Black engineer launches an app to curb employment discrimination
Stepanie Lampkin, a black woman engineer, has seen her share of workplace discrimination. Despite the fact that she was a full-stack web developer by the age of 15 and then went on to get her education at Stanford and then MIT, she often had a hard time getting her foot in the door to get into the tech industry, which has long been dominated by white men.
Stepanie Lampkin, a black woman engineer, has seen her share of workplace discrimination. Despite the fact that she was a full-stack web developer by the age of 15 and then went on to get her education at Stanford and then MIT, she often had a hard time getting her foot in the door to get into the tech industry, which has long been dominated by white men.
But Lampkin has developed an app that would help to curb discrimination in hiring by eliminating even unconscious bias from the hiring process.
The app, called Blendoor, uploads resumes without a name or a picture so that candidates are judged solely on their merits and their technical abilities.
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“My company resonates more with white men when I position it as, ‘hey, I want to help you find the best talent. Your unconscious mind isn’t racist, sexist — it’s totally natural, and we’re trying to help you circumvent it,’” she told Forbes.
Already, Lampkin has 19 large tech firms signed up to use the app, which will also collect job data to see how those who are seeking jobs are matching up with positions they would be qualified for. Like for example, if these jobseekers have skills such as building user interfaces, they would easily connect with a suitable tech company.
“Blendoor wants to make companies accountable using data,” Lampkin said.
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