Tech’s High Barrier to Entry for the Underprivileged

Medium's Backchannel ^ | January 25, 2015 | Gerard O'Neill

[2ndDivisionVet]

For many people who didn’t grow up in or around New York City, there are a few things that come to mind when they hear the name “Brooklyn.” Many automatically think of hipsters and indie rock concerts. Some think of artsy lofts and farmers markets. Others think of “brownstone Brooklyn,” where one can potentially afford a cute home and raise a middle-class family without the distance and suburban-like qualities of Queens.

What people typically don’t think about are the underprivileged communities that exist here, many of which have become home to people priced out of their old homes in brownstone Brooklyn, Williamsburg, and other neighborhoods near Manhattan. For the most part, those who work in the tech industry don’t know or think much about these types of communities....

[2ndDivisionVet]

Were Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Abraham Lincoln or Steve Wozniak from privileged backgrounds? If you want something bad enough, obstacles seem to disappear.

[vladimir998]

Affirmative Action in Silicon Valley RIGHT NOW!!!

[867V309]

For many people who didn’t grow up in or around New York City, there are a few things that come to mind when they hear the name “Brooklyn.”

I think of streets that smell of urine. Like San Diego.

[Lazamataz]

The authorguy whines about how hard it is to get into tech for someone with few resources, then goes on to describe how someone -- WHO WAS MOTIVATED -- got into tech with few resources.

This article is self-contradictory blather.

[ansel12]

Some tech that the left took away from poor people through energy policies dating back to the 1960s, so far ago that a poor person doesn’t even think of it as tech being available, is controlled temperatures for the home.

If it was described to them properly and radiant floor heating and central heating and air-conditioning being cheap to run, then I think most poor people would say that they would prefer perfect temperatures as near the top of their favorite tech.

As far this article, what are poor people doing buying laptops? If they want a computer they should have a desktop at a station, laptops are something of an indulgence, with a shorter life and more likely to be broken or stolen, and less family friendly.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

So much for “tech” — the “backchannell” web site crashed my Safari on iPad four times. I gave up.

[ModelBreaker]

The uniparty has split our country so badly that this liberal, probably atheist writer, is doing a better job of being Christian than conservatives.

One on one is how Christ taught us to help our fellow man. I bless this man for doing what he did. So he got sanctimonious with his little sermon. I get prideful too.

There are the least among us. And the uniparty has pitted them against the middle class so thoroughly that we look at each other across a gulf of hatred. If we give up one on one help, all that’s left is bread and circuses and Babylon.

[Zathras]

A manager friend of mine described what they are getting right now from HR.
Women, Blacks and Hispanic
That is IT

[ClayinVA]

How in the world are they finding that minorities for tech jobs? Normally it is a 15-1 ratio for finding females in IT and they are not normally techies. Former DOD, maybe?

[9YearLurker]

Wozniak was the son of a Lockheed engineer growing up in Cupertino, CA, so he had the early exposure.

But no kid needs to start programming at 14 to become a successful techie. Studying and excelling at math and maybe science is all it would take for an inner city kid to get a scholarship to a great school. And even if he did that, he could flip burgers and, yes, learn online on his own time as a young adult.

How many techies from modest origins in India have gone on to build great tech companies over here?

[9YearLurker]

*did not do that*

[2ndDivisionVet]

Legion.

[Cowboy Bob]

Elite universities are fighting each other to attract minority students who are interested in the sciences. In a black kid even expresses an interest in math or physics, MIT will be at their front door offering them a full scholarship.

[tbw2]

There are many free online coding resources now, from Khan Academy teaching HTML5 and JavaScript to Code Academy.
You can take free Swift classes and programming methodology courses on MIT OpenCourseware (no charge).
You can learn everything from a dozen different programming languages to Python and PHP to using frameworks to accessing code modules on GitHub, no charge.
The only problem becomes credentialing, which you may get around with a good demo, becoming a code reviewer or working with others to get referrals and a reputation.

[tbw2]

From personal experience, if you have a requirements management lead, software tester (just follow the script), configuration manager, documentation generator and so forth, those jobs tend to go to a female so the project can say “we have women in the IT department”. Likewise with phone support, often female.
Actual female coders and software developers are rare.
Spoken as a female in IT.

[SunkenCiv]

Gentrification of trade school education ping. /s

[BwanaNdege]

Ga Tech is offering a Masters in Computer Science, Online, for a cost of $6,600, or about 30 pairs of the premium model of Air Jordans.

Then there is the GI Bill, or whatever it is called these days. If you want an education, you can get one these days.

[CorporateStepsister]

Amen.

I don’t even care about the ‘underprivileged’ anymore. The good life is available to see in all its glory simply by watching YouTube. These days it’s about choices, not just circumstances or a lack of a bank account.

I just don’t care anymore and I resent the idea that it’s my job to carry people who won’t help themselves.