Inside the Million-Dollar Initiative to Get HBCU Students Into Big Tech Companies
From The Plug …
In June 2020, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent protests, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation pledged $100 million over five years to help address racial disparities. Through that pledge, the retail giant announced last fall it was investing $1.6 million to help prepare HBCU students for tech careers.
Now, that initiative is taking shape.
Walmart’s investment is bringing CodePath, a nonprofit focused on diversifying the nation's most competitive technical roles and driving systemic change in schools, to HBCUs through a partnership with the 1890 Universities Foundation, which works with 19 HBCUs that were created as a result of the Morrill Act of 1890 establishing land-grant Black colleges
“After the waves of protest after George Floyd, a lot of companies were trying to figure out what they could do to invest in racial equity,” Michael Ellison, CEO and co-founder of CodePath, told The Plug.
“A lot of efforts previously were kind of check the box on ‘Let’s send one or two recruiters to an HBCU’ but then they don't hire anyone,” Ellison said.