Facebook and LinkedIn To Start Technology Training and Mentoring Programs for College Girls
Facebook and LinkedIn have announced that they are going to launch a collaborative training program from the grass root college level in the US, which will boost the number of women in the tech industry. Both tech giants will initiate training programs, mentoring sessions, workshops and internships which will surge the demand of women in the tech and will create hundreds of new jobs in the Silicon Valley.
Giving an interview to the Associated Press, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and LinkedIn CEO Jeffrey Weiner said that there is a massive need of creative women in tech space. Currently, Facebook’s total workforce comprises of 31% of women whereas LinkedIn’s workforce has 17% of women only. This percentage will go up as recently, CEOs of famous tech companies showed in interest to give women equal space to grow in the Silicon Valley.
In 2011, Facebook’s Sandberg wrote a book, called “Lead In: Women, work and Will to Lead”, in which she argued that there is a need to increase the inculcation of women human resources in tech.
But the problem is even more grave: the number of women in the tech industry couldn’t be increased if there is no growth for women from the college level. The source said that in 1985, the number of women registering for Computer Science programs reached up to 35% and now, it has plummeted up to 17% only. This is an alarming factor and Facebook and LinkedIn have joined hands to pluck the problem from its root.
Facebook said in a statement that more than half of its customers are women. Overall, the world population in most of the countries have women in majority. This means that major tech companies are getting revenues directly from a customer base which has a depleted representation in the tech markets.
Facebook and LinkedIn didn’t announce the exact investment they are making in this mentoring program.