Thanks for the support! I appreciate the difference of opinion here, but for me the "diversity shtick" isn't a shtick. It's a core reason of why I'm doing this project. Our field has big problem: Nearly everyone on the planet uses computers, but relatively speaking almost no one is "computing literate". The opportunity cost of this is just enormous, and I think it's not going to change unless we acknowledge the problem and set a goal to change it. I agree it would certainly be more palatable to just talk about "universal computing literacy" without mentioning the present skewed demographics of our field. But my goal is not to go through life being palatable, I want to actually make a dent in meaningful problems. And in my view, it would be pretty silly to try to solve what's effectively a massive user-experience problem without saying "Our current userbase is X, our desired userbase is Y, how do we get from X to Y?"

If you or anyone else is off-put by that or disagrees with it, that's completely your right, and I respect it.

(Also, by the way, a sample of fanfiction in a cover letter sounds awesome, and a great fit for the kind of creative engineering culture I like to be a part of)