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🗞️Diversity and inclusion news🗞️ |
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🎓 Be working class
In a rare moment of structural self-awareness, the UK government has announced that its flagship civil service internship programme will now be exclusively for students from working-class backgrounds. The shift is designed to diversify the pipeline into the Fast Stream — the fast-track grad scheme for future civil servants — and comes after data showed that just 12% of Fast Streamers last year came from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, despite making up 1/4 of all university students.
The criteria? Parental occupation when the applicant was 14. (Yes, it’s a bit “socioeconomic Hogwarts sorting hat,” but it’s the best measure they've got.)
The So What?
This is a quietly radical move with loud implications. For a long time, the civil service has been a closed loop of Oxbridge grads, with inherited policy instincts and posh vowels. But if you want better policy — on housing, justice, education — it helps if your staff actually know what life is like outside Zones 1–2.
A civil service that mirrors Britain’s class reality is one that might actually deliver better outcomes. Especially given that 56% of Britons identify as "working class".
And Let’s Talk DEI for Real
This is a boon for class inclusion — but the work isn’t done. Data shows that ethnic minority and disabled applicants are also underrepresented in senior civil service roles, and even when they get in, they often don’t get on. Intersectionality matters: being working class and Black, or disabled and from a northern post-industrial town, often compounds the barriers.
And while the plan focuses on access — getting in the door — retention and progression are where DEI strategies often flounder. As the FDA union leader put it: "Even if you manage to get into the civil service, you will not always get on."
The Backlash You Knew Was Coming
Conservative politicians (predictably) called the scheme “leftist social engineering,” arguing that opportunity should be based on “what you can do, not where you come from.” But that assumes a level playing field already exists — when, in reality, it’s more like an uphill sprint with different starting lines.
If anything, this move helps make “what you can do” actually matter.
The Bigger Picture
It’s part of a broader Starmerite “rewiring of the state.” First came the tech-talent hiring spree. Now, it’s class-conscious policymaking in the civil service. For a government often accused of technocratic caution, this might be its boldest reform yet.
You can read more here |
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💼 It pays to be nice
Turns out “don’t be a dick” isn’t just a life mantra—it’s a high-performance strategy.
A new HBR piece makes the case that kindness isn’t soft, optional, or something HR should handle via a cringe LinkedIn workshop once a year. It’s infrastructure. Like seatbelts or smoke alarms, kindness protects teams from the slow-burn chaos of unspoken resentment, passive-aggressive Slack messages, and the weekly emotional hostage situation known as “that meeting that should’ve been an email.”
Why does this matter? Because data shows unkind workplaces are over 10x more likely to drive employee exits than bad pay. (Let that sink in.) That means the snide remark from the VP, the teammate who always "forgets" to cc you, or the 8am meeting with no agenda might be tanking retention more than your comp structure.
Meanwhile, organisations that bake kindness into the system—not just the posters in the stairwell—see better collaboration, stronger psychological safety, and higher customer trust. Google, SAP, Cleveland Clinic, and even the All Blacks are name-checked for doing it right.
This isn’t about being “nice”—kindness ≠ conflict avoidance. It’s about doing the hard stuff (like giving feedback) in ways that protect dignity and promote growth. And in case you’re wondering: yes, unkindness can be subtle. Incivility includes “low-grade” rudeness, gaslighting, or just… being an inconsistent communicator who creates anxiety. You know the type.
Read more here
So what?
In the DEI space, this isn’t new. Marginalised employees have long called out how "professionalism" often gets weaponised to punish difference, while incivility hides in plain sight—especially when it flows from power. Building cultures of kindness isn't about adding one more thing to the inclusion checklist. It's the foundation. If you want diverse teams to thrive (not just arrive), psychological safety and pro-social norms are essential.
Let’s be honest: plenty of tech leaders are still treating kindness as a "vibe," not a strategy. Meanwhile, the cost of being cold, clipped, and emotionally absent is showing up on your P&L—through churn, disengagement, and bad Glassdoor reviews.
So, next time someone says “We need to optimise performance,” tell them to start by optimising basic human decency. It's not fluff. It's the system upgrade your culture’s probably begging for. |
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📉 Mind the (AI-Powered) Pay Gap
In case anyone was still clinging to the myth that tech is a great equaliser: new research has confirmed what many already suspected — large language models like ChatGPT are reinforcing the gender pay gap, one prompt at a time.
Researchers at the Technical University of Würzburg-Schweinfurt (THWS) tested five major LLMs using identical candidate profiles that differed only by gender. The result? ChatGPT’s o3 model advised a woman to ask for $280,000 in salary — and a man with the exact same credentials to go for $400,000. That’s a $120K difference… for two extra letters on the resume: “he” instead of “she”.
It wasn’t just a one-off. The study found this disparity across sectors, most glaringly in law, medicine, and business. And the kicker? None of the models flagged this as biased or problematic — they served it up like sound career advice.
🧠 Why It Matters
Bias in AI is hardly new — from Amazon’s scrapped hiring tool to diagnostic systems that underdiagnose Black women — but generative models are now becoming everyday consultants for career decisions, goal setting, and negotiation prep. If you're being subtly nudged by your AI life coach to aim lower just because you're a woman… that’s not just a bug. That’s systemic.
⚖️ So What?
The illusion of neutrality in AI is one of its most dangerous features. Without clear ethical standards, transparency about training data, and independent audits, models will continue to mirror the bias baked into our society — except now at scale, behind a polished interface.
And this isn’t just a women’s issue — it's a workplace equity issue. For a tech industry that loves to talk about “democratising opportunity,” here’s a wake-up call: if your tools entrench inequality, you’re not solving problems — you’re automating them.
🔍 Read the full study summary
🔒 Related reading: Amazon’s biased hiring AI | Bias in healthcare AI
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🧠Things that make you go hmmm🧠 |
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📈 What a pop📈
It’s official: Figma has exited the chat—and entered the stock market with a 250% bang. After nearly being swallowed by Adobe in a $20B deal regulators killed for being a bit too monopoly-flavoured, the design collaboration startup went public and is now worth over $68 billion💰
That’s more than 3x what Adobe offered. Sorry Photoshop, it’s giving revenge glow-up💅🏾
But beyond the product love and perfectly kerned celebration posts on LinkedIn, let’s talk money. Venture firms Index, Greylock, Kleiner Perkins, and Sequoia are now collectively sitting on around $24 billion in stock. Index’s $10m bet in 2013 is now worth over $7.2B. We don’t call that a 10x—we call that a mic drop. And it’s not just paper gains: two-thirds of Figma’s $1.2B raise went to existing investors💸
An Initial Public Offering (IPO) is when a private company offers shares to the public for the first time—listing on a stock exchange so regular investors (not just VCs and insiders) can buy a slice. Companies usually do this to raise capital, give early backers a way to cash out, and gain that sweet, sweet public credibility📊
In Figma’s case, it raised $1.2B by selling shares on the open market—but also let earlier investors and employees sell some of their stock. That’s why VCs and early hires are popping champagne while some folks were a bit annoyed the pop was so big (suggesting it was underpriced, after all that $1.2b could have been closer to $4bn📈
This IPO also marks the long-awaited return of the big exit. After a multi-year dry spell post-2021, when rising interest rates and falling tech valuations had VCs nervously checking their LP update emails, Figma (alongside Circle and CoreWeave) signals that the floodgates might just be creaking open. Even NYSE President Lynn Martin declared this IPO “will open the floodgates”. Which—given how dry it’s been—feels appropriately biblical.😅
📉 So what?
Tech exits are back! It's a good sign for demand for tech liquidity, and IPO demand generally. Given only 7% of the Figma floated, so of course demand went nuclear. Yes, some early investors could’ve squeezed more out, but let’s not cry for VCs sitting on 27x to 1,900x returns. This IPO does venture firms the exit liquidity they’ve been gasping for. It also resets the bar for what “winning” looks like in product-led growth.
📚 Sources:
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🔍 Searching for Answers (No, Literally)
It's fair to say this year hasn't been smooth sailing for Apple. Its share price is actually down this year, It's had a whole who ha about the price it can sell iPhones for, and well those questions about what it's doing on AI keep coming😐
So this week we saw reports that, Apple has quietly spun up a new internal unit named Answers, Knowledge and Information (AKI — cute), tasked with doing exactly what Siri was mean to be doing, delivering an AI-powered search experience. Think Siri meets ChatGPT... but in a turtleneck😅
The AKI team is led by Siri veteran Robby Walker, who lost his Siri remit due to—ironically—slow progress, and is now back with a vengeance. The goal? A first-party “answer engine” that crawls the web, competes with Google and Perplexity, and finally lets Siri respond to more than “What’s the weather?” without just Googling it on your behalf. A standalone app is even being considered we heard👀
So while Tim Cook says Apple isn't "stuck on size" when it comes to M&A, its curious that he's left the door open to them buying their way to catching up with acquisitions of French AI darling Mistral and AI search engine perplexity rumoured as targets🤨
And it makes sense: Google’s $20bn search deal with Apple is under threat, generative AI is eating traditional search’s lunch, and even Reddit is now branding itself a “search engine” — yes, Reddit! Turns out if you spam SEO and serve fluff, people just append "Reddit" to their search to get answers that don’t come from Pinterest clones or weird AI graveyards💀
Let’s not ignore the subtext here: Reddit's CEO now openly says the platform can become the "true search destination", combining Reddit Answers with core search. (Let's see how that goes, for many Reddit isn't even Safe for work), They're putting the search bar front and center in the app and leaning hard into the fact that authentic, messy, community-driven knowledge (or misinformation) beats AI hallucinations, ad-choked search results or other forms of misinformation😓
Let’s not trade accuracy for authority, or efficiency for equity.
🔗 Bloomberg: Apple’s new ‘Answers’ team eyes ChatGPT-style product
🔗 TechCrunch: Reddit wants to become a true search engine
🔍 So What?
Turns out search is still exciting for people and well the next inclusion of this AI powered model may just yet be the next inclusion helping to push the next generation of Iphone's (Apple has sold 3bn to date)
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🚗 Robotaxis, Regulatory Roulette & Race to Europe: The Self-Driving Showdown Heats Up
What do you get when a Chinese AI giant, a struggling American ride-hailing firm, and an under-pressure European taxi market walk into a boardroom? Apparently: the future of driverless transport🚗
This week, Baidu (The Chinese one) announced it’s teaming up with Lyft to bring its robotaxis to Europe by 2026, starting in the UK and Germany. This follows Lyft’s recent €175M acquisition of FreeNow, the ride-hailing app once jointly owned by BMW and Mercedes-Benz and active in 180 cities across nine countries. Lyft now wants to go head-to-head with Uber and Bolt on European turf—except this time, it's bringing Baidu’s autonomous fleet along for the ride.😳
And while the two companies say thousands of vehicles will roll out “pending regulatory approval,” that last clause is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Especially in the UK, where trials like Uber’s partnership with Wayve are only just launching and where regulators (rightly) still raise eyebrows at full self-driving claims😪
🚦But before we hail the future, a few things to park:
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Self-driving still isn’t settled tech. Tesla just lost a $243m lawsuit after its Autopilot system failed to prevent a fatal crash. The jury said both the driver and the tech were to blame—a decision that may open the legal floodgates and sour public trust in so-called “autonomous” driving.
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The geopolitics matter. Baidu is state-backed and deploying into a market increasingly cautious of Chinese tech influence. With rising scrutiny of TikTok, Huawei, and semiconductors, expect questions about what data these robotaxis are collecting—and who gets to see it.
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Equity’s still on autopilot. The glossy headlines about "the future of mobility" often forget who these shifts help—or don’t. Autonomous Vehicles threaten gig worker incomes and, historically, job losses in transport hit ethnic minority and migrant workers the hardest. Has anyone asked what this means for FreeNow’s 600 European employees?
📉 So what?
Competition is good right? Having one vendor doing autonomous vehicles compared to a few must be better for all of us in driving safety standards, lower prices and a sea full of non prius type cars😅
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📉 British firms to AI: “Nah, we’re good.”
New Hays data shows just 29% of UK companies are encouraging their staff to use AI tools—less than half the rate in the US (60%) and lagging behind Ireland (36%) and even France (38%).
This is compounded by only 37% of UK employers offer any form of AI training, compared to 50% in the US.
While Silicon Valley is busy co-piloting its way into the future (and raking in productivity gains), UK businesses seem stuck toggling between Excel tabs and asking IT why their VPN isn't working (DW the UK gov has a plan for that🙃).
This isn’t just a tech gap—it’s a talent one too. The companies skilling up today are the ones attracting the best future talent. Everyone else? They're just hoping that their 2022 strategy decks still pass for “innovation.”
🧠 So what?
If the UK wants to be more than a PowerPoint spectator in the AI race, we’ll need to shift from dithering to doing. That means:
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Making AI literacy the norm, not a niche
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Equipping frontline workers, not just senior execs
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Investing in training before regulators and competitors make the decision for you
PS look out below for what we're doing on this
Oh, and for the DEI crowd—if we’re serious about broadening access to the jobs of the future, skilling up marginalised communities in AI can’t be an afterthought. Right now, it barely looks like a footnote.
📎 More on LinkedIn
📰 Original Times article
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📈 The tools behind the tech📉
📦Product📦
📏Design📏
👩🏿💻Code👩🏿💻
🏢The business behind the tech🏢
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🌐Partner Events & Opportunties 🌐 |
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AI for everyone
Boost your career with free AI training – Apply now!
Colorintech is offering free AI courses to Everyone as part of
the Google.org AI Opportunity Fund: Europe.
This course will equip you with the necessary knowledge and practical experience to succeed in today’s AI driven job market.
If you’re looking to upskill in AI, boost your employability, and
open doors to exciting career opportunities, this is your chance!
Applications are open now — visit our website to apply
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BTF
We announced DJ AG as one of our headline acts to look out for on this year's lineup
Here is more info: joinbtf.com
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Progress in public
Learn about Delivery Manager, User Researcher, and Product careers in the Civil Service
On Aug 20th, we’re teaming up with the awesome team at Government Digital and Data for the second time to talk all about careers and opportunities for:
🌟Delivery Managers
🌟User Researcher
🌟Product Manager
To help with this, we’ll have three inspiring civil servants to share their career journeys and tips for getting a role in the public sector. We’ll be welcoming:
Nicola Hancock - Senior User Researcher, MOJ
Mac-Donnel Graham-Douglas - Product Manager, FCDO
This is a great opportunity for anyone considering a career in the civil service to learn more about the job opportunities available, and how to successfully navigate the hiring process!
Check out the key details below:
Date: 20th August 2025
Time: 12:00 - 13:30
Where: Zoom
If you’re interested in dialling into this webinar, then be sure to get a space using the link below:
https://lu.ma/progressinpublictwo
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🙌🏾The latest from the Colorintech team🙌🏾 |
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