To succeed – you need the right tools, and people of color trailblazing in the tech and engineering space are giving back to their communities by creating initiatives to help further propel those looking to step foot into the sector. One such techie is Asia Sharif, a self-taught Junior Software Engineer, Blockchain Developer, and Co-Founder of TechNewbies, an educational technology platform. From a non-technical background, she went into technology in January 2021 as she’s always been fascinated by the world, particularly technology and its implications for the future. Ms. Sharif
Latinas in Tech have released the Latina Founders list, a compilation of founders from the community who have raised $1M or more and start-up owners that are on track to raise a similar amount. Latinos have always represented just a tiny share of Venture Capital investment, and firms have long thought that Latinas aren’t represented at all, so Cecilia Corral and Latinas in Tech set out to prove this wrong. According to Crunchbase, Black and Latinx founders have raised $2.3 billion, representing 2.6% of overall funding. However, Latina-founded ventures are not even listed in the findings. At the
Administrators at historically Black colleges are patiently awaiting passage of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, with hopes that the bill’s record funding for HBCUs and their science and tech students on a path to further success. They believe the proposed funding level in the Build Back Better bill would make their school more competitive and improve job prospects for students. The package – if passed – would provide $3 billion for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM, programs at minority-serving institutions. It comes at a time where dozens of companies
A Black-led, Gen Z fintech startup providing income-constrained individuals investment opportunities has announced an $18M Series A investment round. The group of diverse investors rallying up to fund Lendtable’s future included SoftBank’s SB Opportunity Fund, Valor Equity Partners, and CEOs of Complex Networks and Social Finance, Inc. The fintech firm, run by founders under 30-years-old, has already disbursed over $2.4 million in match benefits to hundreds of employees in just a year, running the gamut from those employed by small consumer brand companies to Fortune 500 companies like Google, Microsoft,
PNC Financial Services Group Inc.’s charitable foundation has announced a five-year $16.8 million grant to Howard University to build The Howard University and PNC National Center for Entrepreneurship. The center will support expanded opportunities for Black entrepreneurship with enhanced educational, leadership, and capacity-building resources and programs nationwide. As a part of PNC’s wider commitment to providing over $1.5 billion in funds to create “economic empowerment” for Black Americans, this donation is just one of the financial institution’s countless plans to support the community. It plans to provide $88 billion worth of investments,
Beyonce has expanded her partnership with Peloton and is releasing another series today in the hope of inspiring HBCU students on their fitness journey. Peloton will also be donating their bikes to HBCU fitness facilities this fall as part of the collaboration. The 72-hour fitness session with Beyonce will include 17 classes spanning three days with content streaming globally from Peloton Studios in London and New York. For the first time, Peloton will include classes in three languages — English, German and Spanish — to be more inclusive. According to a press release
Netflix and Howard University have established a $5.4 million scholarship, called the Chadwick A. Boseman Memorial Scholarship, in honor of the esteemed actor. The scholarship will cover four years of tuition at Howard’s College of Fine Arts for one student every year. Students who receive the scholarship will have demonstrated a drive for excellence, leadership, respect, empathy, passion, and exceptional skills in the arts, “reminiscent of Boseman,” according to a statement on the university’s website. “It is with immense pleasure and deep gratitude that we announce the creation of an
In many ways, Caleb Anderson is like any other child his age—he enjoys swimming in his family’s pool at their home in Marietta, Georgia, and loves watching Marvel movies. But the one thing that makes him stand out is that at the tender age of 12, he enrolled in college to study aerospace engineering. The Georgia Institute of Technology student’s journey reportedly started at just 3-weeks old when his mother noticed he was mimicking her motions. At six months, Anderson was reading, and by the time he was nine months
Mikayla Harris, a senior from Morgan State University, a school that breeds excellence in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, was awarded $15,000 from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation for 2021. Harris is Morgan State University’s second consecutive scholar to win the highly competitive Astronaut Scholarship. In a nationwide selection, 60 top junior and senior STEM students across 44 universities were awarded the scholarship, which aids students with mentors, professional and personal development, and networking with astronauts, C-suite level executives, and industry leaders to help advance their careers. Harris said she applied to represent
US tech giant Adobe has donated $3million to historically Black colleges and universities and a Hispanic serving institution to help minority students get into tech. Bowie State University, Winston-Salem State University, and a school catering to Hispanic students will receive $1 million donations under Adobe’s new Anchor School Program. The program aims to “provide students with training, career readiness programs, internships, financial assistance, and digital tools.” Adobe’s chief talent, diversity, and inclusion officer, Brian Miller, told Fortune that it’s a “deep, focused partnership” that “really” allows the company to expose
