Pasifika Need Tech Leaders Who Are Technical.

Why the Vibes-Based Approach Will Be Our Undoing.

Talofa reader,

Pasifika Have a "Technical Leadership" Issue.

Over the past few years, I've come face to face with a pretty obvious yet significant issue: the severe lack of Pasifika technical leadership in the technology sector.

And not just for making up the numbers so the business looks good and ticks the box, but for the community side of this equation that more often needs, essentially, an "ally" with technical skills to help navigate and mitigate the realities of all things technology.

Pasifika Technical Leadership?

What do I mean by Pasifika technical leadership?

Pretty much what it says on the tin:

A Technical person, who happens to be Pasifika, in a Leadership position or capability.

The discourse over the last few years has been one of the following two:

1. Getting more "Pasifika into technology," a purely numbers game for bums on tech seats, OR

2. Getting Pasifika a"Seat at the table," a long-tail strategy with organisations going after leadership power.

While these two things are important, I'm cognisant of a couple of things I've already seen happen.

Firstly, with the bum-rush of getting as many Pasifika hoisted over the fence into tech as possible, I've seen the casualties of the folks who could've been successful in transitioning had they been given the necessary support to succeed.

I'm seeing a new "factory floor" for Pasifika to get trapped in the tech industry, taking up the lower-skilled, lower-paid jobs that are cheaper to use Pasifika for than paying for LLM's on cloud.

Secondly, from the few Pasifika organisations I've seen make a play for being the spokespeople for Pasifika issues at the technology table, I'm loath to say I find some of the things I know about these organisations… unsettling?