Swift announces new 'Diversity in Swift' initiative to foster inclusive community

Swift has announced a new 'Diversity in Swift' initiative to help foster diversity in coding.

In a blog post Wednesday Apple said:

6 years ago, Swift was announced. In the years since, a thriving community has emerged around a shared passion for building and using the Swift programming language. This community has spread far beyond Apple through conferences, open source repositories, community-authored books, and more — people are always finding new ways to connect with and support other Swift developers around the world. However, we feel we can always do more to encourage a wider range of developers to actively engage in our community. That's why we're excited to announce Diversity in Swift. This initiative is focused on further elevating a wide variety of voices, and making it easier for developers to start learning or contributing to Swift, regardless of their background.

The mission of 'Diversity in Swift' is to create "more pathways for a diverse group of developers" and to help increase the engagement and retention of these developers. Swift is launching two new groups, Women in Swift and Black in Swift, private, moderated support spaces on the Swift forums to help community groups connect with each other to share experiences and help break down barriers.

Swift says this is just the beginning and aims to build more programs and additional community groups, there's even a Diversity section on the Swift website.