4 ways people of color can disrupt the tech industry's overwhelming whiteness

When Leslie Miley left Twitter, he publicly shamed it for a problem that continues to plague tech companies at large: lack of diversity. As Twitter’s only black engineering manager, Miley said he fought for many candidates of color during his ex-company’s hiring process, only to face resistance from executives. And when he asked Twitter about the steps it was taking to improve inclusivity, Miley claimed to have gotten the cold shoulder.

“Diversity is important,” Twitter’s vice-president of engineering Alex Roetter said, according to Miley’s blog post. “But we can’t lower the bar.”

Miley’s exit from Twitter isn’t the first time Silicon Valley’s lack of diversity has dominated headlines. Recent internal reports reveal that Google, Apple, and Facebook are racially homogeneous, with white employees making up 60 percent, 54 percent, and 55 percent of their respective workforces.

But this dearth of minorities working in tech says more about the industry itself than the actual pool of available talent—the several hundred people of color who attended Tech808’s entrepreneurship conference attest to that. Held at New York University on Monday, this year's conference brought together students and budding entrepreneurs of color to learn the ins and outs of the industry.

“I want people to go home with a notebook full of tips, full of how-tos—step one, step two, step three,” said Anthony Frasier, co-founder of Tech808 and The Phat Startup, a media company that provides resources for entrepreneurs. “That’s what counts at the end of the day because if you leave here and all you have to talk about is ‘I’m a black person in tech,’ then I failed.”

“I think the narrative needs to change.”

The key to Tech808’s success, Frasier told NTRSCTN, goes beyond just talking about being a person of color in tech. Instead, he wants entrepreneurs to leave his conference with the necessary tools to help them circumvent Silicon Valley’s biased hiring practices, and to profit off their own ideas.

Here are four lessons from Tech808 that every aspiring tech leader of color should know:

Even if you’re more Steve Jobs than Steve Wozniak—that is, you’re better at business and design than technical minutiae—coding languages are still an inescapable part of working in the industry.

Jamal and Felicia O’Garro, co-founders of Code Crew, an affordable platform that teaches coding online, presented a multi-step plan to becoming fluent in various languages. Speaking at Tech808, the husband-and-wife team listed names of accelerated learning programs (i.e. coding boot camps), free Internet courses, and helpful textbooks. They also stressed the importance of understanding your own individual learning style; some people are autodidacts, while others need teachers, and that’s okay.

The Code Crew website offers a free “Curriculum for N00bs,” which goes over the basics of HTML and CSS, JavaScript and iQuery, as well as other coding languages. It also advertises inexpensive, instructor-led night courses.

During a discussion between Razorfish’s vice-president of human resources Anthony Onesto and New York City’s chief technology officer Minerva Tantoco, the pair focused on hiring practices in “Silicon Alley,” a term that describes Manhattan’s tech industry. Jessica Santana, founder of nonprofit organization New York On Tech, moderated the panel.

Onesto and Tantoco explained what businesses need to do to increase inclusivity—something that non-management employees may find difficult to influence from the bottom up. So, Onesto suggested that attendees do some legwork if they’re looking to get hired at a tech company; he advised connecting with those that are actively doing outreach, and trying to diversify their staff. “The opportunity is there. Find it,” Onesto said. “Go to those companies who are out there saying, ‘We want to be more diverse,’ or the ones who are pushing [up] their numbers [of employees of color], and go to their head of HR and say, ‘Hire me today.’”

“Because they’re the ones out there saying, ‘We want to be on the forefront of these things.’”

For her part, Tantoco recommended New York City’s “Tech Talent Pipeline,” a job placement and training program that puts New Yorkers through coding courses and connects them with potential employers.

But, as they say, it’s about who you know, and Tantoco also emphasized the importance of building solid relationships.

“Don’t be transactional in your networking,” she said. “We’re in this for the next 30 years, so you want to build relationships with people, and understand what they’re looking for.”

Tech808’s organizers understand that success in today’s economy is not monolithic—sometimes, entrepreneurs have to define their own success before achieving it.

And that’s exactly what Alexandra Wolf, founder of BOSSBABE INC., a motivational Instagram page dedicated to millennial businesswomen, explained at the conference. “What we were taught to apply as a successful formula to our lives is not really adding up for a lot of us, but we still have questions of whether or not to go to school, get a job,” Wolf said, referring to society’s evolving definition of success. “[Does college have] the same kind of return on investment as it did when our parents were around?”

In the current economic climate, more and more millennials are graduating with massive loan debt, and entering an unforgiving job market. Add to that a glass ceiling for minorities at work, and the obstacles are daunting. Being a tech entrepreneur, on the other hand, means anyone with a good idea can see it to conclusion and ultimately, profit.

It worked for Wolf, whose Instagram page attracted more than 170,000 followers in under a year due to her focused branding.

The most important theme that emerged from Tech808 was for attendees to be themselves, and to promote their work wherever they go. In conference's keynote address, Lauren Maillian, founder and CEO of Luxury Market Branding, gave some unconventional advice: List your team’s credentials at the beginning of a presentation, rather than at the end of a 15-slide deck. “If you think that someone’s going to discount who you are, or what you have to say, or the company that you are coming to present because of a stereotype, because of a color,” then promote your team's credentials at the beginning of a presentation to get investors' attention, she told conference attendees.

Tech808’s co-founder echoed Maillian's sentiment, saying that the overall quality of your product will speak for itself.

“A lot of people feel like being themselves won’t get them in the door,” Frasier said. “Tech is the great equalizer. If you create the next Twitter, it doesn’t matter what you look like—you created the next Twitter!”