While more companies begin to turn their attention to addressing the historical biases that have limited minority opportunities in tech, few have solutions in place for recruiting and retaining diverse talent. A recent survey showed 80 percent of tech companies view diversity and inclusion as important — but Black and Latinx workers still make up just 5 percent of today’s tech workforce, and women represent just 24 percent. To move the industry toward a place of greater inclusion and address tech’s widening skills gap, organizations built to train and support those with less opportunity are emerging to implement solutions of their own.

“Today there are more than half a million unfilled jobs that require tech skills in the U.S. … and universities are only going to train 400,000. So, there is a gap of a million skilled people … for software engineering,” said Sylvain Kalache (pictured), co-founder of the Holberton School. With its unique payment program, Holberton School offers education and workforce training opportunities to all.

Kalache spoke with John Furrier (@furrier), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, and guest host Lauren Cooney (@lcooney), founder and chief executive officer of Spark Labs Consulting LLC, at the DevNet Create event in Mountain View, California. They discussed the problems of bias that plague tech and how Holberton School is working to break down the industry’s entrance barriers. (* Disclosure below.)

Removing obstacles and biases

Holberton’s mission is to provide high-quality education for all students, regardless of experience level or financial ability. “Ivy League are obviously doing a great job, but … it’s limited to an elite. A fraction of American people can access high-quality education. … Something is wrong with that,” Kalache said.

Observing the limitations posed by cost prohibitive schools and biased recruiting, Kalache created a model for Holberton that levels the playing field. The two-year program has no upfront cost, recouping payment only once students have secured employment. “It’s 17 percent of your income for the first three years of employment if you find a job that’s over $40,000. If you don’t find a job, you don’t pay anything,” he said.

The system aligns school and student successes, incentivizing quality education and career support from the its 150 mentors. Currently working as tech professionals, teachers share relevant advice based on experience in the field. “What it’s like to work for a startup. What it’s like to work for a big company. What it’s like to be a woman in tech, right. They guide us on the curriculum,” Kalache said.

Holberton’s quality of education and flexible payment system make it a competitive school. Kalache ensures applicants are accepted only on the basis of merit through a blind, fully automated selection process. “So far it’s brought 35 percent woman. Fifty percent of our students aren’t white. And the age goes from anywhere from 17 to 56. It’s a very diverse crowd of students. That makes this community really amazing,” he said.

As artificial intelligence and machine learning dictate more of the tools and processes that tech offers as solutions, the industry’s diversity issues have an even greater impact. “If you feed this intelligence with bias … then AI will behave with discrimination,” Kalache said.

With graduates now working for companies like Dropbox, Apple and Google, it seems that Holberton’s model may provide one successful solution to including more diverse talent in tech.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the DevNet Create 2018 event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for DevNet Create. Neither Cisco Systems Inc., the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE