From the most senior level to the rank-and-file, the workforce running the US technology industry has long failed to mirror the ethnic diversity of the tech user base or society at large. In recent years, there has been an awakening. Many large tech enterprises now recognize the importance of diversity and inclusion for both ethical and business reasons, and they have adopted policies and strategies to attract more employees from underrepresented groups. Progress is beginning to be measurable.
At the same time, many tech enterprises are scrambling to recruit and retain staff with specialized skill sets. The competition is fierce for talented candidates, but not all educational institutions have the specific resources required to offer coursework in certain high-demand areas, such as cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, supply chain, professional development, design thinking, neurodiversity, sales engineering, computer science and data science.
In an effort to develop a more diverse pool of exceptional talent, Dell Technologies started Project Immersion1 in January 2019—a partnership with US Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), minority-serving institutions (MSIs) and Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs)—to equip students with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in the technology industry.
Despite the upheaval wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, Project Immersion has already demonstrated a positive effect on diversity and inclusion at Dell, and efforts are underway to grow the program and expand its reach.
Dell’s Commitment
Dell Technologies, based in Round Rock, Texas, USA, is one of the largest technology enterprises2 in the world, with operations in 180 countries. It reported revenue of US$92.2 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2020 and placed 34th on the Fortune 500 rankings for 2019. Dell employs approximately 158,000 people. Its products include personal computers, servers, smartphones, televisions and computer software. It also offers computer security, network security and information security services.
Dell has articulated a commitment to business transformation through innovation, with a focus on developing technologies that drive human progress. Diversity and inclusion are viewed as essential to fulfilling that promise.
“Dell Technologies believes closing the diversity gap is critical to meeting future talent needs and ensuring that new perspectives reflect our global customer base,” the Dell Technologies 2021 Diversity and Inclusion Report (2021 D&I report) states.3 “We view diversity and inclusion as a business imperative that will enable us to build and empower our future workforce while also doing our part to address societal challenges.”
In 2014, several tech giants, including Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, began releasing annual reports that shone light on the dismal state of diversity in the industry.4 Greater transparency revealed the enormity and complexity of the problem.
By 2019—five years after initiating their diversity and inclusion reports—Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft had made little progress in diversifying their workforces.5
Dell has made what it characterizes as “positive strides” (figure 1), although it recognizes there is substantial work left to do.
Dell has taken aggressive steps to accelerate its diversity and inclusion efforts. In 2019, it announced 22 “Progress Made Real” goals for the coming decade, which it regards as important accountability tools. Dell considers two of those goals major drivers for advancing diversity and inclusion:
- Fifty percent of Dell’s global workforce and 40 percent of its global people leaders will identify as women.
- Twenty-five percent of Dell’s US workforce and 15 percent of its US people leaders will comprise Black/ African American and Hispanic/Latino minorities.6
“At Dell Technologies, we believe diversity and inclusion are business imperatives that deliver business and social value that are arguably as important to Dell Technologies’ continued market leadership as its technology strategy and execution,” said Tawanna Atwater, director of global diversity and inclusion at Dell and spokesperson for Project Immersion.
“Put simply, creating a diverse and inclusive culture is key to how we will continue to grow our business and ensure success, both today and in the future. We’ve seen that companies that embrace diversity and inclusion experience greater innovation, improved productivity and the benefits of increased employee satisfaction,” (figure 2).
Emphasis on Education
In the movement toward greater diversity and inclusion in tech, education has become a focal point.
Apple has partnered with organizations and educational institutions that traditionally serve minority students. On Juneteenth 2021, Apple announced it would be awarding innovation grants to four HBCUs to support students interested in careers in hardware technology, computer architecture and silicon engineering.7
“We know many jobs of the future will be in innovative areas like silicon engineering and we want to help ensure the leaders of tomorrow have access to transformational learning opportunities,” said Lisa Jackson, vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives at Apple.
Google also made a Juneteenth announcement of grants to 10 HBCUs with the goal of closing the tech diversity gap. “Google’s generous gift to create pathways in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) for HBCU students will propel them into roles and opportunities that prepare them to be 21st century change agents,” said Spelman College (Atlanta, Georgia, USA) President Mary Schmidt Campbell.8
Facebook has invested in training programs, internships and other projects to attract people from nontraditional backgrounds to tech.9
“At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every student on the planet to achieve more. We believe that students today will be the change makers of tomorrow, so empowering them with the tools and opportunities to earn new skills and be future leaders is core to our mission,” the company said when announcing the extension of its Imagine Cup to HBCUs.10
“Continuous learning will be at the heart of our progress,” Dell Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Vanice Hayes points out in the 2021 D&I report. “It will inspire more inclusive and equitable business practices we can embed throughout our organization— and expand opportunities in our communities to make our greatest impact yet.”
Matching Concept to Goals
Diverse hiring is part of Dell’s first phase of action toward meeting the progress goals it has set. Its strategy includes initiatives to help pave the way for hires who not only will move the needle further in terms of workforce composition, but also will come equipped with specialized, high-demand business and technology skills.
“We truly believe that a diverse and inclusive workforce drives the type of innovation our industry needs to thrive,” said Atwater. “Business as usual was not going to be our answer and we had to think outside of the box. That’s when we decided to launch a program that offered an opportunity to develop deeper relationships with HBCUs, to provide real value and vocational skills training to their students with the goal of increasing our pipeline of candidates from these schools.”
In 2018, Brian Reaves, Dell’s chief diversity and inclusion officer at the time, came up with the concept for Project Immersion based on a similar program he had developed during his long career as an engineer, executive and advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion in the tech industry. Nitcelle Emanuels, who served as director of global diversity and inclusion at Dell when the program was conceived, designed the original strategy, including a unique adjunct instructor model that enlists experts across the enterprise to provide teaching and mentoring on a volunteer basis.
The initial challenge for making the project operational was to establish how it could help Dell achieve its diversity goals within a cost-effective budget. Recruitment, reputation and employee engagement were key focus areas for Dell’s diversity and inclusion efforts, and Project Immersion dovetailed with those goals.
Recruitment, reputation and employee engagement were key focus areas for Dell’s diversity and inclusion efforts, and Project Immersion dovetailed with those goals.
“It helps in terms of our attraction,” said Atwater, “because we are making an investment in the students and we’re saying, ‘Hey, these are some emerging technologies out there. These are some of the skills that you will need. And by the way, these are some of the careers that you can have if you’re pursuing a technical degree, and here’s how you can pursue that at Dell—or, of course, take these skills that we’re teaching you and go elsewhere in the technology pipeline.’”
Telling the story in that way, with the chief diversity officer behind it and a budget assured, won the approval of the chief customer officer, based on the perceived relationship between Dell’s goals and the program’s aims.
Strategic Partnering
The Project Immersion team made a tactical decision to collaborate with partners outside of Dell to broaden its reach as expeditiously as possible. Initial partners were selected from a group of institutions interested in deepening their existing relationships with Dell on the basis of student demographics, majors offered, school rankings, enrollments and proximity to Dell offices, according to Atwater. Ten schools were the first to offer Project Immersion content, in the form of coursework or workshops:
- Spelman College
- Morehouse College (Atlanta, Georgia, USA)
- Clark Atlanta University (Atlanta, Georgia, USA)
- Georgia State University (Atlanta, Georgia, USA)
- Texas Tech University (Lubbock, Texas, USA)
- University of Texas San Antonio (San Antonio, Texas, USA)
- Tennessee State University (Nashville, Tennessee, USA)
- North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (Greensboro, North Carolina, USA)
- North Carolina Central University (Durham, North Carolina, USA)
- Howard University (Washington DC, USA)
To date, more than 500 students have been exposed to Dell’s STEM educational curriculum through Project Immersion’s activities at approximately 40 academic institutions.
Prioritizing Content
Once the partnerships were in place and the overarching goals established, the nuts-and-bolts work began. Team members were tasked with prioritizing content, recruiting teaching staff, developing a curriculum, enrolling students and planning related events (figure 3).
To date, more than 500 students have been exposed to Dell’s STEM educational curriculum through Project Immersion’s activities at approximately 40 academic institutions.
Atwater considered two criteria for content selection:
- Industry trends and popularity
- Needs of the school
“We know cloud is emerging,” Atwater said. “We know that data science and cybersecurity are things that are disruptive, that are going to be around for a while—lots of jobs are available.” In gauging industry trends, Atwater noted what analysts, academics and media were highlighting. She considered not only demand in the industry at large, but also opportunities within Dell itself. School needs included professional experience, examples of how trending technologies were applied in real-world contexts and knowledge of how students could identify employment opportunities. “I went to North Carolina Central earlier this year and they wanted to hear about blockchain,” Atwater recalled. “So, for the first time ever, we did a workshop on blockchain.” Project Immersion addressed growing interest in the data science field with a webinar. Students met with some of Dell’s senior executives who shared valuable insight into the data science landscape. The webinar also touched on the roles diversity and inclusion play in data science. Students were able to meet virtually with real-life data scientists and hear about data science jobs of the future, which were associated with artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Recruiting Teaching Talent
One key component of the project was the willingness of Dell’s professional staff to commit substantial personal time and energy to the effort.
“Volunteering through Project Immersion very much aligns with our diversity and inclusion priorities as a company, while also furthering our Progress Made Real11 social impact plan and 2030 goals,” Atwater pointed out, “which outline how we will create a positive and lasting social impact on humankind and the planet through 2030 using our reach, technology and people.”
One key component of the project was the willingness of Dell’s professional staff to commit substantial personal time and energy to the effort.
In addition to being passionate about helping students succeed, volunteers had to have the requisite level of expertise—not to mention the bandwidth—to teach a workshop or participate in a full semester college course.
To assemble the teaching team, “I put out feelers,” said Atwater, “and thought, ‘Who can speak on blockchain?’ for example. I tell them the aspects of the university, and of the students, with the kind of degree they’re pursuing and at what kind of level it should be presented. Then they come back, they talk to me, they say, ‘Yes, I want to do it.’ Then we have a meeting with the professor.”
The Dell professionals and the college professors work together to come up with a deliverable for the students, whether a workshop, a seminar or a course. The volunteers teach the courses, while the professor of record manages grading, attendance and other details.
Designing Courses for College Credit
Project Immersion initially launched its college credit offerings with sales engineering and cybersecurity courses. The presales course utilized a required text for foundational material. Lead Dell Technologies professional Angela Harper assigned titles such as Mastering Technical Sales: The Sales Engineer’s Handbook,12 The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses13 and The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win.14
The sales engineering course was designed to give students an understanding of the sales engineer role: selling complex scientific and technological solutions to enterprises. It introduced students to sales engineer responsibilities and duties, such as advising enterprises on how to operate complex products and services, providing customer service, and determining how products and services might be customized or parametrized to suit customers’ needs.
The course also addressed how to improve sales skills to become successful. In addition to a group of field experts from Dell, the teaching team included experienced faculty members in sales and computer science. The course included practical sessions and laboratories where students were expected to participate in real-life situations.
Experience gained from the sales engineering course development paved the way for the Project Immersion team’s next endeavor. “We leveraged the sales engineering class structure to create a cybersecurity class that included popular topics taught in other colleges with mature cyber programs,” Atwater said (figure 4).
In the cybersecurity course, students were assigned to conduct research, develop case studies and present their findings in class.
The provost at the academic institution signed off on the content. The partner school determined class meeting requirements (e.g., three hours per week, either in one session or two). The school also assigned credits and decided how they could be applied. Morehouse College offered Project Immersion courses for three credit hours as electives, for example.
Attracting Students
To get students interested, Dell uses traditional branding and promotional materials such as flyers. Student ambassadors—usually former Dell interns—also spread the word through campus networks.
University relations liaisons help to attract students, particularly in the case of workshop enrollments. They reach out to career services and other relevant campus offices. The liaisons create a portal for student registration and collect resumes as part of that process.
Project Immersion credit course offerings are included in school catalogs with descriptions, requirements and prerequisites, if any.
However, “the professor involved is the best marketer for us,” said Atwater. “The professor talks to the students, and one of the biggest draws is, ‘You can take this class, and should you like it, and should you be interested in it, you could actually get a position with an internship or a full-time role.’”
So far, Project Immersion has delivered content to upwards of 40 schools, although not all of them have offered classes for college credit.
The recruitment effort does not stop when the workshop or course is over. The students have access to extra support, including mentoring, from HBCU alumni and Dell Technologies volunteers, many of whom are part of its Black Networking Alliance Employee Resource Group. “The group aims to provide a culture and environment where Black professionals can thrive and bring their full selves to work,” said Atwater.
At the end of each workshop, there is a discussion of jobs corresponding to the topic. The campus managers “make sure that [students] are able to grasp the talent that we see and get their resumes and get them into the pipeline,” said Atwater.
Sponsoring Job Preparation Events
Project Immersion has sponsored workshops and events designed to help students prepare for tech industry jobs focusing on topics including:
- Blockchain
- Cloud infrastructure
- Cybersecurity
- Data science
- Design thinking
- Neurodiversity
- Professional development
- Sales engineering
- Systems thinking
- Supply chain
In addition, Project Immersion has held a computer science roundtable, a user interface/user experience (UI/UX) design workshop, a Pivotal virtual tour, a SecureWorks tour and a Women of Dell Technologies panel discussion.
Adjusting for the Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic’s surge in the spring of 2020 meant that Project Immersion had to quickly convert one of its on-campus courses to a virtual class in the middle of the semester. Dell’s lengthy experience in remote working enabled a smooth transition.
“They asked, ‘Do we just cancel the class?’” Atwater recalled. “I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ I said, ‘We have Zoom, right? That’s an open platform. We’re going to use Zoom. And the same content that you were going to display in person, we’ll do through Zoom. And then we’ll just have to put our heads together and figure out for some of these activities, how can we do them remotely?’ And so that’s pretty much what we did.”
One benefit of the sudden switch to a virtual learning model was enlargement of the volunteer pool. Team members across the globe were able to join the project, as they could teach courses remotely from more distant locations. Dell’s Chief Technology Officer John Roese was able to schedule time to speak with Project Immersion students, for example.
The Project Immersion team decided to go forward with a hybrid model for the Fall 2021 semester, Atwater said, offering classes via Zoom but scheduling hands-on activities, such as data center tours, in person.
Another advantage of leveraging virtual platforms is enabling the expansion of the program to more schools. So far, Project Immersion has delivered content to upwards of 40 schools, although not all of them have offered classes for college credit, which is what “really sets us apart,” noted Atwater.
“We’re trying to figure out how we can continue to expand because the class was at four schools in Atlanta—the AUC and Georgia State. And so, in 2021 we’re going to expand it to Huston-Tillotson in Texas, Florida International University, and Howard University in Washington DC.”
Project Immersion has taken a small step toward international expansion, too, with a small cybersecurity pilot at a college in Brazil. It was only five students, Atwater said, “but they thoroughly enjoyed it, and the professionals thoroughly enjoyed delivering it.”
Reaping the Benefits
With any enterprise program that requires periodic budget approval, it is essential to have a means of assessing its cost-effectiveness in advancing the goals it was set up to target.
In the case of Project Immersion, “I would say the main thing is the reach, right? How many students are attending these sessions vs. how many register?” said Atwater. “Maybe we have 75 register, and we have five or 10 attend. Well, depending on how many workshops you have, that might not be advantageous, because how much money did we have to put into advertising and those sorts of things? Probably number one for me—a hard number—is the participation of the students. A softer number is, how much of a pipeline can we create from those students? If we have 50 students attend, how many students are actually interested and provide us resumes so that we can get them connected to university relations?”
Atwater estimated that when the presales course began in 2019, participants numbered about 100 to 150. “And now, by 2021, it’s probably up to about 600 students that we’ve impacted since the inception of the project.”
The expectation is that the project’s continuing growth will be exponential. “We’re continuing to transform,” said Atwater. “A lot of this was sort of grassroots efforts. Now the efforts have been rebranded in terms of diversity. Another group that we’re working with, part of education services, is the ‘Learn Team.’ And so basically the things that have been created, they will take that curriculum and be able to scale it out to thousands of students at a time. The things that I’m telling you, looking back a year, may seem small, but going forward, we’re going to be able to have a much larger impact on a greater number of students.”
Although still in its infancy, Project Immersion has resulted in tangible advancements toward Dell Technologies’ diversity and inclusion goals (figure 5).
Dell Technologies has increased its hiring with Project Immersion partner schools’ talent pools by 37 percent, noted Atwater. The project also has contributed to Dell’s most diverse intern class to date, with 27 percent of its North American interns being Black or Hispanic.
Dell achieved a 170 percent increase in job offers to minority candidates from 2018 to 2019 and a 300 percent increase in acceptance of minority candidates from the schools where the Project Immersion pilot was offered.
Project Immersion has also resonated with students who have taken part in the program.
“I am grateful to have been involved in Project Immersion through engineering and cybersecurity classes, the HBCU Roundtable at Morehouse College and the Project Immersion Scholarship,” said Brittanie Rice, a student at Spelman College.
“Through these opportunities, I was also able to secure a sales engineering summer internship with Dell. It is because of my experiences with these events that I feel comfortable to pursue a career in a field that lacks minorities and women,” she added.15
“I would definitely recommend it to other students,” said Tavis Thompson, a student at Morehouse College, referring to the sales engineering course.
“It gives you the foundation that you’ll possibly need to work in the industry. …There’s some very good opportunity, and I think it’s something that we tend to sleep on, because we just didn’t have any information or any knowledge about it.”16
Removing barriers to entry is beneficial not only to those who traditionally have been excluded, but also to the enterprises that have lacked their contributions.
“We know that when diverse perspectives and ideas are brought to the table, that’s when true innovation can happen,” remarked Atwater. “Our business relies on these diverse perspectives, and they are critical to our success. The technology industry only stands to gain from embracing diversity and inclusion at every level and creating opportunity for all. Through Project Immersion, we aspire to change the narrative of diversity in tech by creating programs that equip diverse students with the technical and professional skills needed to succeed in the digital future.”
Project Immersion has taken a small step toward international expansion, too, with a small cybersecurity pilot at a college in Brazil.
Endnotes
1 Dell Technologies, www.delltechnologies.com/en-us/index.htm
2 Dell Technologies, “Key Facts,” www.delltechnologies.com/resources/en-us/asset/offering-overview-documents/solutions/key_facts_about_dell_technologies.pdf
3 Dell Technologies, Dell Technologies 2021 Diversity and Inclusion Report, USA, 2021, http://corporate.delltechnologies.com/en-us/social-impact/reporting/2021-diversity-and-inclusion-report.htm#tab0=0
4 Harrison, S.; “Five Years of Tech Diversity Reports—and Little Progress,” Wired, 1 October 2019, www.wired.com/story/five-years-tech-diversity-reports-little-progress/
5 Ibid.
6 Op cit Dell Technologies, 2021
7 Mlot, S.; “Apple, Google Announce New Grants for Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” PCMag, 18 June 2021, www.pcmag.com/news/apple-google-announce-new-grants-for-historically-black-colleges-and-universities
8 Crist, R.; “Google Announces $50 Million in Grants for HBCUs,” CNET, 17 June 2021, www.cnet.com/news/google-announces-50-million-in-grants-for-hbcus/
9 Op cit Harrison
10 Microsoft, “Are Your Students Ready to Change the World?” 2021 Imagine Cup HBCU Edition, http://imaginecup.microsoft.com/en-us/hbcu
11 Dell Technologies, “Progress Made Real,” http://corporate.delltechnologies.com/en-us/social-impact.htm
12 Care, B.; A. Bohlig; Mastering Technical Sales: The Sales Engineer’s Handbook, Artech House Publishers, USA, 2014
13 Ries, E.; The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, Crown Business, USA, 2011
14 Kim, G.; K. Behr; G. Spafford; The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win, IT Revolution Press, USA, 2013
15 Op cit Dell Technologies 2020 Diversity and Inclusion Report
16 “Dell Technologies at Morehouse College,” YouTube, 26 February 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlHHR6d8p4g
Mick Brady
Is a freelance technology communicator with more than 20 years of experience editing and writing for technology-focused publications.