Diverisity in Computing
One Person's Resources
Additional links and information can be sent to markem AT pdx.edu


All errors, omissions, or other issues are mine and are not intended to reflect upon the persons or organizations referenced.

ACM-W ACM-W supports, celebrates, and advocates internationally for the full engagement of women in all aspects of the computing field, providing a wide range of programs and services to ACM members and working in the larger community to advance the contributions of technical women.
Black Girls Code Our Vision: To increase the number of women of color in the digital space by empowering girls of color ages 7 to 17 to become innovators in STEM fields, leaders in their communities, and builders of their own futures through exposure to computer science and technology. To provide African-American youth with the skills to occupy some of the 1.4 million computing job openings expected to be available in the U.S. by 2020, and to train 1 million girls by 2040.
Blacks in Computing Please read "An Open Letter & Call to Action to the Computing Community from Black in Computing and Our Allies" posted on June 8, 2020.
Ready to Be an Ally for Black Academics? Here's a Start Twelve ways that white faculty members can better support Black academics in their department and across the campus.
Coded Bias Coded Bias captures the fallout of Joy Buolamwini's startling discovery that most facial recognition software does not accurately see dark-skinned faces or women. Joy is forced to reckon with bias encoded in algorithms, the invisible mathematical equations that are remaking our behavior, our culture, and our democracies.
Code.org The fields of software, computing, and computer science are plagued by stark underrepresentation by gender, race, ethnicity, geography, and family income. In U.S. high schools, the Advanced Placement exam in Computer Science has historically (since the beginning of the century) had only 22 percent participation by young women, and only 13 percent participation by underrepresented minorities (students who are Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx, Native American/Alaskan, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders).

This problem extends to university programs and to the software workplace, which suffer a similar lack of diversity. There are many issues to address to solve the entire problem of diversity in the tech workforce - from bias in hiring, retention or promotion practices, or capacity-building in university programs. We work with our Diversity Advisory Council to help connect our work in K-12 to the bigger picture.
Computer Scientists of the African Diaspora During World War II in Europe African Americans were a mainstay of Teletype communications. Due to their experience with the Teletype equipment, African Americans subsequently became a mainstay in the evolving business computing industry. As the computer industry began to grow in the late 1950's and very early 1960's and become a credible and lucrative field of work, African Americans hit the glass ceiling, were bypassed on promotion, assigned to less visible positions, and frequently drummed out of the industry.
Computing Research News The State of African-Americans in Computer Science – The Need to Increase Representation
By: Edward C. Dillon, Jr., Juan E. Gilbert, Jerlando F. L. Jackson, and LaVar J. Charleston
In: September 2015, Vol. 27/No.8
Download the publication.
CRA Tackles Diversity in Tech A recent Computing Research Association survey showed that, while more diverse than top tech companies, computer-science degree programs still struggle to court underrepresented students. CRA has a few programs aimed at combating that trend.
CRA-WP,
The CRA Committee on Widening Participation
Increasing the success and participation of underrepresented groups in computing research.
Diversity and inclusivity readings David L. Largent is an associate lecturer in computer science at Ball State University. His readings page is extensive.
Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing This Wikipedia article is about the GHC conference series. While "... the initial idea of creating a conference by and for women computer scientists ...", "In 2015, GHC faced criticism, including from engineer Erica Baker, when two white men and zero black women were featured as "headline" speakers. The organization responded by targeting more diversity in speakers and collecting race and ethnicity data at the following year's event."
Guide to Inclusive Computer Science Education If we are ensuring that there are diverse teams and diverse folks at the table at every step of the pipeline, it creates the opportunity to have tech look like the world that it represents, which benefits us in a million different ways.
Louis Braille Braille is named after its inventor, Louis Braille. Louis was blinded as a child in an accident and invented the first version of Braille when he was only 15 in 1824 as a way for blind people to read. What he came up with was a representation for letters that a blind person could read by touch.

See also his Wikipedia entry.
Johanna Lucht [T]he first deaf engineer to carry out an active role in a NASA control center during a crewed research flight.

An excellent interview with her by Innovate Pasadena Presents can be found on YouTube.
National Center for Women & Information Technology From the classroom to the boardroom, the superintendent’s office to the C-suite, NCWIT brings the proven tools, evidence-based methodologies, and collaborative peer communities that help build possibility, develop potential, and create lasting change. More voices can generate more powerful ideas. We'll show you how to make every voice heard.
Paul Taylor Taylor worked for 12 years in various engineering positions with McDonnell Douglas and Monsanto in St. Louis, Missouri. During the late 1960s, he combined Western Union teletypewriters with modems to create the first telecommunications devices for the deaf, known as TDDs or TTYs (teletypewriter). He distributed these early, non-portable devices to the homes of many in the Deaf community in St. Louis. He worked with others to establish a local telephone wake-up service. In the early 1970s, he created the nation's first local telephone relay system for the deaf.

Taylor helped write regulations for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the process of implementing statewide telephone relay systems which were required by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).

Mr. Taylor is the subject of an HBO documentary titled, Hear and Now. In this deeply personal memoir, filmmaker Irene Taylor Brodsky documents her deaf parents' complex decision to leave their world of silence and undergo a dangerous surgery to get cochlear implants -- the only one of its kind that can restore a sense.
Pew Research Center, Social & Demographic Trends There are ten web pages to this article. Be sure to look for the "next page" link just above the footnotes.
Posters Hour of Code.

Please send me more links!
Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) At SACNAS we're achieving true diversity in STEM by cultivating and celebrating a community where you can be your whole self. Bring your diverse voices, experiences, backgrounds, and talents, and join us as a member today!
Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) SHPE is the nation's largest association dedicated to fostering Hispanic leadership in the STEM field.
Women in Computing CS4FN has great information regarding Women in Computing.
Women and Minorities in Tech, By the Numbers More women than ever are finding work in the legal, medical, and technical fields. So why are women avoiding computer science?
The Current State of Women in Computer Science The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects computer science research jobs will grow 19% by 2026. Yet, women only earn 18% of computer science bachelor's degrees in the United States. Despite the high job demand, computer science remains a male-dominated field in the United States. In response, many top colleges are making efforts to recruit female computer science students, making it an ideal time for women to pursue computer science degrees.

Note: many excellent resoures here, including scholarship information.
Last update:
Thu 03 Dec 2020 09:13:31 AM PST