Those in the tech industry who are female or from minority populations know first hand that it has been difficult to grow representation in Austin's tech community.

A March 9 panel brought together JavaScript developer Garann Means; Mark Phillip, CEO and founder of the Are You Watching This?! platform; Natalie Cofield, president and CEO of the Austin-based Capital City African American Chamber of Commerce; and Gerardo Trevio, the founder and CEO of Paybook, a cloud-based platform that helps users track spending and manage their finances. Panelists discussed the importance of diversity in the Austin tech community.

Cofield, who moved Austin to head the CCAACC, said African-Americans only represent 8 percent of the Austin area, and that 8 percent is on the decline. She said she is adamant about having African-Americans and people of every color represented in the tech industry.

Means said that when she worked for online marketplace Etsy, the company provided scholarships to women to become developers.

"Rather than pull from an existing pool of female developers, they tried to create their own," she said.

Means started the Austin All-Girl Hack Night three years ago as a way for female developers to find and ideally help each other.

"There are a lot of women in tech, but we're still developing all these different groups to bring them together," she said. "... It's hard to find role models and find women who have been in the industry a long time. You might see women at work, but you might be the only woman on your team."

Phillip said that when people think of diversity, it is women first and then minorities. He said cultural diversity does not often come up.

Trevio, who is from Monterrey, Mexico, just launched Paybook. The company got its start in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, where is has its development house in which the whole team lives and works together.

"The way we're doing this model is we want to still have one foot in United States, and on the other hand, it's been easier to bring people on the team when talking to them in Playa," he said.

Means said the key to preventing stereotypes in the developer world could come down to working with children in diverse populations before they hear the stereotypes.

"Just tell them this is a solid career path that you will always have a job in," she said.