COMPUTER PROGRAMMING AND AFRICAN AMERICANSBy: Tivany Luqman

12/16/13

Africana folklore

Professor Covert

THE SEVERE LACK OF AFRICAN AMERICAN COMPUTER PROGRAMMERS.

When I asked “what percentage of African Americans are computer programmer, these are the only two answers I got:

One quarter of one percent (.25%) of computer scientists are black.

http://math.buffalo.edu/.../computer-science/cs-peeps.html

Using ISCO88 occupational classifications, the GSS reveals the following racial distribution among computer programmers (n = 144):

White -- 75.6%

Black -- 8.1%

Chinese or Indian -- 16.3%

http://anepigone.blogspot.com/2011/08/half-sigma-writes-as-far-as-i-know-no.html

FORTUNATE GROWTH

Thesis: Even though the numbers are low right now, If I ask this question again in ten years they would get better.

There are African Americans graduating with Computer science Degrees.

There are Scholarships for African Americans in STEM.

There is a Organization called Black Girls Code.

FIRST AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMAN PH.D. GRADUATE IN COMPUTER SCIENCE AT UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

• One of the people I managed to find was Kyla McMullen.• When she was little, she had a thing for gadgets.• When McMullen was in high school, she was able to apply for

the UMBC’s Meyerhoff Scholarship Program.• The Meyerhoff Scholars Program has been at the forefront of

efforts to increase diversity among future leaders in science, engineering, and related fields.

BLACK GIRLS CODE

• Launched in 2011• Founded by Kimberly Bryant• Black Girl Code is an Organization for African

American girls 7-17 who want to study in the STEM program.

• Examples of things they do include coding, photography and film making.

JOHN HENRY THOMPSON

• He taught himself several programming languages such as FORTRAN, PLI, COBOL and JCL while working in a New York research facility.

• After graduating from High School, he attended MIT where he obtained a degree in Computer Science and a minor in Visual Arts.

• Created Lingo programming: a scripting language that helps render visuals in computer programs.

DIGITAL DIVIDE

Facebook and Word Press are considered "white" in their more complicated and up-to-date user interfaces while Tumblr and Myspace are considered "black" due to their less sophisticated appearance and functions.

This stood out to me because I didn’t think that social media was define with race.

This is cultural folklore

MY CAREER

When I was a kid, I LOVED computers. I still love computers to this day. I decided to use my passion for computers and study to become a computer programmer.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

African-American Males in Computer Science---Examining the Pipeline for Clogs

Daryl Bryant Stone

http://atlantablackstar.com/2013/01/09/first-african-american-woman-ph-d-graduate-in-computer-science-at-the-univ-of-mich/

http://www.blackgirlscode.com/about-bgc.html

http://www.black-inventor.com/John-Thompson.asp

http://engineering.vanderbilt.edu/news/2013/grad%E2%80%99s-startup-goal-is-to-become-the-girl-scouts-of-technology/

http://www.umbc.edu/Programs/Meyerhoff/program_history.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide