Detroit Today: Making tech jobs more accessible to girls and students of color
STEAM Connection founder Danielle Boyer discussed making tech jobs more accessible for Black and Brown Americans.
Indigenous Americans are often excluded from tech, math and engineering spaces.
According to the STEAM Connection, just nine percent of Indigenous households have personal computers, and even fewer have internet access. This group makes up only 0.4% of the engineering workforce.
America’s Indigenous population isn’t terribly large, but these numbers are also reflective of more insidious trends — those of colonization, racism and historical exclusion.
There are organizations and individuals who are working to include Indigenous Americans, women and people of color in the fields of science and technology.
Listen: Making tech jobs more accessible to women and people of color
Guest
Danielle Boyer is a robotics inventor, educator and founder of the nonprofit STEAM Connection. She says as a student, she didn’t have access to many high tech resources, and when she joined a robotics team in high school, she was frequently bullied.
“I ended up founding my charity, the STEAM Connection, to create resources for girls, especially Indigenous girls like me, so they can learn about STEM in safe spaces,” says Boyer of making STEM spaces more inclusive.
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