Kennan Scott knows the isolation people of color often experience working tech jobs.

As a civil and transit engineer in Oakland firms, he was usually the only black engineer in the office.

Now, as the manager of computer science at the Oakland Unified School District, Scott is doing something about it.

“The only way for there to be less of the situation that I was feeling, which is being the only one, was to create a bunch more,” said Scott, a New York native who has called the Bay Area home for two decades.

Scott helped develop a program at West Oakland Middle School that introduces and immerses students in technology coursework: Sixth-graders have design thinking workshops; seventh-graders take an engineering class; and eighth-graders learn how to build mobile apps.

That prepares them to succeed in the computer science, engineering and design tracks the school district offers to high school students.

The lack of diversity in technical jobs is something Scott wants to change in the Bay Area, where people of color are woefully underrepresented at tech companies — and where tech money has exacerbated income inequality. And he believes the change can start in school.

“We are trying to have all students feel a place of ownership within computer science and the many fields that it touches,” said Scott, 41. “They can be a part of this next wave of technology and this next industrial revolution.”

Last week, Scott brought 85 high school students of color who take computer science classes to a three-day conference for black tech professionals and entrepreneurs held at the Oakland Convention Center and surrounding venues. It’s called AfroTech.

He wanted the students to see engineers and marketing professionals who look like them. He wanted the students, many growing up in neglected neighborhoods, to see their people thriving in tech.

He wanted them to feel like they belonged.

“That really speaks to this challenge of impostor syndrome — of not knowing what you’re capable of unless you see other people that look like you, that talk like you and generally have life experiences like you doing the work,” Scott said.

The contributions of people of color in tech have long been overlooked. Calculations by mathematician Katherine Johnson, made during the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, when blacks marched against segregation and discrimination, were instrumental to NASA asserting American dominance in space flight. Her brilliance wasn’t widely known until her story was adapted for the 2016 film “Hidden Figures.”

“We’ve been here,” said Morgan DeBaun, the founder and CEO of Blavity, the media company that launched AfroTech. “We haven’t necessarily been as visible to the outside community. We needed a place for us, as a black tech community, to come together and share what we know.”

I’ve often wondered if tech companies believe that the lack of diversity in their ranks is really a problem worth solving. In 2014, companies including Facebook, Google and Twitter, relenting to pressure from social activists, began releasing data on employee diversity. Many companies hired diversity executives to lead initiatives and policy changes.

But five years later, there’s been little progress. Sure, companies like Google have invested in programs at historically black colleges and universities, but the job pipeline remains under construction.

Just look at Facebook. In 2014, blacks and Latinos accounted for 6% of the company’s workforce. According to Facebook’s 2019 diversity report, the number has increased to 9%. But in technical roles, the numbers have barely budged.

AfroTech, which moved to Oakland this year after three years in San Francisco, wants to push companies to diversify faster. It’s doing so by providing recruiters direct access to job candidates. Scott said he thinks some of the brightest future candidates are being groomed in Oakland classrooms.

Last week, I wrote about how many black people born and raised in West Oakland are struggling to maintain a foothold in a city that’s experiencing major infrastructure expansion while its black population is dwindling.

For Scott, a key for students to maintain a place in their hometown is learning skills they’ll need to participate in our tech-dominated economy.

At times, AfroTech, which drew 10,000 people, felt like a festival. Indeed, it was a black tech homecoming and much, much more. The Kapor Center, the Oakland nonprofit that focuses on diversity and inclusion in tech, curated a day of social impact sessions at its office on Broadway.

AfroTech is “a really powerful gathering that’s about more than just tech. It’s really about the affirmation of people’s value and potential,” said Cedric Brown, the Kapor Center’s chief foundation officer. “There are plenty of intellectual assets and capital that we possess in our community, and it’s playing out in this sector.”

That’s exactly what Scott wanted the students to see and feel.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Mondays and Thursdays. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr