At America's largest technology firms, the percentage of women, African Americans and Latinos among the armies of coders, developers, and software engineers remains small.

If places like Google, Intel and Microsoft are having trouble recruiting diverse tech talent, how can much smaller firms or nonprofits like KPCC compete?

Reporter Brian Watt checked in with KPCC's own tech team to see how different kinds of companies are facing the challenge.

In response, tech firms have started to partner with some of the top historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, in order to fill the gap.

At Howard University in Washington, D.C., Yahoo has sponsored a data center for engineering students. Google helped to shape the school's computer science curriculum, which meant an accelerated pace in the classroom.

"We could increase the rigor, bring it a little bit faster [for students]," said Legand Burge, professor and chair of Howard University's Department of Systems and Computer Science program.

But the deeper challenge starts even before the university level, said Burge, when a lack of role models in the tech industry for African American students presents an added obstacle.

That and a lack of preparation in the lower grades makes things harder for incoming students.

"Many of the students that said they knew what computer science was, really were getting keyboarding," said Burge, of a survey Howard did of recent high school students from the Washington, D.C. area. "They really weren't getting algorithmic or programming experience."

The new curriculum at Howard aims to change that by better preparing graduates to compete in the growing tech field, said Burge.