A letter from our new C.E.O., Amy Iorio
Dear 9 Dots Friends and Supporters:
Most of my career has been spent in two of the largest tech companies in the world, which over the course of the last few decades have revolutionized the way we work, do research, learn about the world, and are entertained. So much of what we now do in life has been made easier (or was even created) by technology.
At the same time, hardly a week goes by that we don’t hear about new social and ethical concerns facing our society, individually and collectively, related to the design and the use of new technologies, including embedded algorithmic bias that makes gender or racially biased decisions on who gets a loan, a job interview, credit - or even a reduced prison sentence.
A major contributor to the persistence of such biases lies in the institutionalized blind spots created by the stubborn lack of diversity in the rapidly expanding CS and technology fields. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average projected job growth rate is 6% across all industries, but 12% in the computing fields and 21% for software developers. With a median wage of $120,000, these are some of the most lucrative jobs in our current economy. Yet fewer than 20% of software developers are women, 5% are Latino, and 4% are African American.
The same homogeneity is reflected in the leadership of these companies. Across ten major tech companies, women represent only 25% of management positions, Latinos 4%, and African Americans only 2%. This lack of leadership diversity in companies that are literally reshaping society has far reaching ramifications. Systems are made in the likeness of those who are making them.
There are so many reasons to want children to have access to computer science - more job opportunities in their futures, more flexibility in picking their career paths, greater lifetime income provided in technical careers - but in addition to the reasons for an individual child, family, or community - the universal reason is that the people writing the code driving our society need to represent the society itself. Tech companies may genuinely want to promote people of color and women into their C suite, however universally they say they can’t find talent for which they are searching.
Which is why the C-Suite starts in K. The reality is that for women and underrepresented minorities in tech there are challenges at all stages of the journey towards equity, beginning from a student’s earliest years. Children’s perceptions of their CS ability are closely correlated with their perceptions of their math skills and girls have been shown to associate boys with math as early as the second grade.
Fewer than 40% of California’s K-12 schools offer CS classes - low-income students and students of color are least likely to have access. When students are offered CS it’s at the high school level rather than in the early years - years that need to include strong messages that anyone can be engaged by and excel in CS. This has bleak implications not just for diversity in the tech fields but for the long term economic and social mobility for our children as 21st century careers increasingly require CS and related computational thinking problem solving skills.
9 Dots and the work we are doing was created to take on these issues. We serve over 6,500 students in 22 Title 1 elementary schools in the Los Angeles and Compton Unified Schools districts. Ninety-percent of the students we serve are students of color - over 50% are girls, and over 80% are low-income. Our original K-6 computer science curriculum, learning insights Platform, and professional development services for teachers are all designed to establish equitable, joyful classrooms throughout Los Angeles where every student can belong and achieve. Just last year 77% of our students identified as coders - a number we expect to rise this year as we build out full K through 6 CS pipelines at our partner schools.
No one says it better than 1st grader Alyria when she said “When we work together we’re better - we’re coders.” Through our rigorous curriculum - introducing the concepts and developing competency at an early age - we can shatter the barriers and inspire a new generation of creators and innovators.
Now it is time to expand. In the upcoming years, I will be leading 9 Dots in the effort to develop and pilot a new curriculum approach that uses narrative and gaming elements to create an immersive learning experience for students and teachers. Intuitive for teachers to pick up and teach, this curriculum will allow us to scale and reach students across the country, giving them the tools to know that they belong in the CS field, if they so choose.
We can’t do this alone. Our deep partnerships start with students and their families, teachers, principals and districts, and include research projects with UCLA and Riot Games, major support from the National Science Foundation, LA2050, the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation, and the Verizon Foundation (who supports our groundbreaking AP CSP course) just to name a few - as well as each and every one of you.
Thank you for all of the support you have given us and I hope you will continue to join us on this incredible journey!
- Amy Iorio