The tech industry is growing. Our world is getting smaller. Everyone becomes more connected and engaged. Despite this trend, people from different ethnic backgrounds still struggle to start a career in tech. There is underrepresentation, but there is a bright future ahead of us.

I met Donte Parks, co-Founder and Vice President of Culture at Substantial. As an African American tech leader, he is rare in this industry. He aims to inspire underrepresented minorities to work hard and motivate them to pursue the careers of their choice. He volunteered to take part in WTIA’s Speakers Bureau because he believes that this would be a good opportunity to reach out and to do good in the community. As a Filipino, an underrepresented minority, and as someone who is striving to have a career in tech, I find his story very compelling.

Donte was born into a military family in Virginia, taking him to Florida and the Philippines in his early youth before they settled for good back in Virginia. He studied Systems Engineering at the University of Virginia and while there interned with a (now-defunct) IT consulting agency. That opportunity helped him land a job at Microsoft and he moved to Seattle shortly after graduation.

Nine years ago, he joined Paul Rush and Jeremy Borden to start Substantial, a digital product development & design studio headquartered in Seattle. When he’s not at Substantial, you might catch him DJing (mostly in his living room) or at his boxing gym.

 

THREE PILLARS OF INCLUSION: ACCESS, OPPORTUNITY, RETENTION

Donte believes that African Americans and other underrepresented minorities seeking a career in tech face three particular challenges: access, opportunity, and retention. The current underrepresentation of various backgrounds leads many to believe that tech is not for them, that it’s for someone else. Without those clear examples, it can be harder to understand where to even begin, first with getting the right skills, then with getting their foot in the right door at an organization that will support them. Should they find themselves at an organization or in a greater professional environment that isn’t supportive of their being there, they may find so much frustration that they choose to leave the field entirely. Donte believes there’s a lot of work to be done in all of these areas. It’s going to be a slow process but with companies starting to make inclusion and diversity a focal point, there are signs that positive change is on the horizon.

In promoting diversity and inclusion, all members of the tech industry have a role to play. While companies have their obvious business responsibilities, they have an implied social obligation to support their community. Companies can do this by ensuring they are doing their part (whatever that is) to reduce the friction that can exist in joining and staying in the tech industry. “The goal is not that everyone should be in tech, the goal is that if someone wants to be in tech then they should have the infrastructure to be able to do that, and it should be a supportive place for them,” says Parks. This belief extends beyond tech to other industries as well.

Donte also shared that WTIA has its own place in promoting workplace inclusion. With a membership of small, medium & large tech companies and the ability to represent the industry at the government level, WTIA can facilitate conversations, promote community efforts and share lessons & best practices. It can effectively corral the membership and use it as a “force for good.” A lot of companies are already doing good work but they may be operating in a vacuum. Learning what other organizations are doing helps to spread awareness, but more importantly can help to spread solutions. He believes that WTIA can be the conduit to provide a cycle of knowledge sharing within the industry.

THE SPEAKERS BUREAU

Donte signed up as a speaker for the WTIA Speakers Bureau because he believes he has a goal to use his position and experience to promote positive change in the community. The Speakers Bureau matches volunteer tech leaders with schools and nonprofits that serve diverse populations with the intent of inspiring more women and underrepresented minorities to get into tech. This year he’s spoken to students at Goodwill and in several high schools. He shared that it’s always interesting to talk to high school students because “they are balancing appearing ‘cool’ with their internal questioning of what they want to do next.”

That questioning is why it’s important for tech leaders to act as role models for their community, providing examples of how tech is evolving to accommodate more types of people. Seeing someone like them do what they want to do could be just the push to help them realize that there are more achievable routes to success than they had considered. When asked for a final piece of advice for women and underrepresented minorities that want to get into tech, Donte shared, “It may be hard, but do it anyway.”

Sign up to volunteer or request a volunteer through WTIA’s Speakers Bureau