Voices of Change- Diversifying the STEM Pipeline in Silicon Valley

 

Kristina-PiraltaOne of the many things I’ve gathered through my various personal and professional experiences is how lived experiences impact your worldview and your work. My experiences a woman, as a person of color, as a second generation Filipino American child of immigrants, and as a product of East San Jose have all shaped my perspective and the perspective that I bring to my profession. The force that drives my work is having seen that there are too many students in my old neighborhood of Alum Rock, and in many neighborhoods in Silicon Valley, that lack access to opportunities. I am driven by this work knowing that my life trajectory was strikingly different from others because of the advantages and educational opportunities that were afforded to me. I continue with this work having experienced the schism that exists between the two Silicon Valleys, seeing the inequity at a young age firsthand, and believing that this didn’t need to be the case.

For the last year, I’ve served as the Director of Education and Workforce for the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, a public policy trade organization that represents nearly 400 member companies in the region. One of my first tasks as a new director was to lead the redesign of our Education portfolio, working alongside my staff and our members to identify areas of alignment between the private sector and education, all while thinking creatively about how we can engage our members in the education space in a meaningful and impactful way.

Through this process, a new focus area emerged: “Diversifying the STEM Pipeline”.

According to recent data from the US Department of Labor and US Census Bureau examining the ten largest Silicon Valley companies, 6% of the workforce identify as Hispanic, 4% of the workforce identify as Black, 25% identify as Asian, 63% identify as White, respectively. 70% of the workforce at the ten largest Silicon Valley companies are male. Executives and top managers at these companies reflect even less diversity: 3% identify as Hispanic, 1% identify as Black, 13% identify as Asian, and 83% identify as White. 83% of executives as top managers at the ten largest Silicon Valley companies are male.

Recently, our membership voted “Diversifying the STEM Pipeline” its top Education priority and its top two priority organization-wide. Specifically, the Leadership Group will focus on promoting policies and programs that prepare and encourage the inclusion and participation of women and underrepresented minorities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) careers.

Within the last year alone, the Leadership Group has worked on this focus area in the following ways:

– At our annual Game Changers and Education Summit, we hosted forums on “Diversifying the STEM Pipeline”, where policy makers, industry partners, and advocacy organizations including the Anita Borg Institute, Black Girls Code, code2040, #YesWeCode, Latinas in STEM, and the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, discussed their work and shared ideas on how to move the needle on diversity.

– We supported the work of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation to pass SB 359, addressing “math misplacement”, which occurs when students (disproportionately students of color) are under-placed in math classes appropriate to their proficiency level.

– Our Education Team developed a partnership with the Silicon Valley Education Foundation and the Office of San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo on “STEM with Mayor Sam”, where our CEO Carl Guardino, Mayor Liccardo, and a representative from one of our member companies help expose middle school students from East San Jose to STEM careers and encourage the parents of struggling students to enroll in Elevate [Math], the Education Foundation’s intensive summer math program.

– Last spring, the Leadership Group hosted 400 students for its Young Women’s Leadership Summit, a conference that encourages middle school girls, many from underserved communities, to pursue careers in STEM and in leadership. Similarly, last winter, we hosted 100 middle school boys from the Bayview-Hunter’s Point neighborhood of San Francisco, the Young Men’s Leadership Summit, where we connected young boys of color to male mentors working as engineers and scientists and leaders within their organizations, many of whom overcame adversity in their own lives. Given the very real context of the Black Lives Matter movement, our male mentors demonstrated to their young mentees that not only do their lives matter, but their minds as well.

While we have accomplished so much in the past year alone, I know that we have the potential to do so much more. True impact comes from institutional change, and it means acknowledging that the very nature of this work is hard. On a systemic level, it means first acknowledging that the inequity we hope our work addresses arises from generations of policies that have politically and economically disenfranchised groups discriminately; policies that have resulted in the intergenerational accumulation of advantage for some, and disadvantage for others. On an interpersonal level, it means engaging in often uncomfortable conversations that challenge our own biases.

And while this work is difficult, I am optimistic, and remind myself to have perspective. I am fortunate to work for an organization and on behalf of a membership that acknowledges that these numbers need to change. Given my background, I am consciously aware of my position: that as a woman, as a person of color, as a second generation Filipino American child of immigrants, as a product of East San Jose working to create a more equitable society, I’ve seen whose been left behind, and am in a position to do something about it.

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Kristina Peralta is the Director of Education and Workforce at the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. She received her BA in Sociology from the University of California – Davis and her MA in Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies from Stanford University. Prior to her role at the Leadership Group, Kristina worked as an Elementary Special Education Teacher in Brooklyn as a New York City Teaching Fellow, a Community Advocate for the Asian Law Caucus’ Immigrant Rights Project, a Research Assistant at Stanford University, and a Policy Analyst focusing on Education and Gang Prevention for the Mayor’s Office in San Jose. She is a proud Bay Area native.