WHY WE'RE HERE

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Many of you have seen the movie, Hidden Figures.  At the end to the movie, you see the secretarial pool move into the data processing department (IT) with the help of some tutoring to understand computer programming languages.  During the late 50’s and early 60’s, the data processing world was full of women.  It certainly paid better than being a secretary, especially if you had a college degree.  It paid so well that men took notice.  They started going to college and coming back to take management positions over the women. Through attrition, cronyism and the old boy network, women were replaced and white males took over the profession.

1. Women occupy more than half (57%) of jobs in professional occupations, while just 26% of computing occupations are held by women.
2. There is uneven participation in women of color, with Asian (7%) women slightly over-represented for their proportion of the population, and Black (3%) and Latina (2%) women under-represented.
3. The extent to which women have contributed to patenting shows an even larger disparity of women's participation: 87% (men-only), 10.5% (mixed-gender), and 2.1% (women-only) teams.

See NCWIT’s By the Numbers (www.ncwit.org/bythenumbers) and the NCWIT Scorecard (www.ncwit.org/scorecard) for additional data.

1. Women are not steered in the direction of Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM) at an early age so that they can be ready to continue in these fields when they get to college.
2. In the private sector tech industry, women leave at twice the rate of
   men – yet 80% stay in the workforce full-time (NCWIT – Women in Tech: The Facts– 2016).  Those women in this field often leave early in their career due to a work environment that is not conducive to their needs or are hostile environments.

The industry must change but we can only do it one girl at a time until we can create a movement.  The TCGi Foundation is to be part of that movement.  We have already started our journey by supporting the educational goals of Black Women in technology on the college level and soon the graduate level.  This website also offers resources to help Black girls start their journey from middle school and expand their journey after securing a job in the field.  We understand that the journey does not end with that first job.  Now you have to shine.  We will put women in touch with networks to help.

Technology Concepts Group Intl (TCGi) is a woman-owned, Black-owned technology company.  Avis Yates Rivers, CEO of TCGi authored, “Necessary Inclusion:  Embracing the Changing Faces of Technology,” to offer up a roadmap of how companies can increase their recruitment and retention of women and people of color.  Avis wanted to do more.  The passing of key people at TCGi was the impetus for this foundation.  Dawna Colbert, our Procurement Operations Manager passed away in 2018 and the Dawna J Colbert Memorial scholarship was formed. This scholarship will help with the college expenses of diverse female students in STEM.  John Fitzpatrick, Regional Account Manager for TCGi passed away in 2021.  The Foundation is now pulling together the John Fitzpatrick charity golf tournament and scholarship fund for female graduate students in technology.

TCGi wants to thank Andrea Bowens-Jones, Racheal Ankrah Fosu, JeffriAnne Wilder, PhD, Avis Yates Rivers, Denise Joyner West and Taylor Reading for their hard work in putting this foundation together.