Originally published here on Medium Last month, my company Hustle Crew celebrated its third birthday. It’s a significant milestone for many reasons. Three years is the same amount of time I spent at university completing my bachelor’s degree. The longest period I’ve ever worked at a single company (Groupon, 2011–2014). Most importantly it’s far longer than many experts I met at the start — from other CEOs to investors — thought this business would last. I’ll spare you our origin story as I’ve shared it before, but in 2016 when I set
Posted in Open Design by Sara Zhang “Product Designer.” When I first moved to San Francisco and was looking for a job in the design world, this title appeared in listing after listing, and I had no idea what it meant. I wondered, What is product design? What is product? And what on earth is Sketch? The year was 2013, and I was fresh out of Florida State University with a shiny new art degree. I’d been creative since I was young and began taking art classes in middle school.
During the earliest stages of my nontraditional software engineering education, I would often sit down to code and place my computer on a table covered with books of poetry. I loved coding but drew my power and sustenance as a Black woman from the words of poets like Jamila Woods, Jericho Brown, and Fatimah Asghar. The apparent contradiction between my interests always left me with a tiny itch, somehow, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what the feeling was trying to tell me. I went on improving my coding skills while
Every generation experiences a moment where it’s forced to sit with a new aspect of technology that temporarily calls everything that once existed into question. I know, for example, that my parent’s generation who became young adults in the 70s and 80s, felt this way about TV and computers. It was as if screens were taking over—multidimensional objects that offered viewers a lens into multidimensional spaces, providing new ways to connect, forever transforming the worlds of entertainment and communication. Those who had grown up without the presence of screens probably
As we near the end of Black History Month in the UK, our hope is that black British history surpasses a month’s celebration to become an integral part of British history. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of unsung black heroes across British history, from Alice Kinloch, the South African activist who came to Britain and founded the African Association, which created the first Pan-African conference in London in 1900. To others, such as modern-day educator, rapper, entrepreneur, and activist Akala. The renowned author of The Sunday Times Best Seller
This post first appeared on Elpha, a community for women in tech to talk candidly online” If you’re a woman (particularly a woman of color) in tech, you’ve probably felt it. That feeling that you’re the “only one” in the room. The feeling that you don’t belong, that you need to prove yourself, that you’re alone. According to a study by Leanin.org and McKinsey & Company, one in five women report being one of the only women in the room. In senior leadership, this is twice as common: 40% of women are the only
Arlan Hamilton — founder and managing partner at Backstage Capital — summarized best why investing in Black Female Founders (BFF) isn’t just important, but could produce high yields: “Less than 0.2 percent of all early-stage venture funding goes to Black women, while we make up approximately 8 per cent of the U.S. population and are one of the fastest-growing entrepreneur segments in the country,” Arlan wrote. “It is my firm belief that because Black women have had to make do with far less for centuries, equipping them with early-stage capital that is
Originally published here by HBCUvc. At HBCUvc, we don’t put too much stock in “best of” lists or other league tables that purport to sort people by merit. Ranked lists don’t do a good job of assessing an individual’s worth or accurately measuring her contributions to an industry like venture capital where feedback cycles are long and the best contributors often work behind the scenes to help entrepreneurs succeed. On top of this, the lists tend to focus on the accomplishments of White men at the expense of other contributors.
Alexa’s always had a problem understanding commands from varying accents, however, what’s worrying is her reluctance to learn and improve. Alexa terrorised my Nigerian mother-in-law by refusing to grant any of her requests until she had asked at least five times, the fifth time in a forced British accent. I was amused at first because I have a dark sense of humour, but it got personal when Alexa repeatedly refused my husband’s requests. I’m Ugandan with a British accent. My Nigerian husband has a Nigerian accent, speaks English excellently, Yoruba
“In a lot of ways, Facebook is more like a government than a traditional company” – Mark Zuckerburg The rise of virtual internet platforms such as Facebook, Whatsapp, Telegram, Kakao is challenging established regimes of state and sovereignty, monetary policy and issuance of currency, control, ownership and governance of virtual resources in developing countries in Africa. Billions of users, including Africans, are spending more time on virtual networked platforms that command the attention of far greater audiences than the populations of individual nation states. WhatsApp has 1 billion, Telegram 200
