Shirley Chisholm was the first Black woman elected to Congress. Barack Obama was the first Black man to serve as President of the United States. Althea Gibson was the first Black woman to win a Grand Slam Tournament. Bayard Rustin organized and strategized alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., more notably leading the efforts to structure the March on Washington. The above facts are just a tiny drop in the bucket of history related to Black people and their contributions to America and the world. From the halls of academia to the entertainment industry, tech and business, and any other sector in between – no space exists without the imprint of Black people. For some, the range of excellence is held tightly in the short month of February. According to the NAACP, the month started as Negro History Week in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson. The week would eventually develop into Black History Month and be federally recognized in 1976 by President Gerald Ford. And while the world pauses to...

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.

This Florida A&M University student bet on herself and landed in national stores. Kah’Milah Ledgester submitted her designs for Target’s 2021 HBCU design contest and JCPenney’s Young, Gifted and Black design challenge. And, putting her hands in various baskets paid off. Ledgester was informed she won both competitions during the spring of 2021 and to expect them displayed on a national scale for Black History Month of 2022. FAMU senior graphic design student Kah'Milah Ledgester recently appeared in a @Target commercial showcasing her work for their 2022 Black History Collection! Way to strike from the top, Kah'Milah! Check out the commercial below! #famu #rattlers #blackbeyondmeasure pic.twitter.com/q2k7HukC3F — FAMU School of Journalism & Graphic Communication (@FAMUSJGC82) November 26, 2021 “I always get a little excited because of the fact that I did the Target challenge, and I also did JCPenney and won both of them. It made me feel very good because I took a chance,” said...

Capital One will continue to support underserved communities. The banking service will build on its $200 million multi-year commitment by contributing an additional $10 million to existing and new partnerships. The funding aims to close gaps in equity and opportunity to foster growth for underserved communities. Recipients of the new funding include African American Alliance of CDFI CEOs, Vera Institute of Justice, United Negro College Fund, finEQUITY, Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Black Girl Ventures, and Jobs for the Future. In addition, Capital One will target funding toward Black-owned businesses. The contribution will be timely as various Black businesses experienced financial droughts during the peak of the pandemic. Capital One will partner with the Association for Enterprise Opportunity to create the Capital One Business grant program. Business owners will receive $10,000 grants through the program and access to free resources to propel their business through...

Is this how we’re kicking off Black History Month? Former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores will officially sue the National Football League (NFL) for “racism in hiring” per reports from ESPN. He will also sue individual teams for the same alleged racist practices, which include the Denver Broncos, the New York Giants, and the Dolphins. “God has gifted me with a special talent to coach the game of football, but the need for change is bigger than my personal goals,” said Flores in a statement surrounding the news. “In making the decision to file the class action complaint today, I understand that I may be risking coaching the game that I love and that has done so much for my family and me. My sincere hope is that by standing up against systemic racism in the NFL, others will join me to ensure that positive change is made for generations to come.”

Many people in medtech credit inventor Earl E. Bakken as the creator of pacemakers and cardiac rhythm devices, but without the technology innovated by American inventor Otis Boykin those inventions would fail to exist today. Otis Frank Boykin, a Dallas native and electronic inventor, is the individual responsible for inventing the wire precision resistor — a type of technology that “enabled manufacturers to accurately designate a value of resistance for an individual piece of wire in electronic equipment,” Black Past reports. Before pursuing a life-long career as an inventor, Boykin attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee where he graduated from in 1941, Black Inventor notes. He later took a job as a laboratory assistant with the Majestic Radio and TV Corporation in Chicago, Illinois and left shortly after to start his own company, Boykin-Fruth Inc. At the same time, he also decided to go back to school and pursue his graduate studies at the Illinois Institute of...

Home security systems today use some of the most advanced surveillance technology known to man, and to think they didn’t come to exist until the late 1960s. Thanks to inventor Marie Van Brittan Brown, the idea for a home surveillance device transformed into building the foundation for what we now consider our modern-day security systems. Brown — who’s also credited for inventing the first closed circuit television — pioneered the very first first home security system and filed the patent that has influenced the kind of security technology installed in millions of today’s single-family homes, apartment buildings, and office buildings for small businesses around the world. According to Face2Face Africa, Brown took an unconventional path as an inventor. In fact, she began her professional career as a nurse who worked odd hours outside of the traditional 9-5 job. Her husband Albert Brown also worked many late nights away from home as an electronics technician. Brown often worried about...

Black people in the field of tech have been way more integral than most may think. In fact, computer scientist Lisa Gelobter is one of the many modern Black tech innovators that pioneered a lot of the internet technology we use today. Lisa Gelobter — who is the current CEO and co-founder of tech-enabled platform tEQuitable — has over 25 years of experience in the tech industry. She’s the mastermind that cultivated the ascent of online video as well the brains behind software used in beloved consumer products such as Hulu and Shockwave — the 1995 essential technology that led to the development of interactive multimedia, web animation, and video games, according to her company’s website. Without Gelobter’s contribution to Shockwave, streaming and other digital privileges may not have existed. Additionally, she’s also the computer scientist who developed the animation used to create GIFs — a forever game-changer to social media apps that have integrated the multimedia practice into...