SHENIX® is an innovative fintech company built by Latinas/x, for Latinas/x, to close the wealth gap by providing culturally relevant financial services. Created by Chicago-based entrepreneurs Olga Camargo, Juan Carlos Avila, and Patricia Mota, the web-based app provides financial education, career planning, and salary negotiation resources through a unique digital experience that prioritizes the Latina cultural mindset. After selecting the investment services they need, users are prompted to answer a short survey about their financial and career goals. Immediately after the survey, users get a customized budget recommendation and the
This article was first published by Luli Adeyemo on Medium. It started off with small talk between myself and my fantastic hairdresser, Jasmine, but things really got interesting when we got to the ‘are you doing anything special later’ question. I took great delight in telling Jasmine that I was moderating a panel that celebrates women who code and how women in the tech industry are using creativity and technology as their superpower. I was really looking forward to it as it was part of the launch of Marvel Studios’
HelloBeautiful and Madame Noire’s special cover, Women To Know: Tech Titans, is a celebration of Black women blazing trails in tech. Despite making up just 1.7% of the tech workforce, Black women are leading, innovating, and disrupting the industry. So, HelloBeautiful and Madame Noire brought eight Black women changemakers and visionaries together for a shoot by Black women-owned production company Oracle Media and photographer JD Barnes. HelloBeautiful and Madame Noire also hosted a roundtable discussion with four Tech Titans: Kelsey Davis, Michelle James, Bozoma Saint John, and Kimberly Bryant. Together, they celebrated each other’s strengths and successes, were candid
EVEN, a creative platform that enables artists to sell their music directly to fans, has closed a $2.2 million seed round led by CSA Partners. Mag Rodriguez founded the platform last year to help Black and brown artists retain equity in their creative work. The blockchain-based direct-to-consumer platform allows artists to sell their music directly to their fans before uploading their music to streaming platforms. When fans purchase music, they can get access to it one to two weeks before they drop on streaming platforms, as well as exclusive content,
Described as The Amazing Race meets Shark Tank, RoadPitch is the Black-owned program connecting Black tech founders with investors across the US. The brainchild of Barley Sober founder Rohan Brown and electrical engineer Meagan Turner, the program takes Black tech founders on weeklong trips to pitch to investors in cities they aren’t native to. The pair met virtually in 2022 while coordinating StartupBus, a national hackathon on wheels. Getting Black founders in the room “Because of the pandemic, a lot of people have gotten accustomed to sending over a deck
“This is the final straw AI,” Drake wrote on Instagram Stories after an AI-generated version of him rapping to Ice Spice’s “Munch” went viral. The Canadian artist is the latest prominent industry figure to express concern over AI-generated music. Streamers urged to take charge The Financial Times reports that Universal Music Group (UMG) wrote a letter to major streamers, including Spotify and Apple Music, to clamp down on AI-generated music. UMG, which controls about a third of the global music market, said they were concerned about AI bots training on their catalog and
Maybe you’re new to the software engineer job hunt. Maybe you’ve been in the industry for some time and are trying to keep your interview skills fresh via the concept of “Always Be Interviewing”. You’ve optimized your resume for software engineers. You’ve cleared the technical interviews. But now it’s time to increase your compensation in the offer stage. Studies like this one from Harvard Law School on negotiation biases have shown that, in many instances, Black candidates were given fewer concessions when negotiating. Does this mean you should just give
This article was first published by Sha Hurley on Medium. March 31 was officially the end of my seven-year journey as a Googler. It’s been a stressful, yet healing time. Below, I share my reflections in the hope they will be an inspiration for some and a resource for others. Please share this post if you think it would help someone. I’ll be very interested in your thoughts below in the comments. Or DM me if something more private you’d like to connect on. This is going to be a long
Massachusetts-based Black-led startups are getting a $100 million boost from MassMutual’s second MM Catalyst Fund (MMCF). MassMutual announced that it is adding $100 million to its MMCF. The fund will continue to make investments in startups led by Black and historically overlooked founded-companies in the company’s home state of Massachusetts. MMCF will also invest selectively with fund managers in MassMutual’s First Fund Initiative, which focuses on first-time fund managers from Black, Latine, and Indigenous backgrounds. Building on past success The MMCF has backed 16 companies across various industries since its
Meet Jeremiah Thoronka, the young inventor, entrepreneur, and scholar from Sierra Leone, behind the device that turns the vibrations from busy roads into electricity. Thoronka, who recently graduated with a Master of Science Degree in Sustainability, Energy, and Development from Durham University, founded Optim Energy in 2017, when he was just 17 years old. People are always moving “I have first-hand experience of growing up without energy or electricity,” Thoronka said in an innterview wth the BBC. “Around 18:00, the entire neighbourhood would be in darkness.” Thoronka grew up in
