California Congressman’s New Program Is Helping HBCU Students Break Into Silicon Valley
Rep. Ro Khanna of California is on a mission to connect students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities with high-paying tech jobs at leading Silicon Valley companies.
Khanna is working with Jackson State University to inspire students at HBCUs to pursue careers at top corporate tech companies, beginning in his district – the 17th congressional district in California, according to WLBT Channel 3 News.
He aims to engage Black Southerners in the digital revolution by learning about and working with artificial intelligence and technology. “There are ambitious students at our HBCUs, but we need to provide the capital to them so that they can realize their dreams,” Khanna told WLBT Channel 3 News.
Techwise connecting students with tech experts
Khanna is currently establishing a plan to complete this goal by creating a program for students at JSU to learn directly from the experts.
“I represent Silicon Valley – $14 trillion of market value. I’ve got Apple, Google, Tesla, Nvidia, and Broadcom – all trillion-dollar companies in my district,” he added. “And we need to create opportunities for the Black South to have high-paying technology jobs.”
Khanna led a Google-funded workforce program called Techwise, which provides students with a stipend to work on tech development projects. It also connects students with tech experts, and its first cohort at JSU consisted of 35 students, each of whom received a $5,000 stipend to complete a 10-month version of the course.
Another 12 students have already started the next cycle. They will also engage in project development, presentations, and receive mentorship.
Helping Black students secure VC opportunities
Khanna intends to expand Techwise to other HBCUs with the hopes of increasing the number of Black people making it to Silicon Valley. He especially wants to help Black professionals secure a greater share of the venture capital opportunities growing in the US, as reported by Black Enterprise.
“We’re producing more wealth than we ever have in the history of this country, and only 1 or 2% of Black Americans are getting venture capital,” added Khanna. “We excluded the Black community from the agricultural revolution. We excluded the Black community from a lot of the Industrial Revolution. Shame on us if the Black community is excluded from the digital revolution.”
Image: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call
