CLEVELAND — It’s not a secret, and the tech industry has a problem.

“It’s always been pretty abysmal,” said David Ferreira.

For David Ferreira, tech’s diversity issues are more than numbers. It’s his experience.

“I went off to college. I was the only Black person in my program there for four years," he said, “Being the only representation of my race.”

When he reached the professional world, things got a little better. He was no longer the only Black person he worked with. But Black people and other minorities were still wildly underrepresented.

White people represent 60% of the US population but 78% of the tech world. Minority groups in tech make up just over half (22%) of where they stand in the real world (40%).

Tech Elevator, a coding boot camp company where David is an instructor, is trying to make a dent in those numbers.

“Here at Tech Elevator, because we have that scholarship that we talked about, we can actually just make it seem that the workforce in our classroom matches what society looks like,” said Ferreira.

Tech Elevator’s Represent Tech Scholarship is available to anyone a member of an underrepresented group in the industry.

So far, it’s paid for all or almost all of 135 students’ tuition through the program. Those recipients have gone on to make a combined $337 million, according to the company.

Jasmine Brown had been looking for a change after spending seven years as a speech therapist.

“With speech pathology, there really isn’t too much to do other than being a speech therapist. It wasn’t horrible, but I didn’t feel the field, and the passion wasn’t there,” said Brown.

85% of her tuition is taken care of because of the scholarship.

“That was the only way I was going to be able to come, was with the scholarship," she said.

She loves the program but growing up, and she never saw this career as an option.

“When I was younger it was just something I didn’t really think about just probably because I didn’t see myself represented,” said Brown, “I have a lot of families that’s in education social work, things like that and so it just seemed natural to go that way,”

She didn’t have an example or role model in this world, so she never thought it was an option.

The hope is this scholarship will help build the pool of qualified coders, so diversity in tech can grow. And tech elevator isn’t the only one offering scholarships.

A quick search on bestcolleges.com shows 25 scholarships available to minorities and the same number to women.

“You have that network starting to build of candidates who are used to and willing to vouch and reach out to folks of different backgrounds,” said Ferreira.

While the pace of change is still slow, Tech Elevator hopes to make the industry look more like the world we live in.

Diversity across the U.S. continues to grow, and the growth of Asian Americans may be one of the starkest examples of that.

“Asian Americans are projected to become the largest group in the U.S. by 2065,” said Neil Ruiz, Associate Director of Race and Ethnicity Research with Pew Research.

Pew analyzed data from the American Community Survey from the census.

“Since 2009, there are more immigrant arrivals coming from Asia than Latin America, which is really contributing to this Asian American population growth,” said Ruiz.

The population of Asians in the U.S. has nearly doubled since 2000, making them the fastest growing community of color in the country.

Alyssa Nilemo loves seeing her community blossom.

“I’m grateful for my community and how it’s supported me,” she said.

Nilemo is a member of the Colorado Asian Chamber of Commerce. She sees the growth of the community.

“We see places like, here, where we have small business owners, restaurants, sort of our cultural hub as it were,” said Nilemo.

But being a growing sector of society comes with growing pains. Hate crimes targeting Asians rose by 164% over last year.

“We are seeing a rise in violent crimes against Asians, but I don’t want to give the false impression that racism and that outburst towards Asians is something new,” said Nilemo.

But the rate of Asian American growth is new. Both Ruiz and Nilemo trace this growth back more than 50 years.

“This wave of Asian immigration is an outcome of the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act passage,” said Ruiz.

“Ever since the 1960s, when we saw a lift on those immigration bans start, this has been a steady increase,” said Nilemo.

“Before 1965, Asians and Latin Americans were banned from coming into the United States,” said Ruiz.

That law, the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act, allowed Asians to freely immigrate to the U.S. In 1960, there were less than 1 million Asians in the country. Today, there are almost 24 million.

As the population numbers grow, people like Nilemo are encouraging others to seek out and learn more about Asian culture.

“Come engage in community centers like this. Try the food, look up some resources, like the Asian Chamber that can connect you with Asian owned businesses,” said Nilemo.

CINCINNATI — A trial vaccine for COVID-19 is slated to happen soon at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital as researchers hope for a good representation of the minority population hit especially hard by the pandemic.

"What we're looking at is a way to try to prevent the infection,” said Dr. Robert Frenck, director of the hospital’s infectious diseases division and the lead doctor on the trial.

The crucial vaccines, sponsored by Pfizer, will take about 18 months to complete.

"If everything went super, super perfect, maybe the end of this year," he said. "But I think maybe the likely scenario would be trying to hope for something next spring."

Frenck said the vaccine itself can’t give patients COVID-19, since it doesn’t contain the whole virus.

"It's just going to try to make your body make antibodies against the part of the virus that we think it critical for the virus to be able to cause an infection,” he explained.

But aside from finding an urgently-needed COVID-19 vaccine, there’s another challenge.

“One of the things we're interested in is trying to have minority populations participate in the trials, too."

He says the black population in the U.S. is just 14% -- yet they represent 33% of total coronavirus deaths. That means finding members of minority populations to take part in the trial is a top priority.

May 11 is the target date for the vaccinations in this study. Researchers will screen patients to make sure they are not already carrying COVID-19.

To sign up, contact Children’s Hospital Medical Center.