A prominently Black farming town in the US has been left with no access to clean water due to racist policies, forcing the residents to turn to technology to develop water on their own. According to a report by KQED, Allensworth, a town in California, has been denied access to clean water after the pumps on a few of the city’s water wells failed. Even though the system is quite old and more prone to breaking, not much has been done to help the community in this area. Founded in 1908, Allensworth
Capitol Music Group has severed ties with the FN Meka project following accusations that the AI rapper perpetuated racial stereotypes online. FN Meka, a virtual “robot rapper,” created by the founders of Factory New, a “first of its kind, next-generation music company specializing in virtual beings.” In a short time, FN Meka amassed over 10 million followers on TikTok and 500,000 monthly Spotify subscribers based on music and lyrics generated by an AI based on popular rap music. The robot rapper, which industry professionals described as a “preview of what’s
Oakland-based tech entrepreneur, George Hofstetter, experienced a severe racial incident during his trip to study abroad in England. Hofstetter’s response to the racist abuse has taken social media by storm, with many commending the 22-year-old for his brave and teachable response to the disturbing racism he experienced during his studies. So, here’s what happened. George Hofstetter, founder and CEO of US-based tech company GHTech, joined a summer school program hosted by Oxford University, located at Hughes Hall, Cambridge University. On July 15, the university decided to host a formal dinner
Black Lives Matter (BLM) co-founder Opal Tometi has urged the tech sector to take robust action against perpetuating racism in systems such as facial recognition. “A lot of the algorithms, a lot of the data is racist,” U.S. activist Tometi, who co-founded BLM in 2013, told Reuters on the sidelines of Lisbon’s Web Summit. “We need tech to truly understand every way it (racism) shows up in the technologies they are developing,” she said. Her comments come just a day after Facebook announced it was shutting down its facial recognition
A jury has ordered Tesla to pay nearly $137 million in damages to a former Black employee after it was found to have ignored his racist abuse claims while working at its California factory. Owen Diaz, first hired through a recruitment agency, worked as a freight elevator operator between June 2015 and July 2016 at the manufacturer’s Fremont plant in the San Francisco Bay area. And according to documents, during his tenure, he suffered racist slurs, including the “n-word” and a hostile work environment. “Tesla’s progressive image was a facade
