Project Two Topics

The main topic I'm looking at for project two is: What, if any specific benefits and/or advantages does a diverse team create within Tech.

In other words, setting aside the moral/societal issues:

• what real, objective, advantages does a diverse team bring to a project? 

• and implied with that, does a lack of diversity specifically create problems due to homogeneity of viewpoint?

• How does a wider range of worldviews and backgrounds materially contribute (or not) to the quality of software/hardware?

I've picked this topic because I've worked in tech since the early 1990s, my major is IT, and as I get older, physical changes have made me acutely aware of the problems created when the developers of the apps I use clearly have no idea about 50-year old eyes.

But on a larger scale, I think we can see the problems that are created when a company's staff is too homegenous, for example the problems with facial recognition when all the training is done on white males. Conversely, having someone on a team who is in their 70s or older has helped at least one company change a hardware design so that older customers can use it better.

So a paper on this is of personal and professional interest, and as Boomers get older still and GenX, the first "tech" generation enters its 50s and older, the inclusion of a wider range of viewpoints becomes critical to the wider success of a given software or hardware product.