Apple to donate $50M to causes championing diversity

Intel pledged $300 million to help solve the problem of the lack of minorities in tech

If 2014 was the year that the tech world finally acknowleged that it has a diversity problem, then maybe 2015 will be the year that those companies start doing something about it.

Last year companies ranging from Twitter to Google to Amazon all released transparency reports, showing what we already know: they are majority white and majority male. Apple's diversity report, released in August, revealed the company to be 55% white, (64% when it came to leadership positions) and 70% male (72% in leadership).

If there is one thing that Apple has it is money, given that is is currently the most successful company in the entire world, so that is what it will use to help solve the problem.

In an exclusive interview with Fortune on Tuesday, Denise Young Smith, human resources chief at Apple, revealed that the company will be putting $50 million into creating outreach for minorities, and women, in tech.

For this effort, Apple will be partnering with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, a non-profit that supports students enrolled in public, historically black colleges and universities (also known as HBCUs), such as North Carolina A&T State University, Howard University, and Young's alma mater Grambling State University.

Its other partner will be the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT), a non-profit that help create a broader pipeline of female technology workers.

(Note: Vator's premier Splash event, taking place in Oakland on April 22-23 will have breakout sessions focused on diversity in tech, and will feature a special session with Freada Kapor, Founder of the Level Playing Field. She is also a co-founder of the Kapor Center for Social Impact, with her husband, Mitch Kapor, investor and entrepreneur. Join us at Splash Oakland.)  

All told, Apple will be donating $50 million to these groups. And, on top of that, it will also potentially be donating to organizations that provide those in the military with technology training and specialized programs.

“We wanted to create opportunities for minority candidates to get their first job at Apple,” Young told Fortune. “There is tremendous upside to that and we are dogged about the fact that we can’t innovate without being diverse and inclusive.”

Silicon Valley tackles diversity

While $50 million is nothing to sneeze at, its also nothing compared to what Intel is willing to put into helping the cause of diversity in the tech industry.

In January, Intel announced it was investing a whopping $300 million to "build a pipeline of female and under-represented engineers and computer scientists," as well as to actively support hiring and retaining more women and under-represented minorities.

Intel also revealed its plan to fund programs that celebrate diversity, including the International Game Developers Association, the E-Sports League, the National Center for Women in Technology, the CyberSmile Foundation, the Feminist Frequency, and Rainbow PUSH.

In October, Facebook, Box and Pinterest announced that they had gotten together to launch a new mentorship program called WEST (Women Entering and Staying in Tech). The idea is to get more women interested in computer science, and to help them be prepared for the tech jobs of the future.

WEST will feature women who have technical jobs at all three companies, who will serve as one-on-one mentors. They will meet with mentees individually and as a group, in-person and online, over the course of a year. The program will officially launch in pilot mode this year.

There's no doubt that this news will get a lot less attention than Apple's $10,000 watch it unveiled yesterday, but this is another important step toward ending the perception of the tech world being only for one group of people.

VatorNews has reached out to Apple for further comment on these efforts. We will update this story if we learn more. 

(Image source: cdn.dice.com)