There’s only one way we can start the week here at POCIT: sharing the ‘good news’ of people of color in tech. There have been a lot of negative headlines in the tech space, from declining investment in minority communities to major layoffs at big companies – redundancies that often impact women, POC, or juniors. But that’s why we’ve made an effort to kick off the week on a high note as it’s important to remember that we’ll all see the light at the end of the tunnel. Here’s some
A well-known influencer collective, Collab Crew (formerly known as Collab Crib) has had a turbulent few months with its founder Keith Dorsey stepping down to focus on his mental health, appointing Robert Dean III (@robiiiworld) to take the lead and of course the big news that it’s shifting from a collab house into a studio. What was the ‘Collab Crib? It was one of the nation’s only content houses for all-Black influencers. There – 10 young creators worked daily under the care of a manager. Most of them lived in
Lola Omolola is a former Nigerian journalist who founded the Female IN (FIN) group on Facebook – a private group for women with nearly 1.7 million members where others can share their untold stories regarding their sexual abuses and other challenges they are facing. FIN’s genesis can be traced to 2014 when nearly 300 girls were kidnapped from a boarding school in Nigeria by the Boko Haram militant group. According to what she’s previously told the media – the kidnapping represented the worst form of patriarchy: men were targeting young
Last Friday at the State House in Nairobi, Kenya’s outgoing president, Uhuru Kenyatta, announced the addition of coding as a subject into its primary and secondary schools curricula. With this new breakthrough, Kenya reportedly becomes the first African government to recognize coding as a topic of study in the two early schools. “I congratulate the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development for guiding our country to this historic milestone by including coding as a crucial ability inside our new Competency Based Curriculum,” Kenyatta announced. Kodris Africa, an online publishing company specializing
SoLa Impact and Riot Games have partnered to launch the Tech & Entrepreneurship Center, which aims to help “inspire and develop the next generation of Black and Brown game developers.” The new center will be located in the heart of South Los Angeles and will provide accessible technology education to the South Los Angeles community. The initiative was made possible after the popular game developer app, Riot Games, donated $2.25 million to the SoLa I CAN Foundation. The additional funding went towards the design of the center, which will be free for all
As a Black woman who loves anime, Bee Law knows these spaces can often be unwelcoming to people like her. To combat this issue, she created a solution to give Black women more representation in the community. Bee Law’s life has been guided by a desire to help communities. At 16, she started a nonprofit for students with autism after witnessing one of her friends get bullied. Later on, Law pursued a full-time career in cytogenetics, which she saw as a way of helping communities from a scientific perspective. Now,
Adesuwa Okunbo Rhodes is the Managing Partner and Founder of Aruwa Capital Management and one of a handful of women leading VC firms in Africa. Aruwa invests between $500,000 and $2.5 million in post-seed stage startups. Beyond being able to invest in an underrepresented market, existing data suggests that gender diversity improves companies’ profitability, and Rhodes was keen to exploit this. “I’ve been in the industry for 14 years. I was running a fund prior to launching Aruwa, and when I was fundraising for that fund, I looked around and saw that there
Black Coffee, the famed South African DJ and record producer, whose real name is Nkosinathi Maphumulo, backed Andela, a tech talent incubator and unicorn launched from Lagos in 2015. But he’s not the only musician dipping his toe into the tech scene – African artists worldwide are using personal funds and collectives to invest in startups. Mr. Eazi, real name Oluwatosin Ajibade, made headlines in Africa’s tech circles following his investment in pawaPay, a UK-based and Africa-focused mobile payments company through Zagadat Capital. But unlike Jay-Z and many other African-American musicians now entering
Rusty and River Fields, two brothers born and raised in Brooklyn, have started the first hacker house for young Black tech entrepreneurs. The house, nicknamed “R-House,” brings tech enthusiasts together to live and work alongside each other for four weeks as they build their own Web-3.0 startups. Speaking to Bronx.news, Rusty Fields, who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a neuroscience degree, said: “Black builders, they face unique challenges when they go to launch companies.” “We really wanted to create the space and experience for them to build deep and authentic
Black-owned acceleration organization /dev/color recently announced its partnership with visual discovery platform, Pinterest, to help support its mission of changing the tech industry for good. The $3 million partnership launched last year is dedicated to elevating Black technologists and leaders throughout the tech industry. Both companies will provide coaching and mentorship programs to help empower Black software engineers, executives, and entrepreneurs, giving them the tools they need to succeed within the tech industry. Also, HBCU students will benefit from this partnership as both platforms look to invest in the Black
