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Google will spend $150 million this year to diversify its workforce

Last year, Google released internal data revealing that almost all of its workforce was male, and nearly all of them were from either white or Asian backgrounds. In an attempt to make itself more diverse, the company is putting $150 million into programs to help increase the number of female, Black and Hispanic employees. In the run up to having this year's figures released, Google's Nancy Lee sat down with USA Today to talk about what the search engine is aiming for.

Part of the project has been to increase the number of schools where Google recruits new engineers from, including Alabama A&M and the University of Missouri-Columbia. The company is also grabbing some employees' 20 percent time to address unconscious bias, an issue that Lee believes will improve the office culture.

The search engine is also doing its best to encourage women into STEM careers with projects like the Made to Code campaign. There's also the fact that Google has teamed up with ABC to get female characters from both Miles from Tomorrowland and The Fosters to provide a positive role model for young kids.

As Lee herself says, institutional changes on this scale will all take time and it'd be unreasonable to expect wholesale changes in just a year. However, between this, Intel's pledge to achieve full representation by 2020 and Apple's commitment to financially support minority scholarships, the future's looking even better.