Fortune, January 28, 2020: Why Melinda Gates is investing $50 million to make the next Silicon Valley—starting in Chicago
Melinda Gates is investing $50 million in creating more tech opportunities for women—outside of the industry’s usual power centers.
The philanthropist in October pledged $1 billion towards expanding women’s power and influence over the next decade. On Tuesday, Gates’ Pivotal Ventures said that $50 million of her pledge will go towards creating “inclusive tech hubs” in Chicago and two other yet-to-be-named cities, over the next five years.
The “Gender Equality in Tech Cities” initiative will focus on increasing the percentages of women who graduate with computing degrees and who get hired into (and retained/promoted at) tech jobs; it also aims to increase the amount of venture capital invested in startups with at least one female founder. Pivotal Ventures is devoting the money to several partners, including Break Through Tech, a spinoff of a Cornell Tech initiative, which will create career development programs for students at the University of Illinois at Chicago and elsewhere; and SecondMuse, an agency that will coordinate programs around hiring women in tech and funding female entrepreneurs.
