Facebook Donates $250,000 in Scholarships for Coders From Underrepresented Groups

By Sameer Rao Apr 13, 2016

Facebook officials announced the company’s latest effort to diversify Silicon Valley this week: $250,000 in scholarships to support developers from marginalized groups. 

The tech giant donated the money to Dev Bootcamp, a San Francisco-based 19-week coding education program. According to USA Today, the donation will be used to cover Dev Bootcamp tuition for 20 women and people from underrepresented communities of color: "Black/African American, Chicano/Latino, Native American,  Pacific Islander."

"Facebook’s generous donation makes a real impact on Dev Bootcamp’s goal to achieve proportional representation of the U.S. population with our student base of women and minorities," said Dev Bootcamp official Tarlin Ray in a statement

Per the company’s diversity report from last June, Facebook struggles with its own internal diversity. A full 84 percent of technical employees identify as male, while 51 percent are White and 43 percent are Asian. Latinos and African Americans make up just 3 percent and 1 percent of the company’s technical staff, respectively.

Scholarship applications are due May 2.