While the talent of Black entrepreneurs is limitless, their access to what is necessary to reach success is often stunted. Within the movement of transforming the ecosystem, the Black Economic Alliance Foundation has joined a leading systems technology company to provide ample funding and support.

Billionaire philanthropist and investor Robert F. Smith established the Student Freedom Initiative (SFI) to aid Black students attending Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) and offer them more career choices without dealing with the disproportionate burden of college debt. Now Smith’s initiative is receiving financial assistance from networking giant Cisco through a $150 million donation that will support Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). According to Fast Company, the funding will be divided up between $100 million — which will be allocated toward networking, security and collaboration technologies to aid in advancements of HBCUs’ technology infrastructure and cybersecurity systems. The remaining $50 million will serve as an anchor investment for the initiative to finance the college educations of 500 HBCU students each year for the next four years. “We are thrilled to welcome Cisco and AVC Technologies as strategic partners for SFI in addressing the digital...