Episode #88: Forging New Paths to Tech Careers featuring William A Adams
“There's the saying, rising tide lifts all boats, right? Well, not everyone has a boat, so those people are drowning. So my mission going forward, and maybe this takes me to the end of my life is to help people get make those boats and you do that by getting an equity share of the wealth that's being generated in technology today.”
William Adams
Founder of Microsoft's LEAP Program
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In 2015, Microsoft launched the Leap Program as a way of introducing more people to work in the tech industry. The 16 week immersive apprenticeship program is geared for those who have a base foundation of technical training and not normally have a pathway to the tech industry. It combines in-classroom learning with hands-on engineering projects, working on real teams and real products within our organization such as Azure, Xbox, Bing, and Office365.
Whether it’s a stay-at-home parent interested in re-entering the workforce or someone who is ready for a ‘second act,’ the stories from current and former participants are truly inspiring. Not only is Leap launching new cohorts across the country and the globe, but it’s also re-launching the lives of countless individuals looking to make an impact.
“What we're trying to do in jumpstarting all of this is to increase the size of the pie. It's one thing to try to recruit women and minorities from other companies, because they're already in the pie. All you're doing is shuffling around. The key is to say, no, here's a new pie slice and if you don't get employed by us, you'll get employed by Amazon, if not done by Google or Facebook, or, and if not, in any of those, then the rest of the tech community. So it's helpful in that it's increasing the size of the pie.”
William Adams is a technical advisor at Microsoft where he's worked for over 25 years. While working in India training engineers how to become better engineers, he got a taste for doing things differently and looking at things from various perspectives. One of the things he noted was that new engineers would be hired out of college but then within their first year because there was no mentoring or learning opportunities so he decided to change that.
That essentially was the genesis of The Leap Program.
William joins The Audacious Living Podcast to discuss the culture shifting work at Microsoft and how he's made the pie bigger by giving opportunities to more people.
William Adams is up next on The Audacious Living Podcast
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