Company: Colorintech
Website: https://www.colorintech.org/
Business: Created to spark action, create community and help increase diversity in Europe’s tech economy.
About Ashleigh and Colourintech
Ashleigh and co-founder Dion McKenzie founded Colorintech in 2016 with the belief that a more inclusive tech industry is better for both employees and employers.
Backed by Google, DeepMind, Facebook and Microsoft, the nonprofit has helped 2,000 people typically underrepresented in tech build skills and pursue career opportunities.
Colorintech was started with the belief that a more inclusive tech industry is better for products, innovation, employees and leads to a larger generational impact when it comes to wealth creation and closing opportunity gaps.
Feeling frustrated with being one of a handful of black individuals in tech, Silicon Valley tech executive Dion and ex-Googler Ashleigh teamed up to create a nonprofit that would help to increase the number ethnic minorities entering the UK tech workforce and inspire thousands of past and future leaders join the movement.
Colorintech works with governments, universities, VCs and technology companies to help close the skills and opportunity-gap for underrepresented individuals. It has programmes (pathways) for tech entrepreneurs (Rise), for Students (NXT Gen) and for professionals (Advance).
They are focused on one mission, to make Europe the most inclusive tech hub in the world. They do this by building programs that create access to some of the world’s most innovative companies for ethnic minorities. Ashleigh and Dion believe that “We need to create an industry that’s open to diverse thought whilst building capabilities and democratising access to knowledge, capital and network for underrepresented talent.”
