Several Black-led venture capital firms have written an open letter in response to a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) op-ed which suggests Silicon Valley Bank’s diversity focus contributed to its collapse. Following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the WSJ published an opinion piece by Kessler in which he stated: “I’m not saying 12 white men would have avoided this mess, but the company may have been distracted by diversity demands.” Black Women in Venture Capital, BLCK VC, 1863 Ventures, and Living Cities wrote an open letter to the Wall Street Journal editors and
Edtech startup Kai XR has raised $1.6 million in seed funding to expand its virtual reality (VR) educational resources to one million kids across the US. Kapor Capital led the oversubscribed round, which included Mitchell Kapor Foundation, American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact, and others. The Oakland-based edtech startup is making education more accessible through inclusive mixed-reality spaces that allow children to explore, create, and learn. From education to innovation Kai Frazier founded Kai XR in 2018. Through her time as an educator in the classroom and in museums,
Silicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) collapse has reignited debates about whether the US government is doing enough to regulate financial institutions – but another debate is brewing. Here’s an excerpt from a Wall Street Journal opinion piece published on March 12: “Was there regulatory failure? Perhaps. SVB was regulated like a bank but looked more like a money-market fund. Then there’s this: In its proxy statement, SVB notes that besides 91% of their board being independent and 45% women they also have “1 Black,” “1 LGBTQ+” and “2 Veterans.” I’m not
Priyanjali Gupta, a fourth-year computer science student specializing in data science at the Vellore Institute of Technology, went viral on LinkedIn after using AI to translate American sign language (ASL). Gupta got the idea from her mom, who pushed her to put her engineering degree to good use. “She taunted me,” she told Interesting Engineering. “But it made me contemplate what I could do with my knowledge and skillset.” “The dataset is made manually by running the Image Collection Python file that collects images from your webcam for or all the mentioned below signs
Whether we’re talking about ChatGPT, AI lawyers or the chatbot that lets you chat with Tupac in real time – generative AI is taking the world by storm. But these systems are also reproducing many of the same biases we see in the real world – from sexist performance reviews to racist images. Leading AI ethicist Dr Timnit Gebru, known for her groundbreaking research on the risks of large language models, was forced forced out of her position as the co-head of Google’s AI ethics team after raising issues of
The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality.” But can technology and digital education really champion the change women and girls need? In today’s digital age, technology is a powerful tool in empowering women, especially women of color, to access resources and create their own platforms to share their stories and experiences, as well as educate others. We have seen a rise in Black women tech influencers such as Maya Bello, the software engineer who uses TikTok to teach coding, and Hosanna
Last week, Minority-Serving Institutions received over $175 million to improve access to affordable, reliable, and high-speed internet. The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) recently announced it awarded more than $175 million to 61 colleges and universities as part of the Connecting Minority Communities (CMC) Pilot Program. The funding comes from the Internet for All initiative which aims to ensure all Americans can access affordable, reliable, high-speed internet. The initiative includes funds for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI), Minority Serving Institutions, and
Particles for Justice, a diverse group of physicists, are calling on their colleagues to support Black Studies and LGBTQ+ visibility. The group, who also organized the 2020 Strike For Black Lives, is now calling on academics and professional societies to take a visible and active stand against the “authoritarian” attacks on Black and queer studies. The group includes participle physicist and feminist scholar Chanda Prescod-Weinstein as well as physicists Tim M.P. Tait (University of California, Irvine) and Nausheen Shah (Wayne State University). In a statement, the group criticized the “manufactured moral
Comcast NBCUniversal has given a $2 million grant to The Hidden Genius Project to help advance their commitment to advancing digital equity. The Hidden Genius Project, launched by Brandon Nicholson, is committed to eradicating the obstacles against young Black boys by providing them with training and mentorship. The grant marks the extension of Comcast’s seven-year partnership with The Hidden Genius Project, which has helped them expand their programmatic, volunteer, and outreach work across communities. “Our continued partnership with Comcast NBCUniversal will equip us to engage even more Black youth with the skills, experiences,
To offer an in-depth, data-backed look into the unique Black experience in the tech industry, the Info-Tech Research Group has published The State of Black Professionals in Tech report. “Diversity in tech is not a new topic, and it’s not a secret that technology organizations struggle to attract and retain Black employees,” Allison Straker and Ugbad Farah, Info-Tech research directors and leads on the report, said in a statement. “Current events have once again brought diversity to the forefront for many organizations. The pandemic, along with preparations for a recession and
