Our Mission
Our vision is a future where there is an equitable distribution of power in the innovation economy.
We need Black and Latinx people contributing at all levels and at a proportional rate to their demographics in the United States.
Focus on Tech & Power.
In industry after industry, you see college degree
attainment levels exceed the percentage of Black
and Latinx high wage workers. Simultaneously, the
tech industry is radically transforming our economy
and society, ushering changes not yet seen since
the Industrial Revolution. Tech is uniquely
positioned because of its relationship to risk and
innovation as well as its abundant need for tech
workers to change this pattern in American
high-wage work.We are in a unique moment in time. As Black
and Latinx people become the majority and tech
shapes how we interact with money, information,
and each other, racial equity in tech is not just
about access to jobs but access to power. Being
shut out of tech means being shut out of the new
rules of power, which has negative consequences
on Black and Latinx people, tech, and the country.
Our Strategy
We offer direct service programs, clear pathways into the industry, and community resources to contend with the imbalanced distribution of power that Black and Latinx people face in the tech industry.
In order to dismantle these structural barriers, we need to harness the collective power of each and every Code2040 community member. Through managing, mentoring, training and organizing— we plan to impact at least 150,000 people.
Retain, deepen, and expand racial equity community in tech advocating for proportional representation of Black and Latinx people in the industry.
Direct Programs to support Black and Latinx tech professionals. This includes skill-building workshops, professional networking and peer support, and internships with tech companies. We focus specifically on supporting participants to develop advocacy skills within the workplace. We serve over 200 young tech professionals per year, and have been collecting data on the Black and Latinx experience in tech since 2012. Alumni go on to do incredible work in the sector, and are now in hiring roles for incoming Code2040 program participants, serving as mentors to the next generation.
2. Build tools and resources for skill and capacity building so that our community can operationalize change
We’ll provide our community the tools needed to succeed and foster the success of Black and Latinx people in tech and provide our companies with frameworks, goals, and language to support industry transformation.
Racial justice and systems change efforts directly with tech companies. This includes racial equity trainings for managers to deepen analysis around how to build more equitable, inclusive, and supportive environments for people of color. We partner with 50-60 companies per year to hold tech companies accountable to building cultures where Black and Latinx professionals thrive.
3. Drive the narratives that support and enhance our community doing racial equity work in the ecosystem.
We’re raising the bar of acceptable discourse for racial equity in tech and plan to create coalitions with multiple organizations that support accountability ecosystem for change.
4. Build a healthy organization that reflects the aspirations we have for the external world
For the past four years, we’ve been heavily focused on building a healthy organization and learning about the tradeoffs in operational equity that we’re planning to share with our community.
We’ve continued to build frameworks, theories, and systems, to support an organization wrestling with the distribution of power. We’ll aim to become an organization that consistently becomes more sustainable over time.
