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Over the last year, Apple, Google and other big technology companies have faced mounting criticism by civil rights leaders about the lack of diversity in their work forces, which are populated mostly by white and Asian men. Now Intel, the giant chip maker, is taking more concrete steps to do something about it.
By Nick Wingfield
Last week, Intel said the company’s work force would better reflect the available talent pool of women and underrepresented minority groups in the United States within five years. If successful, the plan would increase the population of women, blacks, Hispanics and other groups at
Intel by at least 14% during that period, the company said.
In addition, Intel said it has established a $300 million fund to be used in the next three years to improve the diversity of the company’s work force, attract more women and minorities to the technology field and make the industry more hospitable to them once they get there. The money will be used to fund engineering scholarships and to support historically black colleges and universities.
The company also said it would invest in efforts to bring more women into the games business, partly as an antidote to the harassment feminist critics and game developers have faced in recent months. Intel became part of the furore last year when, under pressure, it withdrew an advertising campaign from a game website that had run an essay by a feminist game critic, a move it later said it regretted.
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“This is the right time to make a bold statement,” Brian M Krzanich, Intel’s chief executive, said. Krzanich announced the plans in a speech at the International CES, a huge trade show in Las Vegas. “It’s kind of Intel’s culture. We march by Moore’s Law. We say we’re going to reinvent Silicon every two years even though we don’t really know how we’re going to pull that off.”
Many of the largest technology companies have released reports showing that roughly 70% of their employees are men and 30% are women.
Depending on the company, blacks account for anywhere from 2 to 7% of workers at big tech companies. The Rev. Jesse L Jackson Sr, who has led a campaign to pressure technology companies on diversity, said Intel was going beyond what others have done to remedy the imbalance in their work forces by setting more specific goals for hiring.
Intel’s goals, though, face the harsh reality described by many technology leaders: The supply of skilled workers from underrepresented groups, especially in technical fields like engineering, is limited.
Rosalind L Hudnell, Intel’s chief diversity officer, cited statistics showing that just 18% of undergraduate engineering degrees go to women.
That makes it especially difficult to improve diversity at Intel, which leans more heavily on technical employees than other tech companies.
As part of its new investment fund, Intel plans to establish and support a professional women’s gaming team. It has partnered with the International Game Developers Association, a nonprofit that will send 20 female college students to a game developer conference with Intel’s support.
“I’m hoping Intel’s leadership on this issue will encourage other companies to follow suit and make them realise this is the moment,” Edwards said.
New York Times
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