By the year 2030, Rubén Cantú, executive director of the Office of Inclusive Innovation and Entrepreneurship, challenges educators and members of the business community to rise to the Texas 2030 Inclusion Challenge: A city-wide effort to increase diversity in leading industries and tech companies by year 2030.  He presented an action plan for the challenge at a luncheon event at the UT Club on Thursday, Oct. 31.

To exemplify the urgency of this challenge, he shared current statistics on poverty rates and the rapidly changing U.S. population. Hispanics, he points out, will soon become the majority in  Texas by around 2030, yet they are still vastly underrepresented in tech leadership roles.

“I want to have more of these conversations so the tech community’s workforce will reflect the demographics of Texas by the year 2030,” Cantú said.

Moving forward, Cantú encouraged participants to sign a pledge outlining the following steps:

• Work with neighboring companies and industries to strengthen the workforce ecosystem and help address affordability and economic disparities in Austin;
• Support early childhood STEAM and entrepreneurship curriculum and programs that help future candidates compete for executive-level positions;
• Work with academic, non-profit and local government leaders to help steer this effort and create policies that work for the entire city;
• Publish and review annual diversity and inclusions reports to measure progress.