To recruit more women, minorities.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: Intel is looking to raise the bar when it comes to advancing workplace diversity. On Tuesday the tech giant pledged $300 million over the next five years to improve diversity within its workforce.
The company is striving to achieve “full representation” of women and under-represented minorities at all levels, including senior leadership positions, by 2020.
“It’s not good enough to say we value diversity and then under-represent women and minorities,” Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said during his keynote address at the International Consumer Electronics Expo. “Intel wants to lead by example.”
The $300 million investment will be utilized to recruit and retain more women and minorities for engineering and computer science positions while simultaneously funding programs that support diversity within the overarching technology and gaming industries.
“This isn’t just good business, this is the right thing to do,” Krzanich said.
As part of the project’s long-term structure, Intel plans to partner with a plethora of other institutions in order to further support the initiative, such as the National Center for Women in Technology, the Feminist Frequency, Rainbow PUSH, the International Game Developers Association, the E-Sports League, and the CyberSmile Foundation.
Intel’s well-received statement of intent comes as Silicon Valley’s diversity issues approach critical mass. Technology companies based in the U.S. are staffed primarily by white and Asian men, yet products must appeal to much wider demographics.
The dynamics of consumerism are rapidly shifting– Caucasians are predicted to become a minority in the United States by 2044, while the buying power of Latino and African-American markets are on the rise and steadily gaining momentum.