Going viral. It’s the coveted achievement every company, agency, firm, person posting on social media hopes for. It’s the attention founders need to build a brand, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have had well-shared efforts in the past. From my call-out article about INC. Magazine, to the ‘fundraise’ for the AI company I founded — I’ve had my share of social media wins. And now, as I’ve pivoted my focus from being a founder to a funder, It’s happened again! This time it was completely organic. I tweeted this
My birthday is in exactly six weeks. I wake up every night thinking about telling this story. So I am telling it now. Six months ago, I was living in New York and flew back home (San Francisco Bay Area, Redwood City) for a board meeting and to be part of an entrepreneur video series profile of me. Before the board meeting, I asked for an aspirin. I had a weird headache but I thought it was the travel. My board meetings are never stressful because I have great board
This past summer I had the opportunity to intern in the infamous California Bay Area (otherwise known as Silicon Valley) for Accenture. I worked in Accenture’s Ventures division, where they partner and strategically invest in the most promising innovations in the market. Being in Silicon Valley taught me valuable lessons that I could not have picked up anywhere else. Network The network in The Valley is incredible. I was able to network with venture capitalists, tech entrepreneurs, and corporate innovation groups. The individuals I met took my learnings to the
Across the board, facial/human recognition tools have proven to be erroneous when it comes to accurately identifying dark skin colors. These errors show up in two ways: I. The product mistakes people with dark skin for something/someone else. II. The product is unable to detect dark skin I. Product Mistakes People with Dark Skin for Something / Someone Else Google Photos Google Photos is a platform that provides users with a place to organize, manage and back up their personal photographs. It uses machine-learning technology to categorize photos with similar
A spat between the UK Government, PayPal and Kenya freelancers has got everyone mixing up issues. “Thousands of jobless graduates from Kenya who help lazy university students in developed countries to cheat academically could soon be forced to find something else to do after the UK government started clamping down on essay mills. On Thursday, international digital money transfer service, PayPal, announced it was withdrawing its services to essay-writing firms selling to university students. This was after weeks of pressure from the UK government, which insists on stopping payments for
Facebook is plotting a new cryptocurrency dubbed ‘Libra’ for its vast social network scheduled for release in 2020. Libra Coin, a virtual currency, will be governed by Libra association, a conglomerate of 28 American and European corporations who will decide everything from who can join the network, process transactions and how much currency will circulate. As an African, it is my opinion that the peoples of Africa, its governments and central banks should be concerned, because we risk ceding more control, from the little we have now, to a digital
Originally published by Wogrammer here. For Kishau Rogers, a love of technology starts with understanding the problems it can enable her to solve. “I like the impact. I need technology to have some meaning behind the use.” Drawn to the field of computer science while a college student at Virginia Commonwealth University, Kishau took her first job as a programmer when she was a junior in college and has been building software ever since. “I worked primarily in the research, health, and social service space, using tech to create solutions to
The detention of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border [in every single case presented], the wrongful deportation of 7,000 foreign students accused of cheating on a language test, racist or sexist discrimination based on social media profile or appearance – what do these seemingly disparate examples have in common? In every case, an algorithm made a decision with serious consequences for people’s lives. Algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) are starting to augment human decision-making in Canada’s immigration and refugee system, with significant implications for the fundamental human rights of those subjected to
In May 2018, Twitter officially released the Account Activity API to help developers build solutions that enable businesses to create better customer engagement experiences on its platform. On the team of engineers that worked on the API is Babatunde Fashola, a Nigerian software engineer that has worked at Twitter for the past three years building products now used by millions of people around the world. Many Nigerians may recognize the Twitter software engineer’s name as that of the former Lagos state governor and current Minister of Power, Works, and Housing.
At the start of Black History Month 2019, Google designed its daily-changing homepage logo to include an image of African-American activist Sojourner Truth, the great 19th-century abolitionist and women’s rights activist. But what would Truth say about Google’s continual lack of care and respect toward people of color? While bringing more attention to Sojourner Truth is venerable, Google can do better. As a professor and researcher of digital cultures, I have found that a lack of care and investment by tech companies towards users who are not white and male
