On this episode of Work in Progress, I'm discussing increasing representation of Black talent in the tech industry and the new career exploration tool Black Genius Academy with Rachelle Olden, head of Google's Tech Equity Collective, and Ruben Harris, co-founder and CEO of Career Karma. Black talent is underrepresented in some of the fastest-growing jobs in the country. According to a report from McKinsey, Black talent makes up 12% of the U.S. workforce, but only 8% of the tech industry. Tech Equity Collective (TEC) – a Google initiative – is on a mission to accelerate Black innovation and representation in tech. TEC has partnered with Career Karma - an app and web platform that connects career transitioners with coding and tech boot camps – to launch the a new career exploration app – Black Genius Academy. Ruben Harris says Black workers in the U.S. are overrepresented in some industries and underrepresented in others, partially because of lack of exposure to certain career pathways and training. "Of the 17 million Black workers in the United States, 65% of them developed their skills through alternative routes. Those alternative routes are often not the career paths that we are talking about in technology," says Harris. These alternative routes can be work experience, some community college, or even military service. He adds, "Even if you might have heard of a career path and you have been exposed to the right training, if you don't have access to someone that can guide you, or that has been through what you've been through, a lot of times you don't move forward. And so having someone that can mentor you or guide you, that also has been through what you've been through, is a very powerful thing." Rachelle Olden agrees that there is an exposure gap and that there are multiple challenges in getting Black workers better access to the tech industry. "There are series of different exposure points to prepare someone to enter into tech, whether that is early childhood and you are playing with LEGO (bricks), so you are learning how to build. Whether that's having STEM available in your school. Whether that's having engineers who are in your community or in your family. It's a plethora of things," explains Olden. She adds that "we, as an industry have to continue to think holistically about talent and how we identify talent and how we bring talent in. What schools are we going to? What communities are we going to? What organizations are we going to? How are we evaluating talent? Everybody is coming into the tech space with very different lived experiences and really placing value on those lived experiences." Addressing these issues is what has brought TEC and Career Karma together to create the new Black Genius Academy. "Black Genius Academy (BGA) is a career exploration app that gives Black people resources and knowledge and access to people that help them identify, enroll, and succeed in technical education programs," says Harris. Olden describes BGA's goal as demystifying the tech ecosystem. "A lot of people may ask, 'Oh, is it for me? Can I do it?' We want to demystify that for so many people who have been underexposed to opportunities in tech. In addition to that, we want to celebrate all of the amazing contributions that the Black community continues and has made to the tech ecosystem." BGA has audio and video of successful Black tech leaders to give app users/learners guidance and coaching in one of three career paths – cybersecurity, UX design, and software engineering. She continues, "Once you choose a career pathway, you'll take a deeper dive and you'll start to hear from Black industry leaders in these spaces about their experience. You'll learn more about what is it, for example, what does it mean to be a software engineer? What do software engineers do? How do software engineers spend their day? What is required and expected of a software engineer?"