Cracking the tech talent code
How CodePath is building tech talent in Miami’s underrepresented communities. Here’s what we’re digging into at Opportunity Miami.
This is the March 29, 2022 edition of the Opportunity Miami newsletter, which we send every Tuesday. Click here to subscribe to get our weekly updates in your inbox.
In thinking about Miami’s economic future, we know technology will increasingly be a part of our daily lives — and the number of jobs related to technology will increase too.
Yet, as Miami and the U.S. become increasingly diverse, the range of people being hired for tech jobs remains worryingly narrow.
A Pew Research Center study last year noted a dramatic increase in the number of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) graduates from U.S. colleges and universities since 2010, but found it hasn’t translated into a more diverse tech workforce. Black and Hispanic adults are underrepresented among STEM college graduates compared with their share in the population, and women are under-represented in the computing and engineering fields, the study found. The report warned “there is little indication that diversity in related fields will shift substantially in the near term.”
It’s a stubborn problem that must be fixed if tech’s growing ubiquity is going to be a force that expands economic opportunity, rather than widen existing socio-economic divides. One organization trying to address this challenge is CodePath, a nonprofit launched in 2017 that’s expanding across the country, and planting a flag in Miami in more ways than one.
Codepath announced last year that it’s growing its program at Florida International University and launching new programs at Florida Memorial University and Miami Dade College, thanks to a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. CodePath’s Co-Founder and CEO, Michael Ellison, has moved to Miami as well.
Ellison spoke with Nancy Dahlberg as part of our ongoing Q&A interview series, where we talk with leaders who are working to solve issues critical to Miami’s economic future.
The goal of Codepath, Ellison shared, is to “diversify the nation’s most competitive tech roles, period. We want the most lucrative, highest paying tech jobs, to reflect the diversity of the population.”
It’s a problem that’s resulted in myriad efforts by both traditional educational institutions — namely, colleges and universities — and also non-traditional educational organizations, including bootcamps, certificate programs, apprenticeships, and other upskilling programs.
Codepath’s approach straddles both worlds, as it’s an education startup but delivers programming and support that augments degree programs offered by colleges and universities. “In contrast to a lot of other programs, we wanted to be a layer on top of the existing system,” Ellison said.
This includes offering courses that complement college computer science curricula, identifying and helping students attain the skills most relevant to employers today, providing mentorship, and delivering job placement support — including connections to leading tech companies, resume preparation and interview practice. CodePath is active on more than 70 college campuses nationally.
CodePath’s roots are as a tech-training company for engineers at top tech companies, including Netflix, Facebook, and Google. But they discovered that efforts to help professional engineers learn new technologies faster also provided the coursework and support to make college students persist and stick with their computer science education. So in 2017, CodePath.com spawned CodePath.org, and its effort to address the wide tech education gap began.
In a January post to partners and supporters, Ellison wrote that of the more than 10,000 students it’s supported, 61 percent identify as low-income or underrepresented minorities and 85 percent of Black and Hispanic alumni are now working as software engineers.
Meanwhile, the growing nonprofit quadrupled its capacity last year, increasing from five full-time employees to 20. “Looking forward to 2022, there is a lot to be excited for,” wrote Ellison in his Jan. 28 post.
We would love to hear your thoughts and feedback on Nancy’s conversation with Michael Ellison and also on our Q&As in general. We envision this as a regular feature to highlight the voices of people working to shape our economic future in Miami.
With the same goal in mind, last week we also launched On Site, a video series where we meet people in the places they work and learn about the problems they’re helping to solve.
For the inaugural On Site we featured Breanna Faye, Chief Technology Officer of The Underline, the under-construction 10-mile linear park running through Greater Miami. Faye detailed The Underline’s efforts to deliver free, contiguous wifi access in a bid to help our community get many more residents online. Currently, 1 in 5 households are not connected to the Internet in Miami-Dade County.
Hope to hear from you.
Matt Haggman
Opportunity Miami
@matthaggman
