2024’s Essential Reads: Books By Trailblazing Black Women In Tech
Black women have always been, and continue to be, at the forefront of tech, driving innovation, raising capital, and challenging inequity.
This year, the tech world continues to shift and evolve rapidly. For those wanting to stay ahead of the curve and make their mark in this dynamic world, here are three must-read books by Black women leaders.
Your First Million – Arlan Hamilton
Arlan Hamilton is the founder and managing partner of Backstage Capital, which has raised more than $10 million while investing in over 100 companies led by people of color, women, and LGBTQ.
After being homeless and using food stamps until her thirties, Hamilton, a Black gay woman from the South, aims to help create 1,000 more millionaires in the next decade.
Her latest book is Your First Million: Why You Don’t Have to Be Born into a Legacy of Wealth to Leave One Behind.
“Radical self belief is the knowledge that whatever you’re being paid, it is not enough. Whatever power you have, you can always have more and there’s more than enough to go around,” she writes.
“We’ve been taught that we can’t be what we can’t see, but I believe that mindset is limiting. We have to understand that we can be anything.”
Learn how to identify unmet needs, raise money, choose collaborators, create multiple income streams, and turn your knowledge and experience into a profitable business.
Unmasked AI – Dr. Joy Buolamwini
Dr. Joy Buolamwini, an AI researcher, artist, and advocate, is the author of Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What is Human in a World of Machines.
Published in October, Unmasking AI is a story of how Buolamwini uncovered what she calls “the coded gaze,” which is the evidence of encoded discrimination and exclusion in tech products.
She also explains how she galvanized the movement to prevent AI harm by founding the Algorithmic Justice League.
Encouraging experts and non-experts alike to join this fight, Buolamwini writes, “The rising frontier for civil rights will require algorithmic justice. AI should be for the people and by the people, not just the privileged few.”
She’s In Ctrl – Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon
Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon is a keynote speaker, leader, and creator of the award-winning social enterprise Stemettes.
Her business aims to engage, inspire, and connect the next generation of women and nonbinary people into the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
In 2022, she published She’s In Ctrl: How women can take back tech – to communicate, investigate, problem-solve, broker deals, and protect themselves in a digital world.
She’s In Ctrl explores the dangers of the current gender imbalance in her field, offering practical solutions to ensure the tech story shaping our world is as inclusive as possible.
It explores why women are under-represented in tech, why it matters, and what we can do about it.
