Representatives from Google, Apple, Facebook and 20 other tech companies joined the civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and his group Rainbow PUSH Wednesday at a Silicon Valley summit, Diversity 2.0, to find solutions to the scarcity of women, blacks and Latinos at technology companies. It was the first time companies would be able to publicly address their lack of diversity.

"Many of these companies had an unfounded fear that we wanted to disrupt them," the Rev. Jesse Jackson told the Associated Press. "We came not to disrupt, but to build. Inclusion will lead to growth."

Companies were on hand to elaborate on their plans to diversify their workforces, and to hear from entrepreneurs, academics and nonprofit groups that have been trying to overcome the cultural and educational challenges that turned computer programming into an occupation dominated by white and Asian men.

Earlier this year, Rainbow PUSH Coalition challenged companies to disclose their Equal Employment Opportunities-1 and workforce diversity data. They found when they researched most company boards and corporate suite leadership, most companies have 0-3 percent of blacks in their tech workforce, and almost the same for their non-tech workforce. Of the 20 companies researched, there were only three African Americans out of 189 Board Directors and just one Latino, as well as 153 men and just 36 women. Eleven companies had all-white Boards.

In the executive positions, there were just six African Americans and three Latinos, 224 men and just 65 women, and seven of the 20 companies had all-white leadership.

"Most importantly, the technology industry is not capturing the tremendous value that will propel it into the future -- after all African American, Latinos, people of color, women represent money, market, talent and location -- people of color are the biggest per capita users of social media and the Internet; they are the consumers and innovators of the future," the Rev. Jesse Jackson told attendees at a Microsoft Shareholder meeting on Dec. 3.

Jackson said he intends to hold the companies accountable for promises to make their workforces look more like the overall population. Next month, the coalition said it will release a scorecard rating diversity progress at the tech companies; a scorecard they will release annually.

"It definitely feels like we are entering a new phase," Laura Weidman Powers, CEO of Code2040, a San Francisco nonprofit that has been lining up technology internships for black and Latino college students for the past three summers told AP. "When we first started, diversity just wasn't on the list of these large companies that have power and potential to make change. Now, it really feels like it is. They may not know exactly what to do yet, but they are interested in taking steps in the right direction."