Facebook Donates $250,000 in Scholarships for Coders From Underrepresented Groups
The money will cover tuition for 20 developers in the immersive Dev Bootcamp coding program.
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.