After decades of frustration in their efforts to make major employment breakthroughs in the IT industry, black tech workers may have found a valuable ally. Nex Cubed founder and Chief Executive Officer Marlon Evans has identified tech as an industry where talented individuals affiliated with Historically Black College and Universities (HBCUs) might land well-paid jobs.
Nex Cubed describes itself as a global accelerator that invests in diverse founders dedicated to solving the nation’s most pressing problems. The venture firm’s website states that its goal is to provide seed capital that will empower startups and investors to develop new technologies.
Recently, Nex Cubed announced that, backed by Costco Wholesale’s $5 million financial assistance, the venture capital firm would launch the Historically Black College and University Founders Fund (HBCUFF). This $40 million accelerator will invest in startups where at least one founder is a student, alumni or faculty member of an HBCU.
Led by North Carolina A&T State University, Howard University and Spelman College, HBCUs are responsible for 25 percent of all African-American STEM graduates. With the layoffs of both directly employed and contracted tech workers, Nex Cubed sees openings for black students currently untrained, unrecruited and unemployed in their chosen field.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s data shows that big tech’s demographic mix is 68 percent white and 64 percent male, statistics that the “Stem News Chronicle” noted. A McKinsey report predicted that the gap in tech employment – the total of black IT workers compared to white – will widen over the next decade. Across all industries, technology jobs – those in data science, engineering, cybersecurity and software development – are expected to grow 14 percent by 2032, but over the same time period, the black tech workers’ percentage is expected to grow only 8 percent.
After decades of frustration in their efforts to make major employment breakthroughs in the IT industry, black tech workers may have found a valuable ally. Nex Cubed founder and Chief Executive Officer Marlon Evans has identified tech as an industry where talented individuals affiliated with Historically Black College and Universities (HBCUs) might land well-paid jobs.
Nex Cubed describes itself as a global accelerator that invests in diverse founders dedicated to solving the nation’s most pressing problems. The venture firm’s website states that its goal is to provide seed capital that will empower startups and investors to develop new technologies.
Recently, Nex Cubed announced that, backed by Costco Wholesale’s $5 million financial assistance, the venture capital firm would launch the Historically Black College and University Founders Fund (HBCUFF). This $40 million accelerator will invest in startups where at least one founder is a student, alumni or faculty member of an HBCU.
Led by North Carolina A&T State University, Howard University and Spelman College, HBCUs are responsible for 25 percent of all African-American STEM graduates. With the layoffs of both directly employed and contracted tech workers, Nex Cubed sees openings for black students currently untrained, unrecruited and unemployed in their chosen field.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s data shows that big tech’s demographic mix is 68 percent white and 64 percent male, statistics that the “Stem News Chronicle” noted. A McKinsey report predicted that the gap in tech employment – the total of black IT workers compared to white – will widen over the next decade. Across all industries, technology jobs – those in data science, engineering, cybersecurity and software development – are expected to grow 14 percent by 2032, but over the same time period, the black tech workers’ percentage is expected to grow only 8 percent.