After refusing to accept a $125,000 grant from Uber due to the company’s lack of racial diversity and sexual assault allegations, the non-profit organization Black Girls CODE has teamed up with rival ride-sharing app Lyft in an effort to expose more young women of color to career paths in tech, Black Enterprise reported.
Black Girls CODE, which is based in San Francisco, is one of the organizations that Lyft riders will be able to donate to through the company’s Round Up and Donate initiative. Since the inception of the program, Lyft has raised upwards of $4 million for various organizations that cover a wide range of different causes.
Black Girls CODE specifically focuses on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education through providing African-American girls with tech training. According to the organization’s website, it has aimed to train 1 million girls by the year 2040.
Senior leaders at Lyft said cultivating a pipeline of diverse talent involves equipping youngsters from underserved and underrepresented groups with the tools needed to succeed in STEM.
“Our partnership with Black Girls CODE represents our long-term commitment to inclusivity with an organization who for years has done the important work of affirming and empowering young girls of color with a passion for innovation in technology,” Tariq Meyers, Head of Diversity & Inclusion at Lyft, said in a statement.
Black Girls CODE founder Kimberly Bryant said she was proud to partner with the ride-sharing company and believes that the donations will play an integral role in helping push their mission forward.
“Joining Lyft’s Round Up & Donate community provides everyone with the opportunity to support Black Girls CODE and our mission of making programming and technology accessible to a new generation of coders,” she said in a statement. “Our collective donations, no matter how small, can make an impact on teen and pre-teen girls of color and ensure they receive the skills, tools, and mentorship they need to become pioneers of the next technological innovation and the architect of their very bright futures.”
There have been several other initiatives launched to increase racial representation in the realm of STEM. Chance the Rapper and Google recently donated $1.5 million towards STEM studies at Chicago schools.
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