“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
In this article Maryam Nahhal, a part-time writer at Medium and tech enthusiast, dives into the taboo subject of money! She takes us on a journey through her personal experiences with money and illustrates how much our thoughts and feelings towards money have been shaped heavily by our gender, race and culture. As a POC who works in tech you may be all too familiar with the new issues that arise once you start making money, especially in terms of how you use that money. I think Biggie put it
Every year around 0.2% of business funding goes to Black women so last year when Joycelyn and I set out to raise £360k ($450k) whilst I had a very visible baby bump, we knew we’d have a serious fight on our hands… At this year’s London Tech Week, I was flicking through my notes and saw that a year ago we didn’t know the difference between VC and angel investment. Under a year after attending events to learn about investment, in an environment where young black women aren’t funded, we
A few months ago, over lunch a friend mentioned: “I first came across your name from your writing [articles] but I had no clue that you had this experience and your story was so unique.” That comment was the catalyst for writing this post. In this post, I want to break down the components that led me to start writing and how traveling, entrepreneurship, product management, and diversity in tech has provided me with a satisfying career to date as well as rare experiences. These seemingly unrelated themes have been
This article is tech founder’s Thompson Aderinkomi follow up to the popular article “How Getting Fired From My Own Company By VC’s Taught Me To Start Again Without Them…” Originally posted on Medium Building a company is like me building my wife an enclosure to expand and protect her garden from squirrels. I made it up and had no idea what I was doing, I’ve never built anything in my life. The same is true for most founders including me. But that did not stop me from building the enclosure and nor should it
“HBCUvc is solving for the lack of racial and ethnic diversity in Venture Capital (VC) to create inclusive and equitable economies.” That’s my formal pitch when I meet people at industry events. I admit it contains a lot of buzzwords. Depending on who’s in my audience, I will alter my pitch and say: “We’re creating Black and Latinx venture capital investors so that more entrepreneurs of color will receive funding, and ultimately create job and wealth opportunities for communities of color.” In response to either version of this pitch, the curious audiences will ask
This is the tale of a technology enabled phoenix. This is the tale of the death of a startup. It is the tale of betrayal and survival. It is long. It is a tale of redemption. It is worth the read. In the year 2011, I was inspired to start a technology-enabled primary care practice that would cut the cost of healthcare in half while 10x-ing the patient experience. I knew a lot about healthcare but nothing about running a clinic. Yet, I knew that I had done harder things
By all traditional estimates, Merline Saintil was not destined for success. Growing up as a poor girl in Haiti, she never dreamed of working side by side with world-class engineers and leaders in Silicon Valley. But, one afternoon at a career fair changed everything. “Actually, my first love was math. I only stumbled into computer science (CS) during a career fair in college. I credit this fortuitous event for propelling me from humble beginnings as a 5-year-old immigrant to living in the epicenter of Silicon Valley in less than a
BetterCloud are hiring for a whole bunch of roles on pocitjobs.com. Check it out! Tell us a bit about yourself? Sure. My Name is Mosi Platt. I’m a security compliance manager at BetterCloud. I joined the company on March 1st, 2018. Before joining BetterCloud, I was a governance risk and compliance consultant for 16 years. What’s your typical day like? So a typical day for me, the first thing I do when I come in and check email and check slack messages. And then I will start working. We are
Earlier this week, I decided to leave the London-based Pre-seed accelerator programme, Entrepreneur First (EF). I was a member of the 10th London cohort. EF is a startup accelerator backed by Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn), Greylock Partners, Mosaic Ventures, Founders Fund and Lakestar. Their USP is that they invest pre-team and pre-idea (truly pre-seed in every sense). I originally joined EF, because I bought into the opportunity presented that ‘EF is one the best place to find a co-founder and build a globally important company.’ It is important to
