Tell us about yourself and what you do? Talofa, my name is Pou Dimitrijevich I am a Product Designer, living and working in the epicenter of tech: San Francisco, CA. I was born in Pago Pago, American Samoa, but grew up in Southern California. As a woman of color and as a first-generation Samoan woman, where I would go ‘next’–after high school or post-college–wasn’t always so perspicuous. I never thought I’d end up in Tech. I was raised by a single mother, in a two-bedroom apartment with seven siblings and
On a trip to Uganda for a friends wedding, I took a random stroll through Kampala. I’d never been before and wanted to get a feel for the city. If I was hoping to escape work, the universe had other ideas. The first left I glance I see the familiar logo of Andela. Running POCIT, there are certain amazing companies and organizations you consistently hear about, Andela being foremost among them. With existing investors including Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, GV, and Spark Capital, their reputation proceeded them. I had to see
In FIVE days, I’ll be graduating from UC Berkeley. I’ll have completed 16 consecutive years of grade school. Knowing what I know now, here is a breakdown of what I wished I had learned during that time. On average, students in California spend 6.24 hours in school and roughly 181 school days per year — that’s 1,086 hours of schooling per year. Multiply that by the 16 years of schooling, give or take a couple hours here and there. I’ve spent 17, 376 hours of my life in school. That’s
A lot of founders and VCs give advice to startup founders after they’ve become millionaires and notched some wins, which certainly produces some helpful tips but also loads of success bias. On the other hand, some of the best advice I’ve gotten is from fellow entrepreneurs in the earliest stages of their startups, just like me. I can’t consider myself successful yet, but I can say I have some experiences worth sharing with other entrepreneurs. One of the most frequent things I get asked is “how did you raise the
Five years ago I was leading strategic partnerships for a World Bank agricultural research institution. I was “living my best life”, travelling all over the world and making an “impact” — at least that’s what I thought until I found myself on a rooftop in Nairobi, Kenya with a filmmaker, a designer, and a restaurateur who would change my life forever. That night, inspired by the courage, drive, and resilience of my peers I realized that disrupting the narrative on Africa in a way that did not involve “selling poverty”
This may seem confusing and quite drastic upon initially skimming over the title, but there is a back story that provides context to a unique problem and an equally viable solution that sprouted in my life for the past year, looking back, and looking forward into 2018. I am your typical and atypical nerd. I grew up playing video games everyday, reading sci-fi/fantasy books, illustrating, writing stories, composing music, playing horn instruments obnoxiously loud in the garage, and studying any subject I found and deemed intriguing and significant to the human
I got a chance to sit down and speak to one my favorite comedy/tech YouTubers, Jarvis Johnson. When he’s not making insightful and hilarious videos about the tech world, he’s a Software Engineer at Patreon [who are currently hiring for a bunch of roles on pocitjobs.com]. Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do? I’m Jarvis. I’m a software engineer at this company called Patreon. I have a YouTube channel where I talk about life and tech through the lens of comedy and a comedy podcast called Sad boyz
This is part two of our new series Fashion Meets Tech [see part one here], in tandem with onchek Jordan, a software designer at Etsy and formerly Twitter, is one to talk about music, art, and design. As a creative, who currently shares his creativity through software, he can easily go in depth on fashion and poetry as well. In his world, creativity is fluid. It can can take any form. “I’m glad to be here,” he said as he walked in. “I’ve never really done this before, but let’s
Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do? I’m a data journalist analyzing and covering trends in the black tech ecosystem related to public policy, equity, education, and the growth of black tech communities. I am also the founder of ThePLUGDaily.com—the first daily technology newsletter covering founders and innovators of color. I also run BLKTECHCLT—Charlotte’s first black tech hub supporting black entrepreneurship and research initiatives in the city. How and why did you get involved in tech I learned to code in high school thanks to an internship
This is a collaboration with onchek.com, a platform that helps you shop luxury fashion from Africa [You can purchase all the looks worn via their site]. They spoke to Software Engineer Iheanyi Ekechukwu, someone who should be familiar with POCIT audiences. He featured as one of our very first spotlights all the way back in 2015! Here he talks about his style, his fashion inclinations and of course some tech talk. Enjoy. It was about 9 AM, right before it started raining, that Iheanyi walked into the studio, wearing layers
