In March 2022, Student Freedom Initiative, a nonprofit focused on providing academic, financial and professional pipeline support to students pursuing STEM degrees at Minority Serving Institutions (MSR), announced a new partnership with Twitter Together to provide additional support to students.
“Thanks to our valuable partners, @StudentFreedom has helped many HBCU students overcome social, financial & tech barriers,” Smith tweeted in support of the announcement. “Today SFI is proud to announce a new partnership with @TwitterTogether to help more students attend great schools & build sustainable wealth.”
Twitter Together was created as part of Twitter’s commitment to diversity, inclusion, equity and accessibility. It is a coalition of Business Resource Groups (BRGs) that help uplift and empower employees from diverse backgrounds. While the official account, @TwitterTogether, joined the platform in 2016, multiple BRGs existed previous to its entry onto the app, including @Blackbirds, @TwitterFaith and @TwitterWomen.
In 2020, Twitter committed to a goal of having women and underserved populations represent at least 50% and 25% of their workforce, respectively, by 2025. This goal is not uncommon—many companies are working to increase diversity in their respective fields. As of December 2021, Twitter was ahead of its goal with almost 45% of all roles at Twitter represented by women and almost 53% represented by people of color. This will hopefully help change the current numbers in the C-Suits of technology companies where 4.4 percent of corporate board members are Black and only 1.8 percent are Hispanic/Latinx.
Learn more about how corporations are incorporating DE&I practices to strengthen their business models.
