After winning $1.3 million in scholarships himself, Christopher Gray founded Scholly, an app that helps students easily find scholarships for college. Scholly was featured on ABC’s Shark Tank, landing a deal with Daymond John and Lori Greiner and sparking the biggest fight in Shark Tank history. Scholly has over 4 million users and has helped students raise over 100 million dollars. It was first launched in 2015 with the simple goal of matching students with available scholarships: Input your age, interests, and other demographic information and Scholly would find potential fits. The idea,
Raising venture capital is a daunting experience for Black women as both the UK and US startup ecosystems fail Black entrepreneurs with innovative ideas. Furthermore, it’s clear that an entrepreneur’s ethnicity can affect their access to VC in the UK, with Black founders receiving just 0.24% and Black female founders receiving 0.02% of the total venture capital invested over the past 10 years. And before 2021, only 93 Black female founders in the US had raised $1 million or more in venture capital, according to ProjectDiane, a biennial report on the
The climate of today means if you want to reach a widespread audience you need to utilize social media. One key tool for founders and those looking for new tech opportunities is Linkedin – it’s the place to go for job offers, meeting potential investors, building your company and personal brand, and networking. With more than 774 million members and its focus on business, LinkedIn offers a valuable opportunity for industry professionals to support their businesses marketing goals. From my experience, it seems to be the best place for building connections with
When creating a startup, you go through a few hurdles along the way – from financial challenges to picking the right co-founder that will help spearhead the company with you. It’s never an easy journey, and you should never believe anyone that tells you otherwise, so it’s always essential to have a mentor or an advisor who can share their mistakes and lessons – so you don’t make the same errors. Unfortunately, not everyone has the privilege of landing a mentor or sponsor that will give you the time of
Deciding on the right type of funding for your business can be difficult. In fact, it’s considered one of the hardest and most stressful things you could do as it can make or break your startup. Every funding option has advantages and disadvantages, and some are better suited to certain types of businesses and business models. It’s important to explore the funding options available before deciding how to build your company as the route you take will have some serious consequences. Here we break down what some of the keywords
Tech executive and entrepreneur John Imah is one of those leading forces in business today. Imah joined Snapchat as the Global Head of Partnerships and Strategy in 2018, and as you can imagine – it’s a pretty busy job. Still, when he’s not at Snap, Imah works as a tech advisor to startups and some of our favorite A-list celebrities. His level of experience is beyond his years – he sold his first tech startup at age 15, and the age of 16, he sold his second company – a gaming firm
Black Tech Twitter is good for many things – from shining a light on the rising talent in the sector, helping members of the community land their dream jobs, to updating those who are keen to get into the industry on the latest events happening around the globe. But one thing it’s increasingly becoming well-known for is being a safe space to ask for advice and get “absolute gems” in return. Here at POCIT, we’ve broken down some of the latest advice from Black Tech Twitter this month. Just go
In response to evolving discourse around social justice and identity and research on the links between psychological safety and productivity, more and more employers are turning to inclusion training as a tool to equip employees to excel in their roles. With global teams spread out across various cultures — with different histories and social contexts — the task of training all team mates on bias, privilege and inclusion in a meaningful way to increase confidence navigating conversations can seem like an impossible task. In 2020 when I joined Brandwatch, with their offices in
Growing up as a child of immigrants had its struggles. I could see my parents’ difficulty adjusting to a new country, culture, and language. I didn’t want to have the same challenges, so I got into a habit of not mentioning my heritage. While doing volunteer work, I learned a lesson. I shared with colleagues that I grew up in the U.S., but one of them realized I was leaving out vital details, my heritage. With a sparkle in her eyes, she wanted to know all about my home country and its culture. Her
As of 2019, according to a report by the Nation Center of Women in Technology and Information Technology, Black women make up 3% of the computing jobs in the United States. While there are many aspects that come in to play, such as having the access and resources to learn or having a psychologically safe work environment to thrive in, a big factor can also be attributed to not having enough resources to feel that they can be successful as a Software Developer. Today we’ve put together a list of
