What is it about?
Information Technology (IT) remains one of the fastest-growing and most segregated professions in the United States. Although opportunities in technology continue to grow exponentially, the field in the US remains predominately white and male. As companies struggle to find enough skilled candidates, we face the reality that African Americans are too often left behind. African Americans make up less than 5% of the IT workforce and a small percentage of IT graduates. This study focuses on the advent of bias-conscious AI and how it can be used to better understand barriers to success, personalize student experiences, and provide pathways of attainment for an increasingly diverse student body.
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Why is it important?
Our research aims to create a fertile rainforest or ecosystem that addresses both systemic exclusion and the IT workforce deficit by ensuring regions are able to retain, attract and produce the skills and expertise required to evolve and support smart initiatives while providing access and opportunity to historically overlooked and undervalued groups. We have a unique opportunity to leverage technology as an equity indicator for innovation, support and success.
Perspectives
As an IT professional who struggled with many of the barriers that students and other professionals face today in both higher education and the workforce, it is my hope that this research will serve as a needed step to open doors of opportunity and remove barriers for current and future generations.
Josette Riep
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Leveraging Bias Conscious Artificial Intelligence to Increase STEM Graduates Among Underrepresented Populations, October 2021, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery),
DOI: 10.1145/3450329.3476848.
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