Panel 3: Enhanced Strategies to Increase Diversity

Panel 3 Guiding Question: ​
Given that a core strategy for growing the Data Science workforce is to increase its diversity, what have we learned from recent experience that might inform best practices?

Panelists
Moderator: Kenn Turner, President & CEO, Massachusetts Life Sciences Center
Ron Walker, Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color
Ginette Saimprevil, Bottom Line
(additional panelists to be announced)

Expanding Access to Data Science Careers
Each discussion in the panel series will address a key component critical to the development of a strategic plan to extend and expand the early-stage Data Science pipeline:

• To understand the need for a career pathway that begins with high school and community college students.
• To review existing policies in Massachusetts that support efforts to prepare more students for Data Science careers, and discuss what additional policy support might be needed.
• To learn from programs that broaden participation in other disciplines and apply those best practices in developing outreach and support programs for a more diverse community of students.
• To discover current initiatives for high school and community college students and discuss how they may form the basis of the early-stage Data Science pipeline.