The Capital Factory and DivInc Black winners in Tech Challenge pitch competition have been announced. Typically – there is just one winner but according to reports the competition was too good this year and two startups were chosen. The local winner of the challenge, which is aimed at increasing diversity in the tech community, was Safer Management, a public school and university attendance tracking startup. Safer was founded by Fred Burns in 2020. His company, along with Indiana-based gig work platform Clutch, took home a $100,000 investment. According to reports, Burns noticed one of these
LeBron James teams up with Nike for new basketball Roblox experience – the NBA star is headed to NIKELAND on Roblox “to co-create and imagine a new future of basketball together with its community.” A series of new mini-games will let fans learn the tricks that the basketball superstar nicknamed The King, uses in real life to leave his opponents dumbfounded on the court. James will also teach the hoop and its fundamentals to the fans. These lessons are designed to help players improve their basketball game in real life. Once fans
According to U.S. Labor statistics, as of December 2020, the global talent shortage amounted to 40 million skilled workers worldwide. By 2030, the global talent shortage is expected to reach 85.2 million—сompanies worldwide risk losing $8.4 trillion in revenue because of the lack of skilled talent. But the reality is more complicated than just a shortage of developers. The problem also has a lot to do with how most companies hire developers. A 2017 Indeed survey found that 80% of U.S. tech managers have selected a candidate who has graduated from a coding boot camp
As its latest diversity report shows, Netflix has made more progress in regards to diversity and inclusion, and according to the report, as of last year, more than half of the Los Gatos company’s global workforce and more than half of its leadership was female. Meanwhile, nearly 11% of its US workforce is Black and about 9% is Hispanic or Latinx — proportions that are significantly higher than those at many other tech companies. All those figures rose significantly in 2021 from the year before, according to the report, and
A new initiative, launched by Dream Legacy Foundation (DLF), an organization that runs innovative programs to boost entrepreneurship within the Black Community and Ryerson University’s business incubator, has just taken off.
Cynthia is an innovative scientist, an advocate for Black girls and women. Through her organization, Black Girls Do STEM, she has been able to help dozens of middle and high school students by exposing them to career pathways and empowering them to become STEM professionals. Black Girls Do STEM has impacted over 60 girls locally and worked across seven school districts, 13 community partners and secured three grant funders in two years. Unfortunately, being a Black woman in a majority white male industry comes with challenges. Speaking to Megha Mohan
Latinx founders are the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in America–but their businesses are struggling to scale and that is partly due to the serious lack of funding they’re given. Latinx founders own 350,000 businesses with employees in the United States, and these businesses create nearly three million American jobs, according to research I led with Stanford University’s Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative. And yet they receive a small portion of the investment piece. While overall numbers on funding for Latinx founders are depressing, Individual stories are inspiring. The 2021 Crunchbase Diversity Spotlight Report highlights the 30 Black-
Adventr — an interactive streaming platform — is set to take over the tech sector with its patented voice-control technology. The Black owned startup firm, owned by Devo Harris, a Grammy-award-winning producer, just secured a $5M round. It was led by Paladin Capital, a leading global investor that has an extensive portfolio of revolutionary cyber companies. Fellow investors included Reinventure Capital, In/Visible Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Harris’ longtime business collaborator and Grammy-award-winning artist John Legend and Karen Jaw-Madsen. The funding will go toward Adventr’s technology team and marketing to
According to a new study conducted by Thoughtworks, there are fewer opportunities for people from under-represented groups in the UK’s tech sector to hold leadership positions. The firm found – through its research – that out of 300,000 ethnic minorities in the UK in 2020, only 37% were in “positions of responsibility”, compared with 41% of their white counterparts. IT workers from ethnic minorities were also twice as likely to be in non-permanent positions than white workers. Amy Lynch, head of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at Thoughtworks UK, said:
California’s civil rights regulator is investigating Google’s treatment of Black female workers following alleged incidents of harassment and discrimination, according to two people familiar with the matter.
