THE UNDER REPRESENTATION OF BLACK WOMEN IN TECH

Black women in Canada are overrepresented in low-paid front-line jobs and are underrepresented in the professional and tech sectors when compared to other visible minorities.

In partnership with British Columbia Institute of Technology(BCIT) , Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE), Impact Plus Consulting, and key partners, we  are collaborating to increase Black women representation in the technology sector in British Columbia and Alberta.  As part of this initiative, we’re asking big questions to the Tech and Black communities – questions about the challenges and potential solutions to increasing the representation of Black women in the tech ecosystem.

In order to receive broad input on these questions, we’re using Thought Exchange as a simple way for community members to share their thoughts and see how those thoughts resonate with others.  We just concluded a literature review alongside interviews with a few black women  currently working in tech. These revealed four stages in the technology and entrepreneurship pipeline: The Leaky Tech Pipeline – where the Tech sector loses black girls and women :

(1) Pre-K-12 Education,

(2) Post-Secondary Education,

(3) Tech Workforce, and

(4) Entrepreneurship

Read the executive report summary 

What is Thought Exchange ?

Thought Exchange is an online engagement app built and managed by Fulcrum Management Systems, Ltd., a company based in B.C. The platform is designed to let us respectfully share critical, concrete thoughts with each other and respond to them in real time, giving us nuanced and immediate feedback about the ideas and experiences we have in common and the ones we don’t. To learn more about ThoughtExchange, please visit their website: www.thoughtexchange.com

Participating in ThoughtExchange is completely anonymous, and we’re taking steps to ensure your privacy is protected. (Learn how BCIT and Thought Exchange will keep your information safe (BCIT to provide Hyper link to a Privacy and Data Collection notice). 

How to Participate

SHARE, STAR, DISCOVER! (MAY 23 – JUNE 7)

1. Select the conversation you want to participate in – there will be two “big questions” to answer, and each question will have its own exchange.

2. Tell us a bit about you – First, you will be asked to answer a question so we can understand your relationship and role within the tech ecosystem in BC and Alberta.

3. Share – Provide a short thought in response to the question(s). Then, offer a brief explanation about why your thought is important. Share as many thoughts as you would like.

4. Star – Read and rate the thoughts of others from 1 to 5 stars depending on how much you agree. This process is completely anonymous. Rating thoughts helps us understand which thoughts participants have in common, and which they don’t.

5. Discover – Browse the results to see what topics have emerged and which ideas are most popular.

6. Repeat – Check back regularly to see how the conversation is evolving! The questions are open for 2 weeks (May 23 – June 7), and the more you share, star and discover, the more we’ll know about the thoughts and potential opportunities, and what we could do collectively to increase representation of Black women in tech.

Thought Exchanges work best when input is concrete, respectful and actionable. Your thoughts are anonymous and they are published to the exchange immediately—so do share, but please be respectful.

When sharing thoughts, please do not enter personal information about yourself or others or any information that may identify yourself or others in any free text fields—thoughts that contain personal information or personal criticisms will be removed immediately in order to maintain compliance with BC’s FIPPA (Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act).


What's Next?

Impact Plus Consulting and BWBN are profiling organizations who are interested in supporting the increased representation of Black women in tech through an interactive ecosystem map. We will be hosting co-creation workshops in August 2022 to identify barriers and brainstorm solutions with tech stakeholders across BC and Alberta.
Click on this link to view the ecosystem map and fill out this short 2 minutes survey https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Y53XDS9 to have your organization added to the map and be the first to know about the co-creation workshops!

Project Sponsors and partners