Best Buy has joined Melinda Gates and a group of leading technology companies on a mission to double the number of underrepresented women of color (black, Latina and Native American) who earn computing degrees by 2025.
While women are severely underrepresented in the tech industry, the situation is particularly grim for women of color. In a study released today, Melinda Gates and McKinsey & Company report that the share of black, Latina and Native American women receiving computing degrees has declined from 6 percent to 4 percent over the past decade
Now the newly formed Reboot Representation Tech Coalition brings Best Buy together with Adobe, Applied Materials, BNY Mellon, Dell, Intel, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Oath, Qualcomm, Symantec and Melinda’s investment and incubation company, Pivotal Ventures, to invest $12 million to create opportunities for women of color.
“Best Buy celebrates and works hard to foster diversity within our business. We are striving to do the same in the communities in which we work and live, most notably through our commitment to, by the end of 2020, provide more than 1 million underserved teens a year with tech-oriented training,” said Hubert Joly, Chairman and CEO of Best Buy. “It is an honor to now broaden this focus by joining the Reboot Representation Tech Coalition and, under the leadership of Melinda Gates, work to double by 2025 the number of women of color graduating with computer science degrees.”
Visit https://www.rebootrepresentation.org/ to read the full McKinsey report and find additional information about the Reboot Representation Tech Coalition. To learn more about how Best Buy is supporting underserved people and local communities, click here.