Bulletins

Big tech companies partner at WEF to improve racial justice efforts

The World Economic Forum, or "digital Davos" since moving its convention online, announced that 48 companies joined a coalition committed to improving racial and ethnic justice in the workplace. For the tech industry, 13 companies pledged to join the effort.

The tech companies are: Cisco, Cognizant, Facebook, Google, HP, Infosys, LinkedIn, Microsoft, PayPal, Salesforce, SAP, Tata Consultancy Services and Uber Technologies. But all participating companies, across 13 industries, have to commit to putting "racial and ethnic justice on their board's agendas, take at least one firm action and set a long-term strategy to become an anti-racist organization," according to the WEF.

"With just 1% of Fortune 500 companies led by Black chief executives, the need to tackle racial under-representation in business is urgent and obvious.The Partnering for Racial Justice in Business initiative provides an effective platform for businesses to take individual and collective action towards racially and ethnically just workplaces," wrote Saadia Zahidi, managing director at the World Economic Forum.

Many tech companies are beginning to acknowledge their own workplace inequalities that largely affect disadvantaged groups and are working to develop ways to change it.

Penelope Blackwell

Penelope Blackwell is a reporting fellow at Protocol covering edtech. She reports on the developments in tech that are shaping the future of learning. Previously, she interned at The Baltimore Sun covering emerging news and produced content for Carnegie-Knight's News21 documenting hate and bias incidents in the U.S. She is also a recent graduate of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and Morgan State University.

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