>And I can only speak for myself but I was never drawn to 'technology' out of having famous neckbeards or Jobs or Gates and so forth as role models.
You may not have been drawn to it because of Jobs or Gates, but you never once looked at the field of technology and thought "People who look at me don't do this". That is, you never felt deterred because of the people who dominated the field.
Scott Hanselman recently hosted Kyla McMullen (first black female Ph.D out of UMichigan) on his podcast where she shed some perspective on how difficult it feels to break into tech when no one looks like you and it feels like you don't belong. I enjoyed it a lot, and maybe you might too. http://hanselminutes.com/357/dr-kyla-mcmullen-on-diversity-i...
> but you never once looked at the field of technology and thought "People who look at me don't do this". That is, you never felt deterred because of the people who dominated the field.
That's a rather huge assumption on your part.
> That's nice, but I don't see how your personal motivations are relevant on an industry-wide scale.
I don't think my personal motivations are relevant on an industry-wide scale, that was my point to begin with.
Like I said, the OP is hardly a bad thing, by all means, try. I hope it helps somebody. In my opinion it is treating the symptoms and not the disease.
You may not have been drawn to it because of Jobs or Gates, but you never once looked at the field of technology and thought "People who look at me don't do this". That is, you never felt deterred because of the people who dominated the field.
Scott Hanselman recently hosted Kyla McMullen (first black female Ph.D out of UMichigan) on his podcast where she shed some perspective on how difficult it feels to break into tech when no one looks like you and it feels like you don't belong. I enjoyed it a lot, and maybe you might too. http://hanselminutes.com/357/dr-kyla-mcmullen-on-diversity-i...