With topics ranging from using data to advance racial equity to mitigating bias in the hiring process, Milwaukee's first Equity in Tech Summit highlighted tactics for increasing diversity in the city's growing technology sector.
The event, held Tuesday at Saint Kate - The Arts Hotel in downtown Milwaukee, was hosted by the Milky Way Tech Hub and MARS Solutions Group as part of Wisconsin Tech Month.
Click through the slideshow above to see photos from the event.
Cynthia Overton of the Kapor Center in Oakland, California, which is focused on diversifying the technology ecosystem, spoke about the need for organizational Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) initiatives.
Of the five most common DEIB initiatives, only two — setting explicit diversity goals and establishing underrepresented employee referral programs — work in isolation, Overton said. The others — having a diversity and inclusion director, conducting unconscious bias trainings and establishing employee resources groups — need to be implemented along with the first two in order to be effective, she said.
Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce vice president of community affairs Corry Joe Biddle, the event's second keynote speaker, gave an update about the organization's Region of Choice initiative. It began in 2019 to improve the recruitment, retention and advancement of Black and Brown talent among Milwaukee-area employers.
To date, more than 140 local companies have signed the pledge to collectively increase the number of African American and Hispanic/Latino employees and managers in Milwaukee by 15% and 25%, respectively, within five years, Biddle said. That's up from around 125 in June and around 60 companies when the initiative was launched.
Despite the progress that's been made, there's a lot more work to be done, Biddle said.
"If we take our feet off the gas, it's going to go back to what it was," she said.
