As reported by Interesting Engineering, the most recent CES conference in 2018 only underlined this problem when, for the second straight year, every keynote speaker at the conference was a man—and most of them were white. The ensuing backlash was nearly universal and in response, the Consumer Technology Association promised that this year would be different; but have they followed through?
The issue of hiring and promoting women and minorities in tech is a well-documented problem. Everyone from Facebook to Google has struggled with the problem of underrepresentation, and many argue that the problem is a lack of qualified applicants from underrepresented groups or deploying outright offensiverhetoric to justify the disparity.
“To keynote at CES,” Karen Chupka, then the Senior Vice President of the CTA, saidin a blog post in December 2017, “the speaker must head (president/CEO level) a large entity who has name recognition in the industry. As upsetting as it is, there is a limited pool when it comes to women in these positions. We feel your pain. It bothers us, too. The tech industry and every industry must do better.”