A report from the National Association of Investment Companies shows that private equity firms that are either diverse or owned by  minorities achieved substantially higher gains that those which are not. A Bloomberg report noted:

Funds managed by NAIC member firms, 79 percent of which are owned by minorities and 69 percent of which have women or minorities in at least half of the investment roles, had a median net internal rate of return of 15 percent from 1998 to 2011, compared with 3.7 percent for the U.S.

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A recent analysis of 20,000 venture-backed companies in the U.S. from 1997 to 2011 found that, when women are in senior positions, companies tend to do better. An article in Business Week noted:

They had more than twice as many women in top jobs like C-level managers, vice presidents, and board members than their unsuccessful counterparts did. Companies that went public, were acquired, or turned profitable were defined as “successful”…At successful companies, the median share of female executives was 7.1 percent, compared with 3.1 percent at unsuccessful firms.

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Editor’s note: This post contains some strong language. Social connecting has been an integral part of the Internet since the UseNet days, but how much, or how little, to censor these discussions has been, too. However, the curious case of Reddit’s own r/shitredditsays (SRS) site raises questions as to where free speech and posting limits are. The site is part of Fempire’s project PANDA, an attempt by a vocal minority to draw public eyes to issues that the moderation and administrators seem to be avoiding.… more

By Johanna Mendelson Forman Google’s Chief Executive in Brazil, Fabio Jose Silva Coehlo, was arrested for refusing to remove a YouTube video that allegedly defamed a mayoral candidate. The judge who ordered the arrest said that by hosting the defamatory video the company was in violation of Brazil’s electoral laws. Specifically, Section 243 of the law makes defamation a serious offense, punishable by a fine and arrest. However, shooting the messenger, the Google hosting service, does not always solve the problem.… more

The former king of social networking, MySpace, has risen from the grave with a new interface, and bold ambition. In taking cues from other social network designs like Pinterest and Facebook’s Timeline, it seems MySpace has potential to make a scene again in the digital world. Will it mean anything, though? The world of social media is anything but friendly or compassionate. It’s a shark tank of website coders and entrepeneurs striving to create “the next big thing.” First it was MySpace, which dissipated thanks to bloat and a frustrated user base.… more

The New York Times wrote a great investigative piece this weekend about how the massive data centers required to run platforms like Facebook are terrible for the environment, as well as wasteful and polluting. Here’s an excerpt:

Most data centers, by design, consume vast amounts of energy in an incongruously wasteful manner, interviews and documents show. Online companies typically run their facilities at maximum capacity around the clock, whatever the demand. As a result, data centers can waste 90 percent or more of the electricity they pull off the grid, The Times found.

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CODE2040 is a non-profit organization that works to help black and Latino software engineers gain experience and networking opportunities in Silicon Valley. We wrote about the organization’s mission previously, but now applications are open for students who might want to take advantage of this great opportunity. Starting today CODE2040 will be accepting applications for 20 spots for the summer of 2013; apps close later this year. Fellows get an internship with a top start-up, as well as mentoring, access to speakers, visits to other tech companies, executive coaching and lots more.… more

Voxy has launched a new service allowing customers to learn English by listening to music. We previously wrote about Voxy, a mobile app to help people learn English, which offers this new app for those trying to make the jump to adapting to English from Spanish. Voxy Music seems as though it will open a new door in the language barrier for people trying to access English. Instead of a lesson regiment or tedious speech dialogues, Voxy music draws on the listener’s own personal portal to English: their music collection.… more

An interesting article in Nonprofit Quarterly highlights the work of several non-profit organizations working to help Latinos interface with technology in different ways. The report notes that a recent study from the Public Policy Institute of California found that Latinos lag behind other groups in the adoption of technology. An excerpt from the story shows that:

About six million Latinos in California aren’t online and large disparities among Latinos persist. Some Latino subgroups are similar to other racial/ethnic groups in their access to broadband.

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By Cammy Harbison, Voxxi According to a report compiled by Pew Research Center, one in every five students in America is now of Hispanic descent. By 2050 it is predicted that Hispanics will make up more than half of all students found in the United States public school system and comprise 74 percent of the workforce. At the same time, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economics and Statistics Administration (ESA) recently released a report showing that: “Over the past 10 years, growth in STEM jobs was three times greater than that of non-STEM jobs, and STEM jobs are expected to continue to grow at a faster rate than other jobs in the coming decade.… more