The Huffington Post – Nick Hutchinson
“By 2022, the U.S. will need more than nine million professionals in science, technology, engineering and math. But last year, there were eleven states where not a single African-American student took the Advanced Placement exam in computer science — and fewer than twenty percent of all test takers were female. Gender and ethnic inequality in tech is, by now, well documented. The question is what can we do about it? Last month, I had a chance to meet the next generation of tech superstars at The White House Science Fair, a gathering of America’s brightest young minds and a demonstration that there’s nothing inevitable about tech’s diversity crisis. These students had made important discoveries in cybersecurity and cancer research…For a country famously lagging in math and science, how did we produce students like these — and how can we produce more of them? I found two key themes in the many dozens of well-rehearsed presentations:”(more)