Beyonce has expanded her partnership with Peloton and is releasing another series today in the hope of inspiring HBCU students on their fitness journey. Peloton will also be donating their bikes to HBCU fitness facilities this fall as part of the collaboration. The 72-hour fitness session with Beyonce will include 17 classes spanning three days with content streaming globally from Peloton Studios in London and New York. For the first time, Peloton will include classes in three languages — English, German and Spanish — to be more inclusive. According to a press release
OneTen — a group of industry executives with a mission to hire more Black individuals — has just launched its inaugural scholarship program to spearhead 3,500 underserved students toward the tech industry. As a contribution toward OneTen’s commitment, Udacity and Blacks In Technology will lend a hand to support the initiative. Udacity, an American for-profit educational organization, will offer recipients the opportunity to partake in a flexible online program to allow them to pursue a full-time position or continue their educational pursuits. While Blacks In Technology will amplify students’ efforts by providing them
In the US, accelerators like Techstars and Y Combinator are the most active investors in Black founders, followed by early-stage investors like Backstage Capital and Kapor Capital that focus on diverse founders. As we already know, Black founders often get a small portion of the pie when it comes to investment – which is why it’s essential to highlight the VCs dedicated to investing in minority communities and those who have a history of supporting under-appreciated groups. We’ve sifted through a list created by the Black Founders list of VC firms across the US that
Brandwatch is hiring on pocitjobs.com Having worked at digital consumer intelligence platform Brandwatch for six years, Tara Seney has been Global Workplace Planning Manager for the past 20 months. Her time in the role has coincided with the pandemic, and as such, a lot of her work has focused on the company’s transition to remote work. In this interview, Tara talks about how Brandwatch has maintained a sense of community within the context of hybrid working and how they’ve evolved their diversity and inclusion initiatives in this new reality. Hey
Kave Bulambo, who grew up in South Africa before moving to Berlin, noticed the lack of diversity in tech in the European nation when she first landed a role in the sector. But it was when she realized that she also had just one Black engineer at her own start-up that she decided action seriously needed to be taken. That’s when she launched “Black in Tech Berlin,” a network surpassing more than 600 Black people in the tech and business sector – from founders, software engineers to designers. Before the
Fiverr — an Israeli online freelancer platform —has awarded five Black start-up firms $24K through its Future Collective Fellowship Program to help expand their business. The business accelerator is a fellowship for Black entrepreneurs, and five businesses were selected for the program’s inaugural class, and each will receive $24,000. The program is also backed up by 1863 Ventures, a Black-led and D.C.-based nonprofit organization, and Maestra, a women of color-owned business strategy firm, according to Afrotech. “Fiverr’s purpose is to provide anyone, no matter their race, religion, background or beliefs, the opportunity
Klasha, a Lagos and San Francisco-based startup that provides multiple integrations and APIs to facilitate transactions, has raised $2.4 million in seed to scale. Jessica Anuna first founded Klasha in 2018. At the time, the company’s focus was to make it easier for African consumers to purchase products directly from global fashion retailers. Now it has several features and a new business model centered around helping Africans make payments and get the goods they want, regardless of their location, reported TechCrunch. Klasha Checkout also allows international merchants to collect payments from Africa in local currencies and it uses what
Dell XPS, the laptop brand from Dell Technologies, has teamed up with actress and activist Yara Shahidi to “inspire Gen-Z to use technology to drive their passions.” The 21-year-old will be working alongside Dell XPS to highlight how the brand’s laptops are a “force” for storytellers, visionaries, and creatives like herself to bring their imagination to life. The collaboration coincides with Dell XPS’ new campaign, “Expand Your YOUniverse.” Dell XPS and Shahidi will work closely to continue engaging young, diverse creatives to deliver on the ethos of tech as the great equalizer, reported PR
Engineers have paved the way toward advances in all sciences. For example, it’s nearly impossible to imagine how we would have survived the Covid-19 lockdown without online delivery, Zoom, and of course, software’s influence on testing and vaccine distribution. But there is no doubt that the industry still has a long way to go for inclusivity both in the UK and the US. Black History Month is an annual celebration of the men, women, and essential events in the history of Black people. It takes place throughout October in the UK but in February
Mikayla Harris, a senior from Morgan State University, a school that breeds excellence in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, was awarded $15,000 from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation for 2021. Harris is Morgan State University’s second consecutive scholar to win the highly competitive Astronaut Scholarship. In a nationwide selection, 60 top junior and senior STEM students across 44 universities were awarded the scholarship, which aids students with mentors, professional and personal development, and networking with astronauts, C-suite level executives, and industry leaders to help advance their careers. Harris said she applied to represent
