New web development students focus on their skills as they transition into their new industry, but there is more to the industry than just the skills. Learn more about the topics that help build exceptional additions to the industry with special guest Kim Crayton.
This 2-part conversation will help listeners understand why Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) matters to career changers, why it’s a far bigger issue than just doing the right thing, and how to identify and avoid toxic environments.
This week, we’re delving into a different topic than I usually feature on the podcast. But, it’s going to become a topic that’s frequently worked into a lot of things you’ll hear me talk about regarding the web development industry. That topic is diversity and inclusion (or D&I for short).
Our guest today is Kim Crayton. Kim is an advocate for diversity, inclusion and space spaces in tech. She is currently pursuing a Doctor’s of Business Administration in Technology Entrepreneurship to take her business and skills to the next level.
She has an extensive background in business and education, and has built her own business around addressing issues like diversity and inclusion from an economic standpoint, and helping to bring companies forward to a competitive global level. Though it is only a segment of an overall approach to business success, Kim helps us to understand where and how business and D&I intersect. She uses really powerful imagery and examples to make abstract topics clear.
Diversity and inclusion is an issue in the tech industry. We need to know that when underrepresented and marginalized groups find their first jobs in tech, that they’ll feel comfortable to stay there.
We also need to know that software creators—especially in AI and Machine Learning—have the diverse teams required to build software that markets on a global level. This is where the most successful businesses have pivoted. These businesses recognize that there are are actual economic factors that heavily favor diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
I knew that I didn’t know enough of the nitty gritty on the topic of D&I—beyond my experience of being a Black and Native American woman in the tech industry—to do it justice. I needed an expert. That’s where this week’s guest, Kim Crayton, comes in. I met Kim at the Codeland conference in April 2017, and she really blew me away.
My conversation with Kim has been broken up into a two episodes so we can really get to grips with what she does and break down the ideas with which she is dealing.
In this, the first part, Kim helps us to define and identify the problems of representation and prejudice and how they relate to a coding environment. We delve into into two recent popular examples of these issues, looking at incidents that occurred at NodeJS and Google.
If you enjoy this episode, then be sure to check out Part 2, where Kim goes into how these issues can be addressed and further expands our understanding of the problems and possible solutions.
Listen in, let’s get into it!
Kim’s work:
Community Engineering Report Podcast on iTunes
Do you agree that diversity and inclusion and business/economics intersect?
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