This article was first published by Priyanka Jain on Medium. What a weight off my shoulders!! I opened my to-do list and scratched off all the items tagged work. After 20+ years in the tech industry, I experienced a first last week. I was unceremoniously let go from my position as Director of Engineering on a Zoom call that lasted 5 minutes at the end of my workday. I’ve witnessed and been indirectly affected by tech layoffs before. As we weather this latest round of shake-ups in the tech industry, I
The nonprofit social startup digitalundivided has released its latest Project Diane report unveiling the experiences of Latina and Black women tech entrepreneurs. Catalyzing Latina and Black women’s growth Founded in 2012, the Newark-based startup leverages data, programs, and advocacy to catalyze economic growth for Latina and Black women founders at all stages of their entrepreneurial and funding journeys. In 2016, digitalundivided launched the Project Diane Report, the first biennial demographic study that captures the experiences of Latina and Black women tech founders. “Building on the legacy of women like Diane Nash who worked
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
This article was first published by Jennifer Opal on her blog. Let me introduce myself… My name is Jennifer Opal, I’m a DevOps Engineer currently working for Dropbox Sign. Outside of my day-to-day, I’m a Multi-Award Winning Technologist, Technical Blogger, Keynote Speaker & Neurodiversity & Inclusion Advocate. On top of this, I also sit on the Co-Production Board of a UK-based charity called, ‘Neurodiversity in Business’. You can learn more about me, my work outside of my full time job as a DevOps Engineer & more by checking out my
After days of turmoil, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) customers are now able to access their money held in the bank. What happened to SVB? It took just 24 hours for US tech’s favorite bank to fall from grace. SVB served nearly half of US VC-backed tech startups and investors, according to the FT. But interest rates rose, bond values shrank, and with the tech industry slowdown, deposit withdrawals rose too. In a crude oversimplification: companies and investors pulled their money out of SVB amid economic uncertainty. To meet depositor demands for
This article was first published by Chuma Okoro on Medium. This one is for you, fellow engineer. Folks in other career verticals, just observe. Seeing the recent news about layoffs and hiring freezes at top tech companies like Meta and Twitter; anyone who works in tech must have their eyebrows raised. You did all that struggling to get your job as a software engineer and now the idea of losing that job, due to reasons out of your control, is real. In most employment contracts, they indicate that you’re an
Frequency People is the Black-owned social collaboration platform that lets creators control almost every aspect of the online communities they build. Individual users and businesses can create a public or private community to connect with those with similar interests. Followers can join these communities or networks and choose to pay for access to exclusive content. This means that brands, influencers, artists, and other creatives can seamlessly monetize their followers through ticket sales, ads, subscriptions to exclusive lives, AR content, and NFTs. Atlanta-based duo John York and John McAdory founded Frequency
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
Every year, Forbes spotlights the under-30s blazing a trail in their respective fields. With the release of the Forbes 30 under 30 Europe list, we’ve rounded up some of the Black and Brown tech founders recognized as powering a digital revolution. Lethabo Motsoaledi Co-Founder and CTO, Voyc Lethabo Motsoaledi is the co-founder and CTO of Voyc, which uses AI speech analytics software to monitor call center interactions and provide valuable insights. Motsoaledi and her co-founder moved their HQ from South Africa to the Netherlands in 2020 to take advantage of the
