Angelica Ross is all about being a conduit for the trans community.
As an early techie herself, the “Pose” actress launched TransTech Social — a company to bring more trans, queer, and gender non-conforming people into tech — in 2014, as previously reported by AfroTech. By 2017, she then hosted the TransTech Summit, which is a free event for attendees to be educated on ways to level up in their careers and the industry.
“Well, I had been going to tech summits all over the place, not just tech summits, but just conferences, from LGBTQ focused conferences to tech focused conferences,” Ross said, according to Essence. “I just realized that there was probably a space missing that is centered by trans people, one in which we are centered enough so that everybody who is in our environment is not only watching out for the violence, but it’s like they’re also educated and informed so we can truly be an asset to one another.”
The outlet reports that the tech summit is making its way back even bigger than before in 2022.
TransTech Summit 2022
Beginning on March 31 — Transgender Day of Visibility — Ross’ TransTech Summit will offer a free virtual event featuring speakers, workshops, and educational resources.
According to the entrepreneur, the four-day summit will have conversations revolving around tech, healing, and the beauty business. Ross believes that there’s no limit to the definition of tech, which is why she has had a focus on beauty professionals.
“We’ve always been talking about how trans people, especially trans women, many of them have been the masterminds of makeup and fashion but have not been given the authority in that in the industry,” Ross shared. “We talk about how to take those skills that they have and turn it into business, and be about their business. Because beauty is a billion dollar business, and we want to get our folks into it.”
She added: “So, yeah, literally everything from translating the hustle, translating your survival tactics to actual work skills. I will be giving a keynote. We’ll be having workshops on how to process databases and just knowing basic database administration, learning Adobe Creative Cloud. I cannot be more proud of this summit because there’s everything. There’s even somebody teaching them how to do reels and TikToks. Because listen, I’m pretty sure I need to sit in on that class.”
To Learn More
For more information about TransTech Summit, click here.
