The East Los Angeles Community Union (TELACU) and Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) have announced $50,000 in scholarships for 14 first-generation Latino students pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). According to research by the Pew Centre, Hispanic and Latino workers make up 17% of the workforce but only 8% of people working in STEM. TELACU and SoCalGas’ collaboration couldn’t have come at a better time. The companies have partnered on initiatives to address social inequality and help students navigate the education system over the last three decades.
Black founders Kim Knight and Shanelle McKenzie are the women behind the wellness platform, The Villij, which provides Black women with a safe space for healing and wellness. Why is it important to have wellness spaces for Black people? The wellness industry has struggled to welcome Black and brown women. Instead, for many years, the wellness industry has reconstructed a narrative that has seen self-care become synonymous with wealth and class. Despite holistic practices being hugely beneficial for the Black community, especially when it comes to healing from racial trauma,
According to Twitter trolls, the old rules against bigotry and hate speech no longer apply now that Musk has officially taken over the popular social media app. The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) shared that the number of tweets using the N-word had increased by 500% more in 12 hours following Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. Yoel Roth, Twitter’s Head of Safety and Integrity, also reported a huge increase in tweets with bigoted content, racial slurs and hate speech. He tweeted that a short-term trolling campaign was largely to blame, with
According to a new report by Coding Black Females, the proportion of Black women working in tech is disproportionately smaller than in the rest of the UK workforce. Why are “thousands” of Black women missing from the tech industry? The Office of National Statistics data found that Black women make up 1.8% of the UK workforce but less than 0.6% of the technology sector. Furthermore, although women’s representation in tech has increased marginally over the past five years, Black women are still lagging. Not only do Black women have to undergo biased
Aisha Bowe
In response to the lack of diversity in the UK’s teaching force, Lewis Hamilton’s charitable foundation, Mission 44, has co-launched a campaign to to recruit and train more Black teachers in science, technology and maths (STEM) subjects. The STEM From Black campaign is part of Mission 44’s two-year partnership with educational charity Teach First. Fronting the campaign is Dr. Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE, tech leader and founder of the award-winning social enterprise, Stemettes. Research by Tech First has revealed that out of 500,000 teachers in England, only 2% are from Black
A former orphanage for Black children in Nova Scotia, known for its historic institutional abuse, has reopened as Kinney Place, a community hub for Black businesses. The Orphanage With A Dark Past The Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children, established in the 1920s to ‘meet the needs of disadvantaged Black youth,’ became a symbol of prominent struggle amongst the Black community. After closing in the 1980s, hundreds of former residents began to disclose the neglect and abuse they had faced during their time in the orphanage. A public inquiry also revealed
One hundred years after the Tulsa race massacre saw the US’ wealthiest Black community burn to the ground, Tulsa is experiencing a resurgence of Black entrepreneurial community. The Black Tech Street, founded by Tyrance Billingsley II, is a network committed to scaling and cultivating Black potential through tech and entrepreneurship. The community provides a safe space for Black entrepreneurs and visionaries to thrive and grow, creating a model that creates space for people to build inclusive and equitable economies. The global Black tech hub, based in the heart of Tulsa, has
The latest figures from Crunchbase have revealed that Black founders raised just $187 million in the third quarter of this year, considerably less than the $350 million WeWork’s Adam Neumann raised for his latest venture. TechCrunch reports that this quarter’s figures mark a significant and continued decline in capital for Black-owned businesses. In total, Black founders have raised just over $2 billion in venture capital funding this year – although this may seem like a lot – it’s a massive decrease from the record-breaking $4.72 billion raised in 2021. Lack of
Every celebrity is migrating into the VC space, it seems. Kevin Hart is the latest example of a notable entertainer making major moves in the investment space. The comedian’s venture capital firm, Hartbeat Ventures, has received its first institutional investment from JP Morgan, the largest bank in the US. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the bank provided “the max allocation” through Project Spark, an initiative launched by the bank to support firms led by underrepresented founders. Hartbeat Ventures, launched earlier this year, is an early-stage VC firm focusing on financial inclusion. In
