A Tech Winner Seeks Policy Change to Advance Racial Justice in the Industry

PHOTO: JACOB LUND/SHUTTERSTOCK

Over the last four decades, the tech industry has transformed American society in countless ways. And it has made a lot of people a lot of money, with many tech company founders and investors becoming exceedingly wealthy. And many other folks have enjoyed, if not private-jet-level money, enviable careers that brought financial security and other benefits that come with a decent-sized savings account. But tech’s wealth and other benefits have not been spread evenly through society: Unsurprisingly, those missing out have been communities of color, including Black, Latinos and Native Americans. This matter of tech’s equity is the focus of the Kapor Foundation.

The Kapor Foundation, which is part of the Kapor Center for Social Impact, along with a few other entities that address parallel issues of equity and justice within the technology sector, recently announced the launch of a multipronged Equitable Technology Policy Initiative. It’s focused on increasing professional participation of communities of color in tech, both by boosting representation in jobs and in the all-important capital and investment ecosystem that surrounds technology. The foundation’s policy goals are also focused on developing stronger protections for minority workers and others in tech, on protecting diverse communities from inequities that exist within the technology itself, and on tax and other policies that aim to reinvest tech wealth into diverse communities.

“We created this equitable tech policy initiative because in a lot of these spaces that we’ve been in, whether it’s on the entrepreneurship side, or the tech policy side, even education, we have to address the intersection of racial justice and technology,” said Lili Gangas, chief technology community officer at the Kapor Center. “Ultimately, the racial disparities also impact economic upward mobility for many generations.”

Diversity in STEM fields has been a priority among a range of funders for some time, particularly among tech donors and corporate funders interested in workforce development and DEI. Other major foundations with an interest in the topic include the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Such funding commonly supports education and mentoring programs to draw young people into science and tech fields, both in K-12 and higher education.

The Kapor initiative is a little different in that it specifically targets the tech industry, and recognizes that progress demands a far-reaching push for policy change. The task will involve the public sector, the private sector, and public-private partnerships. Changes through policy, and the infrastructure to make those changes, will require advocacy at all levels of government, local, state and federal, according to the Kapor Center.

In the past year, the Kapor Center has awarded $5.3 million in tech-related grants in which issues of equity and access have been foregrounded. To guide its giving going forward, the center’s Equitable Technology Policy Initiative comprises nine core technology policy areas designed to draw more students and workers from marginalized communities into the sector and to allow them to thrive and innovate as business leaders and entrepreneurs. It is necessarily an initiative that will seek progress at several levels, from K-12 education to workforce development, unions and gig worker protections, and accountability by tech companies and platforms. It will also work to find ways to hold technology companies and platforms accountable for improving equity. 

Within the tech sector, for example, Gangas said, people of color are more likely to be paid less than white employees. They are also more likely to work as contractors rather than regular employees, and thus have weaker job security than their white counterparts. Racial and other biases have also been found within the technology itself: such biases within algorithms and technology products have led to unfair lending practices in the housing industry, and affected facial recognition and policing, among other impacts. 

And in a by now, all-too-familiar way, false and hateful content distributed through the technology platforms of social media have disproportionately harmed communities of color, according to Kapor Center. 

Unlocking tech industry opportunity for all communities has been the mission of the Kapor Center since 2000, when it was founded by Mitch Kapor, himself a key player in the tech industry. In the 1980s, Kapor’s Lotus Development Corporation and its flagship product, the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet software application, drove the acceptance of personal computers in business, and contributed to the technological environment that’s woven so deeply in society today. Mitch and his wife Freada Kapor Klein are co-chairs of the Kapor Center. Also this year, Kapor Capital, a social impact venture capital firm founded by Kapor, launched a $126 million investment fund focused on tech startups in low-income communities and communities of color.

The tech sector plays a key role in the national economy, according to data cited by the Kapor Center. It employs 9 million people at jobs paying an average 125% higher than the median national wage. Exclusion of marginalized groups is also bad business, Gangas points out. When technology companies design products without the participation of people from diverse communities, they will miss opportunities and revenue from large segments of the population.

Exclusion from the technology sector puts any community at a distinct economic disadvantage and is a significant breach of the essential fairness that’s at the heart of this country’s ideals.