In an article published this week on Colorlines, we showed that New York City’s Silicon Alley, the burgeoning East Coast counterpoint to California’s Silicon Valley, continues to be a predominantly white, male industry. We know that people of color are the fastest growing users of everything from smartphones to social media, but they still don’t have a seat at the table when it comes to technology development. Black techies in New York told us they’d long struggled with lack of access to technology careers, which exposed deep-rooted structural issues that block people of color from education, networks, and access to start-up capital needed to create an equitable industry. 

And if we needed more proof, an article published yesterday on Business Insider gives a glimpse at the faces of New York tech industry entrepreneurs who are doing "cool things." Of the 100 people featured, a scant few are people of color. In a city as ethnically and racially diverse, and with the tech sector emerging as the second largest job sector in the city, the lack of racial equity is particularly troubling.