Apple’s senior director of worldwide developer marketing, Esther Hare, talks about the Apple Entrepreneur Camp program in a new interview and the need for more women and Black developers in the community. In an interview with the Brazilian newspaper O GLOBO, Hare defends that “coding must be accessible to all people.” Apple Entrepreneur Camp program exists for a few years now and supports educational opportunities for Black students, people of color, and women.
According to Apple, Apple Entrepreneur Camp supports underrepresented founders and developers “as they build the next generation of cutting-edge apps and helps form a global network that encourages the pipeline and longevity of these entrepreneurs in technology.”
In this interview, Esther Hare talks about how the pandemic changed the way developers create new apps and goes in-depth about some Brazilian insights as well:
In the past year, in Brazil, we saw some coronavirus games initiatives about health habits and washing hands to face this disease. Now, there are a lot of initiatives about mental health, environment, global warmth, and food waste. I feel that the developers are thinking about how their business will create a good impact on their families and communities.
About the consequences for women with the pandemic, Hare highlights that she saw “many women started to focus on what they really want and are now focusing on remote working.”
“We have a program called Apple Entrepreneur Camp,” which we start businesses specifically founded and leaded by women. Our goal is to overcome systemic issues in the tech area, from learning how to code, to the beginning of how to create a business and obtain foundings. Women find barriers at different levels, which make things even harder for them.”
Apple’s senior director thinks Apple Entrepreneur Camps are crucial for women and Black people to join the developer community. “They bring other realities, expressing their communities. We want to create apps for all people so we need to make sure that everybody is capable of creating an app. We need to make sure that coding is accessible to all people.”
Hare highlights that to bring these opportunities to more people, they rely on the Apple Developer Academy, which in Brazil there are over eight centers. A few months ago, Apple also announced that it’s expanding the Apple Developer Academy program to other countries as well.
It’s important that girls start to code sooner. Another key factor is the kind of subject academies and colleges bring. There are subjects only attributed to boys so we have to think about all the educational cycle.
When women overcomes the learning barrier, they need fundings to start their business. Women have less than 3% of all venture capital funding. And many think they aren’t good enough. It’s kind of devastating because we really need to continue building this trust. That’s why programs focused on women are so important.
Apple has been one of the tech companies that’s been advocating for equity and more diversity for quite some time. This past year, Apple sent millions of dollars to create more academies and educational centers for women and black people.
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