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Chicago In partnership with the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC)
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Employer Media Kit

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As a Break Through Tech Chicago partner, you are helping to change the face of tech. You are creating more space for women and nonbinary people. Advancing inclusion. Helping organizations to better reflect the diversity of the country we live in.

That’s worth talking about. 

We’ll tell the world about your partnership with us. If you’d like to do the same, this brief media kit provides information for communicating about Break Through Tech Chicago and our work together.

 

Media resources

Finding and tagging us: We appreciate links to our websites and/or social media mentions. Here’s where to find us:

Downloadable logos:
(Click to open in a new window, and then drag file to desktop)

Colors:

  • Primary dark blue: CMYK 100, 69, 42, 37 // Hex #002D45 // RGB 0, 45, 69
  • Accent lime green: CMYK 20, 0, 96, 4 // Hex #C1F400 // RGB 193, 244, 0
  • Accent blue-gray: CMYK 8, 2, 0, 20 // Hex #B7C5CB // RGB 183, 197, 203

About Break Through Tech Chicago

Our mission:

We empower women and nonbinary students at the University of Illinois Chicago to explore and master the computer science and data science skills that will prepare them for careers in tech.

Our organization:

We are an affiliate of a national program for women in technology, Break Through Tech. Our primary funders are Pivotal Ventures (led by Melinda Gates), the Cognizant U.S. Foundation, and Verizon.

Our history:

Break Through Tech originated in 2016 as a program called Women in Technology and Entrepreneurship in New York (WiTNY), created in partnership with the City University of New York and a broad set of industry partners. Break Through Tech Chicago is the second site, announced in 2020. See all current Break Through Tech sites here.

Our audience:

We focus on encouraging and supporting college women (cis and trans) and nonbinary individuals. We recognize that additional institutional barriers exist for Black, Latinx, Indigenous, low-income, and first-generation college women and nonbinary people, and we specifically seek to elevate their voices and grow their numbers within the tech community. We have ample space for allies: in short, if you believe in our mission, we’d love to have you on our team. We can work together to promote the visibility and inclusion of women and underrepresented communities in tech.

Our programs:

Break Through Tech Chicago builds a strong community around the students we serve and offers academic and career-readiness programs to help them take the first steps toward a tech-oriented college education. Read an overview of our programs on this webpage.

About UIC

Break Through Tech Chicago is housed in the computer science department at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Please note that UIC has removed the “at” before the word Chicago in its official name.

UIC is among the most diverse universities in the United States, according to U.S. News & World Report, which also ranks UIC #11 in the nation for social mobility.

Thirty-eight percent of UIC students are the first in their families to attend college, 40 percent are graduates of Chicago Public Schools, and 80 percent live with their families and commute to campus.

One in four UIC students chooses a STEM major.

Computer science, which is part of the College of Engineering, is one of UIC’s fastest-growing academic departments. Student enrollment has increased by 650 percent since 2005. The department is strong in both teaching and research, holding six places in the U.S. top 25 in CSRankings.com’s research rankings.

About underrepresentation in tech

Metrics and statistics that can help in making the case:

By 2028, estimates are that the United States will only be producing 19 percent of the graduates needed to meet the nation’s tech workforce needs. (Source: National Center for Women & Information Technology)

Although 58 percent of all college degrees are awarded to women, only 1 to 2 percent of these women choose to study computer science and related tech disciplines. (Source: National Center for Education Statistics)

Even today, women represent only 26 percent of the computing workforce, 19 percent of U.S. undergraduate degree earners in computer and information science, 11 percent of senior leaders in the tech industry, and 11 percent of tech-industry CIOs. (Source: Rebooting Representation, a report prepared by McKinsey & Company and Pivotal Ventures)

Have questions?

Email us at btt@uic.edu with “Partner communications” in the subject line, and we will get back to you with any answers or additional resources that you may need.