Untapped resources: can intellectual diversity promote cultural diversity in technology?

Recruiting and retaining a culturally diverse [1] workforce had been identified as a critical problem in technology, for academic, corporate and government organizations. The causes and effects of cultural homogeneity are being documented and becoming better understood, but successful solutions are still hard to find, implement, and measure. In his testimony before the Congressional Blue Ribbon Panel, "Building Engineering and Science Talent", Richard Tapia notes that "A non-supportive environment drives away women and minorities from science, engineering, mathematics at good universities. They migrate towards other majors." [2] Is it possible to "lure" women and minorities back into technical disciplines.A novel approach to this question may be to seek an alternate sense of workplace diversity, namely, intellectual diversity. Recruiting in research tends to focus on certain closely-related fields. If viable candidates can be recruited from non-traditional fields, will this intellectual diversity (i.e. diversity of academic interests) increase cultural diversity?.