Congratulations! You’ve made it to the day you’ve been dreaming about since you started the recruiting process: the day you receive your full-time employment offer. This is an honor. This is a blessing. But before we get blinded by the giddiness, we need to get one thing straight: sign on your own terms. Yes, the idea of money is so enticing and oh so close, but remember this is a negotiation. To get the most for yourself, you need to know your own worth. Then add tax. Letsgetit! v Step 1:
Based of a super hilarious and heart warming tweet thread this article follows Urenna Okonkwo as she takes us through her journey in raising a seed round for her fashion/fintech startup Cashmere! In the words of Elon Musk. Funding secured 💰 Yesterday, I received the first installment of investment (total $180,000) into my company @CashmereTheApp as a young 26-year-old black female first-time founder. I can’t believe I’m writing this. Taking the Plunge When I made the plunge, I said to my close friend @deborahokenla, by the 31st of October, I will
I recently attended my first, second, and third tech conferences as a scholar. Here’s what I learned, what I wish I would have known, and a jump-start to help get the most out of your first or next tech conference. Takeaways primarily focus on my experience as a RubyConf 2018 Opportunity Scholar, but are widely applicable to other tech conferences BEFORE THE CONFERENCE Release any preconceived notions 💡 Maybe it’s just me, but HBO’s Silicon Valley a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶r̶o̶o̶k̶e̶d̶ ̶m̶e̶d̶i̶a̶ ̶l̶o̶l̶⠀nearly had me convinced that programmers are socially inept and
This article is a snippet from the postgraduate thesis of Alex Fefegha, the amazing technologist and founder of Comuzi. Here he breaks down concrete examples of racism and sexism perpetrated by A.I. So here it goes: Suggestions have made that decision-support systems powered by AI can be used to augment human judgment and reduce both conscious and unconscious biases. However, machine learning data, algorithms, and other design choices that shape AI systems may reflect and amplify existing cultural prejudices and inequalities. While historian of technology Melvin Kranzberg (1986) constructed the viewpoint
We caught up with the amazing Fikile M Kani about her amazing new original webseries Tech Bae… As soon as we heard the premise of a black women founder trying to create a better dating experience for black women we had to find out more. Have a look at her tweet thread before deliving into our interview. Aya’s story needs to be on peoples’ screens not only to bring light issues around bias, but to add more black women’s faces in spaces where they are underrepresented–the tech/startup worlds and on
There are people whom you hear about from afar and when you meet them, your disappointed by the hype that precedes them. During our last fireside chat with Kai Bond, this was far from the case. Kai showed up and not only lived up to his reputation but exceeded it. A little background for new readers, at Untapped Founders, we are a support & networking community for Black and Brown Entrepreneurs focused on giving advice and making warm-introductions. The mindset of the organization is that when we bring our knowledge and
We The Masses The line, “The masses will be attended by machines and the rich will be attended to by people” is the one that still stays with me weeks out from reading Cathy O’Neill’s ‘Weapons of Math Destruction’. This will be the outcome of all the technology that we apply to managing (or controlling) our lives. This will be how Artificial Intelligence impacts our lives in all the areas where we apply this technology; the rich will be able to afford the services of wealth managers who cater to their every
Andy Ayim is the Managing Director of Backstage London. This is the first in a series of stories introducing the Backstage Accelerator team in London. Amplifying Voices Last year, through some chance, frustration, and a stroke of genius, I had arrived at an inflection point in my writing. I began to share stories about what I was learning in tech with a tone of voice that came from the streets I was raised in. It was sometimes assertive, always authentic, and very unapologetic. I wanted aspiring founders to have access
You are not your thoughts… One of my most important realizations is that banal statement above. So often we let a small voice in the back of our head guide our actions like it’s edicts are gospel. But it’s not. By choosing to ignore it’s neurotic, insecure ramblings, you will significantly improve your well being as a founder. What if I told you this website and the Techish podcast shouldn’t exist. Follow me for a second. August 2015, POCIT was nothing but a twitter account. We hadn’t officially launched the
On May 8th, 2017, at precisely 11:41 am, I walked on stage at the San Francisco CTO Summit to give a talk. At $995 for the session, and with over 200 attendees, the event is billed as senior engineering leaders from startups (75%+ are CTO/VP’s/Dir Eng) with previous presenters being the CTOs/VP’s of Stripe, Coinbase, MongoDB, Zenefits, Warby Parker, Squarespace, Shopify, Birchbox, Tumblr, CustomInk. As I took my place on the stage, I looked out at the crowd and posed the question, who identifies as an African American. No
