When you think about people who work in technology, the image that comes to mind is generally that of a white man. This is because in Brazil, women and black people are still a minority both in courses in this area and in this job market.
In undergraduate courses in computing and information and communication technology, only 13% of students are women, according to social statistics from IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) – the data is from 2019. That same year, the YouthSpark program, from Microsoft, showed that only 25% of people employed in technical IT areas in Brazil were women.
In 2021, 59% of black people interviewed in the Potências Negras Tech survey stated that they did not work with technology, but were interested in working in this area. The survey was carried out by the Potências Negras journey (event sponsored by iFood) and Shopper Experience and also shows that a third of black women think that the lack of diversity and inclusion is the biggest difficulty they face in entering the technology market.
At the other end, there are more than 70 thousand open and unfilled vacancies in the technology area – and only 46 thousand professionals graduate in this area per year, according to Brasscom (Brazilian Association of Information and Communication Technology Companies).
“This lack of access for women and black people to opportunities in technology is a historic issue in Brazil. This is often a consequence of a gap in public education”, points out Luanna Luna, social impact manager at iFood. “Tackling this problem is a way of not perpetuating the social inequalities that exist in the country.”
To face this challenge of promoting real inclusion in the technology market, iFood teamed up with seven partners to launch, in October 2021, Potência Tech. It is a platform that offers introductory courses, scholarships for in-depth courses and job vacancies so that people with profiles that are currently underrepresented in this area can specialize and start a new career. “There are many Brazilians who have talent and potential. The challenge is to open up opportunities for them to develop”, says Luanna.
Multiplied social impact
At Potência Tech, training is aimed at segments that have the greatest demand in the market, to increase the chances of employability with back-end, front-end, data science and full stack web courses, for example, led by partners Kenzie , Let's Code, Resilia, Rocketseat and WoMarkersCode (Ser+ and Bettha join as platform and monitoring partners).
“These are partners who connect with the target audience, understand their context and their difficulties in working not only on technical training but also on soft skills”, comments Luanna.
“Being part of this project makes us very proud. We can contribute to a very important cause with what we know how to do best”, says Daniel Kringer, CEO of Kenzie Academy.
His colleague Felipe Paiva, founder of Let's Code, agrees. “It is initiatives like this that generate social impact for thousands of people from underrepresented groups.”
New partners, in fact, are welcome to expand the social impact of Potência Tech and promote real inclusion in the technology market. Companies can contribute by financing new training, providing scholarships and advertising vacancies.
“iFood is taking a first step to inspire more partners on this journey. We want to mobilize more companies to effectively open these new spaces in the technology job market”, concludes Luanna.
To sign up for courses or find out how companies can contribute to the initiative, visit https://potenciatech.com.br/ .
Tech power in numbers
2,000 scholarships
For in-depth courses
100% online
The courses are available to people all over Brazil
18 years
Is the minimum age to register on the platform
O iFood Takes Off wants to train and empower
25 thousand people
with an underrepresented profile in the technology area by 2025
First courses offered*
Front end (Kenzie)
Full-stack web (Let's Code and Rocketseat)
WebDev (Resilia)
Data Science (WoMakerscode)
*Started in October and November
