Intel pledges $300 million to improve diversity in tech
When major technology companies release diversity reports, you can count on two things: most employees are white, and most are male. Intel wants to address this problem, and today at its CES keynote in Las Vegas CEO Brian Krzanich announced plans to improve diversity not just at Intel, but in the wider tech industry.
Krzanich wants "to reach full representation at all levels" of the company by 2020. For instance, Intel's workforce is currently 4 percent black; if the company were to adjust its numbers to reflect the number of qualified workers in the tech industry, that number would increase by 48 percent (reaching about six percent overall).
To help address one of tech's underlying diversity problems—that there are fewer qualified women and minorities available to hire than there are white or Asian men—Krzanich pledged to spend $300 million over the next three years. According to The New York Times, much of that money will be allocated "to fund engineering scholarships and to support historically black colleges and universities."