employees are broadly closer to women's in this context.

The employment gap for people of color continues to be a problem for US tech providers (Silicon Valley writ large), just as it is for women. There’s also a salary gap for those who do manage to get hired, with minorities and women making less than their white and male counterparts for the same jobs. New data from ChartHop shows that the pay gap in the tech industry is narrowing for women, but not for people of color. (The data includes no IT organizations in enterprises, government, or education - just tech providers.) Based on anonymized personnel data from its tech industry customers, ChartHop was able to look at salary data by gender, ethnicity, and role of more than 16,000 employees at companies using its business operations software. ChartHop can’t say how representative its data is of the tech industry as a whole (which includes tech providers as well as business, government, and education). But its findings align to other published data from Glassdoor and the US Census Bureau.

Students and educators from The National Center for Women & Information Technology lead a virtual Lunch & Learn on diversity in computing When you think of computer science in western Pennsylvania, what do you see? A lab at Carnegie Mellon University? A course at the University of Pittsburgh? Maybe a big meeting at Google’s local office? What you might not picture is a group of high school girls in a Venango County library, studying computer science with peer mentors via Zoom. But this is what’s possible through the connective power of a learning ecosystem–one with regional heart and national reach. Thanks to a partnership with The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), students enrolled in the Girls Excelling in Math and Science (GEMS) club received tutoring, mentoring, and even a field trip to a few of Pittsburgh’s famous campuses. And these experiences, according to club leader Laura Jones, have changed the girls’ lives forever.

The report, ‘’Resetting Tech Culture,’’ analyzed the journey for women in technology from college to mid-career. While there are many reasons women abandon a career in technology, the highest percentage of respondents - 37% - cite company culture as the leading cause. The research shows that if every company scored high on measures of an inclusive culture - specifically if they were on par with those in the top 20% of the study - the annual attrition rate of women in technology would drop 70%. The report provides tangible steps for organizations to undertake a cultural reset that could have a far-reaching positive effect.

In spite of its robustness and continuous growth, the tech industry still lacks diversity. According to data from the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), women only make up 28% of all computing roles in America as of 2016. Of this figure, only 5% of them were Asian women, while black and Hispanic women accounted for 3% and 1% respectively. These figures not only illustrate the huge gender gap, but also the lack of inclusion in the tech scene. On top of that, there are other challenges that prevent women from making their marks in the tech industry. The Women of Silicon Roundabout 2018 found that 25% of the participants cited issues with career development and progression while the same percentage said they struggled with confidence and visibility. However, all hope is not lost. Today, women's participation in the tech industry is gradually becoming the subject on everyone's lips. More and more companies are putting in the efforts to level the playing field and providing resources that can create a welcoming environment for female techies. Tech giant IBM, for example, offers a formal mentoring program that is currently benefiting 92% of its female employees. As the awareness for inclusion continues to spread, education providers are also going the extra mile to provide the necessary support for female tech enthusiasts-Sabio Coding Bootcamp being one of them.

The tech industry has historically been male-dominated. Just 14% of software engineers are women, and 25% are in computer science-related jobs. That's a stark difference compared with the the overall percentage of employed women in the US, which usually sits at 47%, according a 2018 study from the Pew Research Center. It's challenging for women working in tech to get ahead. They face biased algorithms in the application screening processes and technical interviews that unfairly advantage white men. Once they're hired, they may face implicit bias, or unconscious stereotypes held toward certain groups of people – for example, the unfounded idea that women are less cut out for STEM fields. But the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) is hoping to change that. Anita Borg, a computer scientist, founded the organization in 1987 with the aim of getting more women into the industry. Every year, the organization hosts the The Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC), an annual gathering of more than 30,000 women technologists across the globe. The event is one of the largest in the US for women in technology and is running from September 29 to October 3, 2020.

Virtual Grace Hopper Celebration (vGHC) is the world's largest gathering of women technologists. Learn, network, and be inspired as we work together to achieve intersectional gender and pay parity in tech.

Nicki Washington is a woman on a mission: As a professor of the practice of computer science at Duke, she teaches a course called Race, Gender, Class & Computing, which explores the diversity challenges in computer science and the effects that this lack of inclusion has on technology. ''I have long argued that computer science needs a stronger dose of social sciences as part of its curriculum and this class is a chance to do that,'' she said. This is uphill work. Though women make up over 50 percent of the U.S. population, as well as the majority of Americans now earning college degrees, less than a quarter of computer science professionals are female. African Americans and Latinos also hold computer science jobs at a rate well below their percentage in the U.S. population. And even when these groups do make in-roads into computer science, new recruits tend to be overwhelmingly male. As a result, women who also identify with a minority group face twice the challenges in both entering the field and then rising in it. This lack of racial and gender equity is seen as counterproductive to innovation, Washington said. Different backgrounds mean different perspectives, which leads to new ways of assessing problems and creating solutions.

As the coronavirus pandemic deepened and students across the U.S. were forced to learn from home without WiFi or reliable devices, Girls Who Code CEO Reshma Saujani saw an opportunity: to teach more girls how to code. ''More so than ever before, every girl has to learn how to code,'' said Saujani during a Time100 Talks on Tuesday. Girls Who Code, a nonprofit organization that works to close the gender gap in technology, has helped more than 300,000 girls since 2012. ''These are the jobs of the future and we have to make sure that no children are left behind.'' With the closure of so many college campuses and the expansion of remote learning, Saujani and her team maintained a summer virtual program where students in need received hotspots and devices to their home.

Join a virtual conversation hosted by AnitaB.org President and CEO Brenda Darden Wilkerson.