Dive Brief:
- The Cognizant U.S. Foundation, Walmart.org and Microsoft Philanthropies will invest a total of $3 million in CodePath.org to deliver computer science curriculum at 150 college campuses in the U.S. and support tech education for women and students of color, according to Microsoft.
- The investment will grow the number of two- and four-year colleges participating by three. It will also boost annual capacity by 250%, meaning the program will serve as many as 7,000 students by 2021.
- CodePath.org is a nonprofit designed to expand the pipeline of underrepresented people in technology careers. It aligns computer science curriculum to the needs of employers by working closely with major technology companies and colleges, a press release said.
Dive Insight:
The parties behind this $3 million investment are funding a solution to the reportedly too-small tech talent pool that many others have supported, too.
2U's Trilogy Education, for example, partnered with learning institutions on multiple occasions. In response to the more 36,000 unfilled jobs in Boston that required some coding experience in 2018, Johns Hopkins University's Whiting School of Engineering and 2U's Trilogy Education hosted a coding boot camp. The University of Oregon did the same when it and Trilogy opened a 24-week, part-time, non-credit program geared toward adult learners and working professionals.
While it appears this latest measure aims to widen the talent pool at an early stage — as future workers hone their skills through the pursuit of higher education — some experts have suggested tech diversity needs to be addressed at an even earlier age. The Women Tech Council launched SheTech Explorer Day, a Utah event that introduced more than 2,500 girls to careers in STEM fields with virtual reality, coding, modeling, engineering and robotics activities.
