Does Y Combinator invest in Black-owned companies? A question asked back in 2011 by online user prime0196. A time when diversity in tech was awful. It was also the year CNN published a long piece on how Silicon Valley was fighting to keep its diversity data secret. CNNMoney had filed a Freedom of Information request in August seeking EEO-1 data from 20 companies: The tech industry’s 10 biggest firms by annual sales and 10 smaller but influential firms, including Facebook and Twitter. The EEOC denied the request in full, saying
Ebay UK is launching a new hub on its website called Black in Bloom to connect consumers to Black-owned SMEs. The new initiative comes sometime after a report by the major marketplace revealed that one in five Gen Z consumers want to purchase from a business that supports people from underrepresented groups. It also follows a series of collaborations between Ebay and Black Girl Fest (BGF), a festival and platform designed for Black women, girls, and non-binary people. Back in April, the two launched an academy to nurture entrepreneurs with
On July 12, New York City Hall launched the first-ever Digital Games Industry Council to discuss supporting talent in that space. Participants included Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer and several members of the mayor’s office. The council came together to discuss how to expand the city’s digital games industry. The digital committee, designed to build a robust talent pipeline for talent in the digital games industry, aims to attract game development studios across five boroughs and help businesses operate and thrive in New York City. The meeting occurred following the announcement
Universal Pictures’ “NOPE,” directed and written by Jordan Peele, is one of this year’s most anticipated movies, and it has expanded into virtual reality. The multi-verse VR experience, which has premiered ahead of the film’s release this July, allows viewers to take an adventure in a virtual reality video game based on the horror film. Starring Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer, the movie follows the story of two siblings residing in an isolated town that just witnessed a mysterious and abnormal event. In the most recent trailer, they discover that
Connection. That’s all we need to thrive as a community, and Plain Sight’s recent partnership with the City of Miami is a prime example of that. Black-owned networking startup Plain Sight recently announced the launch of their inaugural Black Founders Demo Day. The networking event will take place on December 1 as a featured event at this year’s Art Basel. The annual event will allow attendees to connect with prominent angel investors and venture capital groups worldwide to showcase, inspire, and invest in Black and Brown wealth. This year’s event
Kenyan and Canadian-based solar energy platform, Solar Panda, has raised $8 million in Series A funding. The funding round was led by investors Oikocredit and Electrification Financing Initiative. The pay-as-you-go solar home system was founded by Andy Keith in 2016, to help provide clean, affordable solar energy to rural communities in Africa. The platform has already provided more than 200,000 solar home systems to households across Kenya from its 37 retail branches. “We are excited to partner with leading global impact investors Oikocredit and EDFI ElectriFI and thankful that this
Tennis legend Serena Williams has been announced as the keynote speaker for the Black Tech Week Conference, scheduled to take place in Cincinnati, OH, July 18-22. Black Tech Week, founded by Felecia Hatcher and Derick Pearson in 2016, is a minority-centered ecosystem-building festival that partners with founders, corporations, and the community to create a valuable experience for all investors, entrepreneurs, and techies of all kinds to enjoy. The event is committed to bringing Black tech founders, influencers, and innovators together to create memorable experiences centered around Black culture and inclusive
Earlier this year, on February 13th, Sporting Lagos FC played its first-ever football match, which ended in a draw. The club, which currently plays in the Nigerian National League, the country’s second tier, is the brainchild of Shola Akinlade, co-founder and CEO of financial technology company Paystack, which he says was acquired for more than $200 million in 2020 by Irish American financial services company Stripe. Akinlade says he intends for Sporting Lagos to be a platform for community development and social change. But managing a football club in Nigeria is often
Joelle Mbatchou, one of a few dozen people of color to make MIT’s Innovators Under 35 list this year, has done what some may describe as exceptional work over the years in the AI space. The 32-year-old has developed a machine-learning model called Regenie that makes analyzing the data quicker and cheaper while reducing the amount of computing power required. The method could allow researchers to identify genetic variants associated with specific diseases more easily. “With the increasing number of collaborations being established across large biobanks, many of them involving individuals
Sexual harassment, bullying, and racist stereotyping are common in the technology industry, creating a culture that drives underrepresented employees out of their jobs. This is something we’ve known for a while due to the extensive studies and investigations. A 2017 survey of more than 2,000 people who left tech jobs in the last three years found that 1 in 10 women in tech experience unwanted sexual attention, and nearly 1 in 4 people of color face stereotyping. The same year the study was published, Qichen Zhang quit her job at
