How Oakland Can Build More Inclusion into Our Tech Ecosystem

Amidst a crowd of black, Latino, women and LGBTQ founders and leaders, I was preparing for a panel at the inaugural Tech Inclusion Conference at Galvanize in San Francisco. The same morning across the Bay, the City of Oakland and the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce held the first in their “Oaklanders Talk Tech” series at Pandora. 

The 100 member audience listened to Oakland Chamber consultant Beacon Economics partner Christopher Thornberg share data from the Chamber’s District Indicators Project focused on tech sector growth and impact on the Oakland economy . Report highlights included these data points:

• The average wage at an Oakland tech company for an employee is $100,000 a year
• Tech companies based in Oakland pay some of the highest wages in the city, across all sectors
• The number of people working in tech in Oakland has grown 23% from 2010 to 2014. More than 5,400 people working in tech companies are based in Oakland
• Most of the jobs increasing in Oakland are in booming tech segments:  Internet/Web-Search Portals & Computer/Software Design

This research done for the  Chamber confirms that the tech sector is surging in Oakland, which we knew. As an inclusive ecosystem builder, I question how many of the tech companies coming to Oakland  have any significant number of Oakland residents already on staff--or are focused on making sure local residents are a strong percentage of their hiring pool.

It's more likely that the number of Oakland natives being hired by tech companies coming to town is far fewer than those who went to UC Berkeley or Stanford, or even to UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz or UC San Diego (though Oaklanders go to all these schools, of course.).  And if we looked to see how many staffers at those tech companies had attended and/or graduated from local colleges including Mills College, Holy Name, and California State University, East Bay, the number on staff might probably even smaller.

In Oakland, how we train, recruit and hire tech workers needs to evolve.  At a time when the tech boom is surging real estate prices so much so that many local residents are being priced out of their own city, encouraging tech companies to consider locals as their new hires, and supporting local people to receive top quality training for tech jobs are both necessary so we can maintain a diverse and equitable city.

The Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and the City of Oakland may not yet be tracking how many of the jobs offered at these incoming tech companies are going to people who are a product of local Oakland schools and/or local Oakland residents, but it’s something they should think about measuring.

And equally importantly, The City of Oakland needs to have a clear vision of every step of the school to work pipeline in conjunction with Hack the Hood and other technology inclusion building  programs operating in the city. A resilient civic ecosystem in Oakland includes local residents receive training and support to get competitive jobs in booming sectors. 

In this vision, local tech companies actively work with education and career development organizations like Hack the Hood and with the local high schools, colleges and universities to identify the core skills young people will need in their workforce and partner to train them in these skills. 

The next step includes local tech companies bringing in young people in as apprentices and interns to build and retain local talent. This will become part of a virtuous circle where local companies invest in educating and recruiting local young people of color as resilient, innovative top talent. 

For young people who are currently in remedial classes, or not seeing themselves in college, and anticipating shift work in low-wage jobs, mentoring relationships with adults are critical.  It is not realistic to imagine that offering low-income young people access to online coding classes, for example, is enough to move most of them into well-paying tech careers--much more real work investment is needed.

What these young people need to succeed, in our experience at Hack the Hood, is what young people have always needed:  support from honest, caring adults, a chance to learn in a safe environment,  a peer cohort who share and support their interests and values and a curriculum that support inquiry and problem-solving above rote learning.

In addition to these practices, our young people need clear education and career plans that can support their long-term dreams and vision—and skills that can raise them above minimum wage as they continue their education.  

Furthermore, young folks need chances to learn about and try out some of the new jobs available as the tech industry shifts. Lastly, they need connections to real world professionals doing the work who can share about their education and experiences.

And they also need opportunities to see that tech companies value input from a broad variety of cultural, racial, and socio-economic experiences and histories.  That the tech workplace, the management ladder, and the full range of job opportunities are not just open to them but aware of the importance of their presence on the team, in the office and in the boardroom.  

And they also need opportunities to see that tech companies value input from a broad variety of cultural, racial, and socio-economic experiences and histories.  That the tech workplace, the management ladder, and the full range of job opportunities are not just open to them but aware of the importance of their presence on the team, in the office and in the boardroom.  

We see the impact of this kind of education and support with the young people ages 16-24 we work with at Hack the Hood. For young people like high school student Norma Soto and recent high school graduate Ishmael Rico, whom we worked with this summer, opportunities to visit tech companies, talk with tech professionals, and learn basic tech and coding skills--as well as be educated about the types of tech careers--had been out of reach in their high schools.

Six weeks working with Hack the Hood was transformative--and inspired both of these young people to seek careers in tech.  On a panel on youth and the STEM pipeline at the recent Tech Inclusion 15 conference, Rico told the audience that working with Hack the Hood made him want to be an entrepreneur working in tech--and that support from mentors helped him be “willing to fail.” Currently taking courses at Berkeley City College, Rico is also an Hack the Hood A-team member and studying coding languages

For Soto, Rico, the other Oakland youth in our program, and for others like them, the moment for Oakland to think about how to open and broaden the tech ecosystem is now.

As new tech companies come into Oakland, and look to city government and the business community for guidance, we have to be ready to welcome and direct them to build inclusion at the local level, so no one in Oakland is left behind. ​