Posts in Category

Articles

Alexandria Prather is Director of Strategic Partnerships and the latest member of the senior staff at All Star Code. What’s your background? I’m originally from Indianapolis. I did undergrad at Indiana University (go Hoosiers!) where I majored in International Studies & Spanish, and then American University in Washington DC, where I earned a Masters in Public Policy. When I was in DC doing my Masters, I interned at the White House and worked in Leader Nancy Pelosi’s and Representative André Carson’s office. I also worked at The Brookings Institution, a

Five years ago I was leading strategic partnerships for a World Bank agricultural research institution. I was “living my best life”, travelling all over the world and making an “impact” — at least that’s what I thought until I found myself on a rooftop in Nairobi, Kenya with a filmmaker, a designer, and a restaurateur who would change my life forever. That night, inspired by the courage, drive, and resilience of my peers I realized that disrupting the narrative on Africa in a way that did not involve “selling poverty”

Meet Tsion Behailu, a Google Software Engineer in the San Francisco Bay area. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a bachelors in Computer Engineering. Tsion is not only a diligent and driven person, she also has a heart of gold. She is dedicated to helping others reach their highest potential. I’m lucky enough to have her as my cousin and mentor. When she’s not out conquering the world, she travels, spends quality time with family and friends, and inspires others to pursue computer science. Tsion was born in Metehara, Ethiopia and came to Atlanta, Georgia with

For the first time ever, someone besides my father gave me money do something. It was not just anyone either, it was the CEO of Y-Combinator Michael Seibel. The money is being used towards empowering Black Entrepreneurs in a monthly group I am organizing, but his contribution represents something fundamentally important that is hard to obtain — empowerment. Starting a successful venture is a complex undertaking that requires more than just the idea, but a good team, a strong network, strategy, capital and other important attributes. Black Entrepreneurs face a greater challenge

This may seem confusing and quite drastic upon initially skimming over the title, but there is a back story that provides context to a unique problem and an equally viable solution that sprouted in my life for the past year, looking back, and looking forward into 2018. I am your typical and atypical nerd. I grew up playing video games everyday, reading sci-fi/fantasy books, illustrating, writing stories, composing music, playing horn instruments obnoxiously loud in the garage, and studying any subject I found and deemed intriguing and significant to the human

Culture can be defined as customs, social forms, beliefs, and practices exhibited by a group of people. When it comes to the African American, we had to develop our own unique culture starting from slavery almost 400+ years ago. It was nothing short of miraculous after everything was taken away from us, we recreated our own identity from scratch. While our culture has many positive features that heavily influences mainstream trends, it also carries negative aspects that may prevent us from moving forward. One such aspect is our reluctance to

I attended a tech rally organized by your feed at the Facebook HQ in London this week. It was an extremely inspiring event with a variety of insightful talks, with the underlying theme being self-promotion and the importance of showcasing your skills for relevant opportunities. While I found all the talks to be thought-provoking and the speakers’ passion for technology shone through them all, the one that stuck with me the most was about ‘not only knowing your strengths but being comfortable promoting them’. This was the 3rd time that day the

The founder of an early stage company, which is still trying to figure out product/market fit, was asking me questions about getting acquired. He’d reached out because of some thoughts I shared in my newsletter. He’d latched onto my suggestion that Big Companies are slow and, suggested, that they hold the bulk of the cash in his industry and were consequently stifling innovation. He wanted to know how he might get the attention of BigCo to get his company acquired. It would have been laughable if he wasn’t so serious.

As a woman, a Millennial and a minority working in the tech industry, it should come as no surprise that I am part of a demographic highly susceptible to imposter syndrome. Also referred to as fraud syndrome, imposter syndrome refers to a high-functioning individual’s inability to internalize his or her achievements and an associated state of perpetual fear of being exposed as an imposter or a fraud. Like most small glitches that accompany starting a new job in a new location, I presumed this was something that would merely disappear

In this piece, I talk about my journey, building a meeting room personality, and Apple’s hostile work environment. #MyFamily When I was younger, I loved reading. I would read on average four books a day. My brother would read to me as I fell asleep. My father would tell me stories in the morning and at night. He was a writer, with passion. Words, sentences, novels— they shaped my childhood. Another thing that subconsciously shaped my childhood was my perception of the working world. My father was a kickass engineer; he

1 261 262 263 264 265 273 Page 263 of 273