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🐸 DEI & AI Digital Divides

🐸 DEI & AI Digital Divides

The TLDR of the skills report. Enabling technological leapfrogs for the marginalized and underrepresented

Eryn Peters
February 18, 2024

📈 HackerRank Skills Report 📉

HackerRank’s 2024 Developer Skills Report is out. Anyone who knows me knows I love great data visualization. Not only does HackerRank kill it with the responsive design of their annual report, but it was a compelling read with some hilarious one-liners.

Developers and the tech industry have often led the way in the evolving workforce. Agile management, remote working, and community were all present in engineering teams long before they hit the mainstream. Even if you’re not working directly with developers, this report is worth a read.

Here’s the TLDR.

Economic Outlook

Hiring is turning around - Screening test invites are up 86% from July 2023
Layoff concerns linger - 52% of developers are concerned about layoffs
Shrodinger’s recession - 48% of developers feel like the industry is in recession. The report also says that developers are more likely to feel recession vibes than Engineering Managers, Executives, and Talent Acquisition teams.
Positive outlook - 67% expect better conditions in 2024

HackerRank Platform Data

Skills Insights

Assessing skills is hard - 69% of executives and 68% of recruiters believe it’s difficult to ensure someone has the skills they claim
Formal education is out - Developers and executives both disagree that college is preparing grads with the skills they need. Recruiters are the only ones who agree.
Not enough time to upskill - 48% of developers say they need to learn on their own time
No surprises on AI - AI skills skyrocketed in Q3 2023

HackerRank Platform Data

Career Mobility

Money can buy happiness - “Higher Pay” takes the #1 spot when asked to rank incentives to change jobs
Teach me to keep me - “Learning new skills” comes out on top when asked why they’d stay in a role
Recruiter/Dev divide - Developers value compensation and remote working the most. Recruiters think they value team/culture and promotions.

Special thanks to Victor Cazacu @ Upper for flagging that the report was out early.

💻️ DEI & Digital Divides 💻️

Digital divides aren’t anything new. In recent years, we saw massive gender gaps in the blockchain boom - men are 3x more likely to own crypto than women.

In a December article, McKinsey estimated that Generative AI could widen the racial economic gap in the United States by $43 billion each year. If deployed thoughtfully, they state, it could actually remove barriers to Black economic mobility.

🐸 Here are 6 strategies to enable underrepresented and marginalized groups to make a technological leapfrog with generative AI.

Equitable Access and Training: Provide equitable access to technology and the internet, along with training on basic computer skills, internet use, and how to use generative AI and other advanced technologies.
Collaboration and Inclusive Development: Involve a diverse group of stakeholders in the development and implementation of generative AI to ensure that the technology is designed with an equity perspective.
Reskilling Programs: Implement reskilling programs to develop "future-proof" skills that are non-automatable, such as socio-emotional abilities and physical presence skills, which are difficult for machines to replicate.
Culturally Relevant and Accessible Programs: Design digital literacy and education programs that are culturally relevant and accessible to all members of the community, including marginalized groups such as women, persons with disabilities, and older adults.
Inclusive Design for People with Disabilities: Integrate voice-enabled interfaces and ensure that individuals with disabilities play an active role in shaping the technology's evolution to open job opportunities and carry out tasks.
Guardrails and Fair Decision-Making: Establish guardrails to protect people of color and marginalized communities from the potential negative impacts of generative AI, ensuring that AI is used in contexts where it can make fair decisions.

By implementing these strategies, it is possible to harness the benefits of generative AI while mitigating its risks, ensuring that it becomes a tool for promoting economic mobility and reducing disparities, rather than deepening them.

Sources and additional reading: