Challenge to tech companies: Join 10,000 Innovators Fund

Dear Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter and other top technology companies:

Over the past six months, many of you revealed that the percentage of underrepresented minority employees in your ranks is in the single digits.

Most of you acknowledged that you're out of step with the diversity of your own users.

And many of you said the No. 1 cause is the pipeline: low numbers of qualified applicants who are female or of color, especially for tech positions.

Well, it's time to put your vast resources to work on filling that pipeline.

Today, Platform — an organization committed to the success of those underrepresented in the innovation economy — in partnership with Morehouse College and Level Playing Field Institute (LPFI), is announcing the 10,000 Innovators Fund (10ki).

10ki aims to remedy the lack of diversity in tech by scaling up a proven educational model: LPFI's Summer Math and Science Honor Academy (SMASH).

We are now calling on you to invest in your own pipeline by contributing to 10ki.

Change begins in the classroom

In 2013, 20,000 U.S. high school students passed the Advanced Placement computer science exam, giving them a head start on earning college credit towards a tech-related degree. Of the 20,000, only 388 were African-American. That's 2%.

With the conviction that change begins in the classroom, 10ki seeks to exponentially increase the number of students of color passing the AP exam to 10,000 per year.

Morehouse College is fully committed to partnering with 10ki to achieve this vision.

"We see this goal as a national imperative, and one that will have far-reaching implications. Now more than ever, colleges and universities must be properly supported in ways that reflect the human resource needs and strategic business objectives of leading technology companies," said Morehouse President John S. Wilson.

Using a proven model

To turn vision into reality, 10ki plans to fund institutions and non-profits that adopt models based on LPFI's SMASH initiative.

Freada Kapor Klein, PhD, founded LPFI in 2001.

She's an entrepreneur, activist and leader in the field of organizational diversity who advises clients such as Harvard Business School, the World Bank as well as technology startups.

Mitch Kapor, who as the designer of Lotus 1-2-3 is one of the founding fathers of computing, sits on the board.

LPFI's SMASH is an 11-year-old, California-based educational program that has successfully immersed economically disadvantaged, minority high school students in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and math).

Rising sophomores (who are about half female) attend an academy at a leading university for three summers in a row, become part of a community of high achievers and benefit from intensive mentoring and college prep.

The teenagers that SMASH accepts are the very definition of at risk.

Most have no family members who attended college and about half of the students at their local high schools drop out before graduation.

Given these dynamics, SMASH scholars' success rates are especially impressive:

•Three out of four took an AP STEM course

•All graduated from high school

•98% went to college or university and nearly half of those to a top-50 school

•83% declared a STEM subject as their major and persisted beyond their third year.

Starting with a program at Morehouse College — one of the centers of African-American education — 10ki will support local institutions that adopt the SMASH model in addition to funding new LPFI sites.

10ki aims to scale this highly effective model across the nation to reach as many minority and disadvantaged students as possible. And it needs your help to accomplish this ambitious feat.

"There are about 100,000 disadvantaged students of color we could reach right now if we had the funding," says Kapor Klein. "These kids, who are full of potential, will now have the opportunity to attend elite schools like MIT and Harvard and become engaged citizenry as both producers and consumers of tech."

From homeless to pre-med

Take Kyle Evans, an African-American teen who grew up in and out of homelessness in Fremont, CA.

After his parents lost their jobs and home, he and six other family members were always on the move, crowding into tiny, kitchen-less motel rooms.

Despite his difficult circumstances, Evans was an intellectually curious student who stayed up late studying in the car when there was nowhere else to hunker down.

After being accepted into SMASH, he delved deeply into science and math and prepared to excel in high school.

Now a pre-med student at Brown University, he aspires to help patients in impoverished communities.

What tech companies can do

The lack of diversity in the innovation economy is one of the most pressing issues of our time.

Brilliant minorities and women are excluded from the powerful ranks of the tech elite.

And you leaders of tech companies are missing out on the range of perspectives that will help you recognize and solve challenges for users of every stripe around the world.

But the good news is you can do something about it.

By contributing to 10ki, you can create opportunities for kids like Kyle and vastly expand your own pool of top technological talent at the same time.

Hank Williams is a tech entrepreneur who is founder of Platform, a non-profit organization focused on diversifying the innovation economy, and CEO of Kloudco a cloud storage and data management platform. He announced 10,000 Innovators Fund at the Platform Summit on Friday afternoon with the co-chairs of the Kapor Center Mitch Kapor and Freada Kapor Klein and John Wilson, president of Morehouse.