Nowadays, people are more aware that STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) are not simply the future. Arguably, both are the most important sectors driving economic growth and academic tracks today. From an professional standpoint, both STEM and STEAM are natural segues into the technology industry. With concerns around digital divides and achievement gaps, it is understandable that leaders in the Black community are pushing even harder to ensure that youth and adults, making career pivots have access to opportunity. More importantly, pointing to representation in the tech field gives prospective employees and students choosing academic paths a relatable and attainable goal. Which happens to be the perfect pivot into; currently, women make up 35% of the current tech workforce. This is such a significant improvement from the early 2000’s when women made up approximately 9%. In 2023, women held only...

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Black Girls CODE founder Kimberly Bryant started her ambitious organization as a basement experiment and quickly transformed it into a global movement to usher more Black women into the tech space. According to Capitol Technology University, Bryant garnered an interest in math and science as a young girl — fields that are known to be dominated by Asian and white men. Her organization’s website also shared that she often felt culturally isolated as she sometimes found herself to be the only Black woman or Black person among her college classmates. Despite this, she maintained her interests and followed a career path that would merge her passion with a grand mission to change the face of tech. NBC News reported that throughout her biotech engineering career and journey climbing the ranks at companies like DuPont, Phillip Morris and Genentech, Bryant longed to see a more inclusive world for her daughter Kai. “My daughter was about to go to middle school and was interested in tech and...

Techpreneur and Amazon worker Nashlie Sephus is accomplishing a groundbreaking goal to build a tech hub downtown in her Jackson, Mississippi hometown to help train the next generation of tech geniuses. According to Face2Face Africa, Sephus is turning downtown Jackson — which isn’t well-known for its technology prowess — into a $25 million tech district made up of 12 acres of vacant lots and seven buildings — roughly 500,000 square feet of workspace — to put her community on the map in the tech world. “My goal is to turn this space into a self-sustaining village where people can live, work, play, and eat,” Sephus told Inc. The idea to build up this tech community came to Sephus back in 2018 when she was looking for an office space for her own startup Bean Path — an incubator and technology consulting nonprofit — which has assisted over 400 local businesses and individuals with their technology needs. Her search landed her in the downtown Jackson area, which was once considered a...

For many making attempts to teach their older loved one’s anything technical, the response is typically rooted in the fact that it is too hard or can’t be figured out. But, Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient, Fareedah Shaheed is not taking that for an answer. Her response was to create, Sekuva –a tech company that facilitates helping parents keep their children safe navigating virtual spaces. According to USA Today , “The increase in reports tracks in the United States and abroad during the pandemic, experts said. Tips to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the clearinghouse for such information in the United States, nearly doubled from 6.3 million in the first half of 2019 to 12 million through June of this year. Reports of online enticement similarly spiked during that timeframe, from 6,863 to 13,268.” Shaheed created Sekuva with an understanding of the influx of cyber bullying having been a recipient of being bullied as a Black American girl growing up in Saudi...

Trailblazing information systems professor, Siobahn Day Grady, Ph.D., is a Black tech unicorn you should know about. Not only is she the first woman to receive a doctorate degree in the field of computer science — according to North Carolina Central University — from North Carolina A&T State University in 2018, but she also recently received a $190,000 grant to conduct research to improve self-driving cars. Grady received the grant from the National Science Foundation’s Historically Black Colleges and Excellence in Research program and plans to use the funds to research and identify issues with self-driving cars. “This research is very timely and relevant; it’s the future,” Grady said, according to North Carolina Central University . “I’m excited to contribute to the field as well as provide research opportunities to students.” North Carolina Central University reports that Grady’s research will center around analyzing fault-detection capabilities of self-driving vehicles including...

Computer science often seems like a field open only to people who are fully dedicated to computing and mathematics. However, this could not be further from the truth. High-profile celebrities around the world have told their fans that they know how to code and that they also value learning to code . It’s not difficult to understand why these celebrities are interested in programming. After all, coding not only unlocks job opportunities—according to the non-profit Code.org , there are nearly 500,000 “[o]pen computing jobs” in the U.S. alone—but knowing how to code can help you solve problems more effectively. Here’s why these Black celebrities — that you may not have known were into coding — are learning the skill. Serena Williams Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for Apartment List Serena Williams is a professional tennis player who has won 23 major singles titles throughout her career—the most won by any woman or man. Williams holds more Grand Slam titles than any other active player in...

For decades, Silicon Valley has held a monopoly on the tech startup industry. Some of the most successful companies of recent decades have come out of the Valley, and more startups spring from the area than anywhere else in the world. However, launching a startup in the Valley has always had severe limitations, especially for Black and brown founders. The most obvious limitation is the prohibitive cost of living in Silicon Valley. With an average house price near $1 million and the average rent inching closer and closer to $3000 , merely surviving has been a significant stress factor for most young entrepreneurs in the city. Silicon Valley’s enduring legacy of racial and gender discrimination has made everyday life particularly uncomfortable for many non-male, non-white startup founders. Over the past few years, the tech industry in cities like Seattle, Austin, and, more recently, Atlanta, have exploded. Yet, the industry seems to have overlooked one city with enormous potential:...