Why don’t you tell us about yourself? I’m Nafisa; I graduated from UCL two years ago. I studied natural sciences but realized I wanted to do something I loved and pushed me to reach my potential [whatever that was]. I got involved with a lot of social enterprise initiatives during and post my time at University, as I knew I didn’t want to jump into the corporate world straight away. I just wanted a better time to keep my mind open. I then left to start my venture which is
Co-Founder & CEO of ScanBite What made you decide to work in tech/get involved in tech? I’ve also wanted to run a business, and I’ve always loved health & fitness. As I learned more about business and successful entrepreneurs, I learned that staying ahead of the times is key. I also want to create something substantial or something much bigger than myself that can impact millions of lives. I knew it had to be tech and so that was that, I decided I wanted to become tech founder. What was an obstacle
Senior Frontend Engineer at Eventbrite Why don’t you go ahead and tell me about yourself? I got excited about computers at an early age. Probably early elementary school. My mom had a 286 computer that only ran DOS (pre-Windows). When she’d come home from the store, I would take the receipts and type them up in the word processor. I loved it! I learned basic DOS commands; enough to games like Math Blaster, Word Muncher, and Typing Tutor. I owe so much of my trajectory to those early moments. I went
Michael [POCIT co-founder] introduced me to you and your fantastic site, tell us a bit about Her Agenda? ‘Her Agenda’ is a digital media platform that works to bridge the gap between ambition and achievement for millennial women. Its focused on women empowerment by showing examples and providing solutions. We know that the number of female CEO’s is disproportionally small. And so, we’re working to change that by highlighting women that are already leading in their industries, and also providing access to the resources to help you to become a leader
I first came across Ruben on Twitter via a series of fantastic articles on medium on breaking into startups. I highly recommend you all check out [if you haven’t already]. You’ve got an incredible backstory, which includes being a cellist. How has learning and playing an instrument influenced you? I used to tell my cello students, the ability to learn an instrument well is a by-product of the life skills you are learning Essentially you are setting a goal to push yourself every week; you learn how to perform. For
Let’s talk about early beginnings, more in your younger years…where exactly were you born? I’m from a small town in Michigan. Growing up outside of a city and working on a farm as a child was a great way to experience a very different way of life than my adult adventures in NYC and San Francisco. If you can, everyone should live in areas that represent how most Americans live. Walking a mile in someone else’s shoes is a great way to get a good understanding of how similar we
Tell me your story of how you got into tech. Yeah, sure. When I graduated from undergrad, I got a double degree in English and Psychology. My first job out was working on NPR on the show called ‘Tell Me More’ with Michel Martin. From there, I came to New York City to work at Discover Magazine. In that time, I was pretty set on being a journalist but I happened to read the book ‘Steve Jobs,’ which came out a little while ago, or it came out around then.
What made you choose to work in tech? I wanted to be in tech because I want to revive the Black family, by making dating fun again with Bae. Tech is the fastest way to get a product in consumers’ hands and helped Bae become the fastest growing app for people of color to meet, chat and date. What was an obstacle you faced and how did you overcome that obstacle? An obstacle I faced was changing my mindset not to rely on traditional methods of attaining knowledge. Simply put, there
Amanda is the co-founder and marketing director of tiphub Africa . She has been honored as one of Business Insider’s 30 Most Important Women In Tech Under 30, as one of BET’s Blacks on the Brink of Greatness, one of 2016 Walker’s Legacy Power 50 and as one of 5 future leaders in technology by Black Enterprise Magazine. Talk about your company and why you decided to create it! Alchemy is a drink discovery community for sharing, saving, and recommending adult beverages. Curated by your taste and location, we help
Founder & CEO of Blendoor continued from the article on Essence.com Would those be great ideas for pitching for anything then? The secret sauce to the pitch competition is telling a compelling story and doing so in a way that it resonates with your audience. For me, it was showing my personal story about how I grew up. I started in very humble beginnings, and I learned to code early, and I did AP computer science in high school, Stanford engineering undergrad, Microsoft, MIT. I interviewed for Google for an
