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Throughout her time as a business maven and investor, Serena Williams has always worked to find new ways to play a role in advancing the Black community. Her mission has yet to falter with the announcement of her latest tech investment. According to a press release, Williams has invested in Karat — a cloud platform for companies to conduct technical interviews. Specifically, her financial support is for the growth of the tech startup’s Brilliant Black Minds program. As previously reported by AfroTech, the program works to help more engineer positions be filled by Black talent. The mission is to take the current five percent of Black engineers in the tech industry to double digits, according to Karat’s website. “The technology industry is focused on solving some of the world’s biggest challenges that impact all of us. My focus is ensuring the solutions to those challenges are developed by all of us,” Williams said in the press release. “There has never been a shortage of brilliance...
Karat — a global world leader in technical interviewing — has just launched a brand-new dedicated program called “Brilliant Black Minds” — an initiative aimed at improving access, fairness, and inclusion across the tech industry. According to a press release, the program — which emphasizes Karat’s commitment to providing Black software engineers with $1 million worth of practice interviews — initially kicked off last year. Since then, it has continued to grow and help support more computer science students and professional engineers in 2021. “Brilliant Black Minds aims to eliminate barriers for software engineers,” Jeffrey Spector, Karat President and co-founder, shared in a statement. “Our goal is to support Black software engineers through the technical interview process so they can advance their careers and achieve their purpose in the world of tech. Tech companies shape the ways we all live, and they need the brilliance and unique perspectives of Black engineers.” It is today’s...
Jaden Smith, the son of Hollywood icons Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith , has built his own legacy as an actor, musician, and entrepreneur. While he balked at the idea of public schooling previously, that hasn’t stopped him from making a name for himself both in his family’s industry of entertainment, and in his own business ventures. Currently, he’s using his entrepreneur’s spirit to improve the world as he sees it, painting himself as a philanthropist as well. However, as a businessman, philanthropist and actor at the young age of 26 (and while having famous parents and a just-as-famous sister ), what is Jaden Smith’s net worth? Acting Career Smith made his acting debut alongside his father in the critically acclaimed film, The Pursuit of Happyness in 2006. His role as Christopher Gardner Jr., the son of a struggling salesman, garnered widespread recognition for his acting abilities at a young age. This performance opened doors to other significant acting roles, such as the...
Black-owned Cleo’s Southern Cuisine is still thriving nearly a year since it received a visit from Keith Lee. The Chicago, IL-based restaurant was founded by Kristen Ashley Harper, and she has swayed the hearts of locals through dishes inspired by her grandmother Cleo and her Southern roots, NBC News reports. “Technically Biloxi, (MS) — and I went to school at Grambling State University in Louisiana, so I took the Mississippi and the Louisiana and put it together and boom — there was Cleo’s,” Harper told the outlet. Customers can look forward to staple menu items including fried catfish fillet, fried chicken wings with Belgian waffles and sides that include butter herbed rice, “24-karat gold” muffins, and Creole crab mac and cheese, among others. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Cleo's Southern Cuisine (@cleos_southerncuisine) In September 2023, the restaurant’s second location on The Loop was visited by Keith Lee, a popular social media food reviewer who currently has...
Not having a chance to invest in major players in tech ultimately catapulted Serena Williams into the investment ring. During an interview on Bloomberg’s “The Deal,” Williams recalls a time in her tennis journey when she could have faced less pressure to win on the court if she had placed dollars in companies such as Facebook, Airbnb and Google — all companies valued at more than $100 billion today. “Tennis is all sponsor based, and I would see like some of these sponsors come up, but I’m like, ‘Well I have some little cash, like how did I not invest in Facebook? How can I invest in Airbnb or how did I miss Google? Or like, you know, all these companies,'” Williams said on “The Deal.” “ And I started to ask these questions like, ‘Why am I out here breaking my neck and sweating when I could have invested in these companies and I could still be doing the same thing, but it wouldn’t have to be such dire needs, ‘I’ve gotta win this U.S. Open this year. I’ve gotta pay these bills.’ So, I...
Serena Williams’ legacy extends far beyond her greatness on the tennis court. Following her retirement in September 2022, Williams focused more of her attention on the investment arena. With over a decade of investment experience, she took a pivotal step in 2014 by establishing Serena Ventures, a venture capital fund specifically designed to champion women and underrepresented founders, according to its LinkedIn profile. “I invest in a lot of companies, early companies, and I’ve always done this. I’ve actually been investing for over 14 years and just been an entrepreneur while I was playing tennis. It’s super important for me to make a plan B while I was doing my plan A,” Williams explained in a TikTok video. The VC endeavor resulted from Williams discovering the evident absence of venture capital directed toward certain demographics, which prompted her to become a vessel for change. As noted on its website, the company’s portfolio comprises 79% underrepresented founders, 54% women...
Job interviewing is a process that consists of much more than submitting an application, doing an interview and getting hired or not. Another aspect of the process that should be gone about strategically is the follow-up process. It is natural to want to contact an interviewer or recruiter after an interview to know whether the position has been secured or if it is time to look elsewhere. However, it is important to avoid being too pushy, too casual or too informal when conducting a follow-up. Here is some general guidance on how to follow up after an interview. Send A Thank-You Email Before a follow-up email is of any concern, consider sending a thank you email after the initial interview. A thoughtful gesture is to send a personalized thank-you email to each person you interviewed within 24 hours of the interview. Express gratitude for their time, reiterate your interest in the position and highlight a specific aspect of the interview or conversation that resonated with you. This...
Luxury brand Tiffany & Co. is ready to ride the non-fungible token (NFT) wave. The company announced the launch of NFTiffs in a bold move to reach young and wealthy collectors. The collection will be available through CryptoPunks — one of the early pioneers of NFT collections — on Friday, Aug. 5. To no surprise, NFTiffs’ selling price is quite hefty, as only 250 NFTs will be up for grabs. The selling price is $50,000 (30 ether) and each customer can purchase up to three NFTs. “These clients obviously skew a bit younger than our [classic] client base. It’s an anonymous [population], it’s not like you know who owns what, but what we generally understand is that they are younger and very affluent, a lot of them made large amounts of money in the crypto sphere. People need to understand that a lot of the things in their world are linked to luxury like desirability, scarcity, trends — they understand the ups and downs,” said Tiffany & Co. Executive Vice President for Product and...
Seeing a Black woman break into the tech industry is always an accomplishment to celebrate, but what makes the win even more major is how they lift up others along with them. In the age of social media, the underrepresented group is not only sharing their experiences in their fields but also using their platforms to create a domino effect of Black talent going from sending in their resumes to signing job offer letters. Here are 10 Black women tech influencers who are working with big names like Google, Meta, and Microsoft that are teaching the ins and outs of the industry to help bring more of the community on board.
Black engineers made up for only six percent of computer programmers across the nation in 2020, compared to white engineers accounting for 68 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Karat, a technical interviewing company, released a new research report in partnership with Howard University (HU) that explores the job access barrier for Black software engineers. The pair teamed up to host focus groups earlier this year to survey 300 Black computer science students and alumni from Howard University, Morehouse College and University of North Carolina Charlotte. The Interview Access Gap for Black Engineers report is co-authored by Dr. Legand Burge, III, a computer science professor at HU; Dr. Katherine Picho-Kiroga, assistant professor of educational psychology at HU; and Portia Kibble Smith, head of diversity and inclusion at Karat. “There’s been a lot of research conducted on STEM education and the opportunity gaps that exist for Black students,” Kibble Smith told...
It’s time to bridge the tech talent gap! Blacks in Technology Foundation has partnered with Apprenti in an effort to increase Black representation across the tech industry through developing, recruiting, and retaining diverse talent, per PR Newswire. Through the partnership, Apprenti — a national leader in delivering registered tech apprenticeship programs — will continue their work to place non-traditional hires into in-demand tech careers. While there are three million available tech jobs in America today, the nation’s colleges only produce 80,000 computer science graduates each year. “Both job seekers and companies need to expand their thinking when it comes to job placement and hiring,” said Dennis Schultz, Executive Director of the Blacks in Technology Foundation in an official news release. “We’re already seeing a shift in IT job requirements away from four-year and advanced college degrees in mathematics and computer science towards practitioner level skills. The only real...
A limited-edition bottle of D’USSÉ sold for $52,500 in an auction over the weekend. What contributed to this hefty price tag? According to a press release, the one-of-a-kind 1969 Anniversaire Limited Edition “Bottle No. 1” has 24 karat gold leaf wrapping on the neck, the signature Le Croix de Lorraine symbol on its side, and an engraved signature from part owner Shawn “JAY-Z” Carter. However, Bottle No. 1 is the only bottle a part of the collection with his signature. On top of that, this ultra rare Grande Champagne Cognac comes housed in a diamond-shaped crystal bottle. The bottle was available for bidding— courtesy of Carter and D’USSÉ Cognac— at an exclusive Sotheby’s auction along with other uniquely labelled bottles as a part of their biggest ever whisky auction in New York. The sale marks the first time ever that a bottle of D’USSÉ Cognac has been sold at an auction, according to a press release. Courtesy Photo The proceeds of the sale will benefit the Shawn Carter Foundation...
Lee Daniels is offering more information about his upcoming film about a gay superhero, Superbitch . As we reported in January, Superbitch has become Daniels’ next project thanks to the popularity of videos created by actor/comedian Destiny Hilton, featuring Hilton doing acrobatic stunts in hot pink, thigh-high boots. Daniels announced the project on Instagram. View this post on Instagram A post shared by @hesosoutheast https://www.instagram.com/p/BsqghPMgjY7/?utm_source=ig_embed According to Deadline, during a Time 100 Summit interview with CNN’s Van Jones, Daniels once again confirmed that the film is in the works. “He [Hilton] does backflips and has a cape and does karate and, oh my God, he’s going to be a hero!” he said. He did add that “I’m not putting that much money behind it,” but said, “a couple [of] million dollars for a gay superhero movie is pretty f***ing exciting!” No word yet on when the film will go into production or when it will come to theaters. But hopefully, the...