A recent National Center for Women & Information Technology “By the Numbers” report puts Black women in computing in 2018 at 3% — and this statistic does not make a distinction between technical and nontechnical women in computing. Of the overall U.S. population, roughly 4.5% identify as LGBT. Since it’s incredibly hard to find industry-wide statistics on LGBT folks in tech, let’s take an extremely optimistic view and assume 4.5% of people in computing are LGBT. Combining these two percentages tells us that .00135% of the computing workforce identifies as Black, queer, and
Last week, Black Enterprise magazine published an interview with COO of Facebook and CEO of Lean In Sheryl Sandberg. It was rooted in the fact that Sandberg’s Lean In advice has fallen flat for most women, and more specifically for Black women. The strategy has been criticized by many thought leaders, including Michelle Obama who notably said, “that shit doesn’t work all the time.” And this quote from Mindy Harts, founder of The Memo sums up the basis of the criticism through a racialized lens: “Lean In was well-intentioned and
Building a network is a common recommendation for career development. A strong network can help you access unique opportunities, and offer advice to help you grow and handle challenging situations. Yet, many people — especially introverts — struggle with networking because they feel they lack the mental energy, time, or know-how. They sometimes have the perception that networking requires meeting more people than they can handle, or that the people they want to connect with are inaccessible. Over time, I’ve learned to overcome those challenges and grow my own network
Originally published by Wogrammer here. Ananya Cleetus has a day named after her in the city of Pittsburgh. She is the creator of an app called Anemone, a TEDx speaker, and a computer science student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She exudes a unique type of confidence while speaking intelligently and thoughtfully about the journey that led her here today. While Ananya has accomplished so much early in her career, her success hasn’t come without its share of personal adversity. Earlier in her collegiate career, while studying Computer Science
Originally published here on Medium Last month, my company Hustle Crew celebrated its third birthday. It’s a significant milestone for many reasons. Three years is the same amount of time I spent at university completing my bachelor’s degree. The longest period I’ve ever worked at a single company (Groupon, 2011–2014). Most importantly it’s far longer than many experts I met at the start — from other CEOs to investors — thought this business would last. I’ll spare you our origin story as I’ve shared it before, but in 2016 when I set
Every generation experiences a moment where it’s forced to sit with a new aspect of technology that temporarily calls everything that once existed into question. I know, for example, that my parent’s generation who became young adults in the 70s and 80s, felt this way about TV and computers. It was as if screens were taking over—multidimensional objects that offered viewers a lens into multidimensional spaces, providing new ways to connect, forever transforming the worlds of entertainment and communication. Those who had grown up without the presence of screens probably
Alexa’s always had a problem understanding commands from varying accents, however, what’s worrying is her reluctance to learn and improve. Alexa terrorised my Nigerian mother-in-law by refusing to grant any of her requests until she had asked at least five times, the fifth time in a forced British accent. I was amused at first because I have a dark sense of humour, but it got personal when Alexa repeatedly refused my husband’s requests. I’m Ugandan with a British accent. My Nigerian husband has a Nigerian accent, speaks English excellently, Yoruba
“In a lot of ways, Facebook is more like a government than a traditional company” – Mark Zuckerburg The rise of virtual internet platforms such as Facebook, Whatsapp, Telegram, Kakao is challenging established regimes of state and sovereignty, monetary policy and issuance of currency, control, ownership and governance of virtual resources in developing countries in Africa. Billions of users, including Africans, are spending more time on virtual networked platforms that command the attention of far greater audiences than the populations of individual nation states. WhatsApp has 1 billion, Telegram 200
In this article Maryam Nahhal, a part-time writer at Medium and tech enthusiast, dives into the taboo subject of money! She takes us on a journey through her personal experiences with money and illustrates how much our thoughts and feelings towards money have been shaped heavily by our gender, race and culture. As a POC who works in tech you may be all too familiar with the new issues that arise once you start making money, especially in terms of how you use that money. I think Biggie put it
“Every American should have a fair shot at starting a small business. The only things that should determine whether a new business succeeds are the strength of the idea and the hard work of the owners and employees.” – Elizabeth Warren She’s right. And the 7 billion dollar grant Senator Warren is proposing would certainly go a long way to make this happen — maybe. I was recently interviewed by Forbes for my thoughts around what the grant would mean to minority entrepreneurs, and my response may not have been
