What started as a hobby during the pandemic quickly launched Lara Adekoya into entrepreneurship, selling cookies to consumers in Los Angeles, CA, including some of Hollywood’s hottest stars, including Issa Rae, Lena Waithe and others. Today, Adekoya is taking things one step further by launching her very first brick-and-mortar for Fleurs et Sel. “I’m really happy and I’m just ready,” Adekoya told AFROTECH™. “I feel like I’ve been ready to make this jump or transition for a while. As you know, it’s not something that’s happened overnight.” In a previous interview with Adekoya,  AFROTECH™ learned the backstory to how she launched her business, which has grown rapidly over roughly four years. Fast-forward to the present day, she says there wasn’t a specific incident that encouraged her to open a bakery, but it will be in a historically Black and brown neighborhood in Los Angeles. “I’m opening in West Adams, which is a historically Black and brown neighborhood in LA that has been...

Kimberly Moore is embracing young girls in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Moore is the founder of KDM Engineering located in Chicago, IL’s West Jackson Boulevard neighborhood. The venture is described as an engineering consulting firm aimed at primary distribution design, telecommunications, natural gas, and project management, according to its website. Moore’s exposure to a field composed of very few Black women was nurtured as a child when she would be encouraged to place curtains on walls or help set up televisions for family members, per the Chicago Sun-Times. While attending Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, she shined as a math and science student and went on to obtain a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at Northern Illinois University (NIU) — and later a master’s in sound engineering. At the start of her career in electrical engineering, Moore soon learned that there was a lack of female representation. In fact, she recalls they did not...