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Lack of Investor Support for Females, Minorities Continues to Stifle Diversity in Tech Industry

Black owned start ups

A recent study revealed that female and ethnic-minority entrepreneurs have more of a struggle garnering support from investors when compared to their white, male counterparts.

The study from Pepperdine University’s Graziado School of Business and Management has exposed yet another way females and minorities are placed at a severe disadvantage in the tech industry.

“We find consistent evidence that minority (non-Caucasian), women and foreign business owners’ establishments are significantly less likely to receive PE (private equity) or VC (venture capital) financing,” the study said, according to a blog post by the Wall Street Journal.

The study analyzed fundraising data from the years 1995 to 2009 and found that female-owned business are 2.6 percent less likely to raise private equity funding than white males.

Female-owned businesses were also found to be 18.7 percent less likely to successfully raise a venture round than companies run by white males.

The numbers were even more troubling for minority-owned business.

Minority-owned businesses were 21.7 percent less likely to raise private equity funding and 22.2 percent less likely to successfully raise a venture round than their white male counterparts.

While the study focused on fundraising on all types of businesses, these statistics are particularly troublesome for minorities and females in the tech industry.

The tech industry heavily relies on private equity to launch innovative start-ups and sustain the growth of smaller companies.

With this industry already struggling with a severe lack of diversity, the inability of minorities and females to garner the same financial backing as white males means the industry’s 2 percent problem could persist.

Earlier this year, tech giants like Facebook and Google released their diversity reports, which revealed that only about 2 percent of their employees were Black.

Out of that 2 percent, very few of the employees had leadership positions with the company.

The authors of the report believe the lack of financial backing is not necessarily a result of overt racism but can still be connected to racial bias.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the venture capital industry is still dominated by white men.

A survey conducted by the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and Dow Jones VentureSource back in 2011 found that only 11 percent of investors were women while nearly 90 percent were men.

Researchers suggest that these white men are more comfortable investing in what is familiar to them – other businesses run by white men.

The NVCA claims it is taking steps towards changing this demographic and boosting diversity in investment firms.

Meanwhile, other leaders in the Black community are taking matters into their own hands.

Former NAACP president Ben Jealous stepped down as the head of the nation’s largest civil rights organization and is now working on the West Coast as a venture capitalist.

Back in March, Jealous explained that becoming a venture capitalist would allow him to continue making more opportunities for Blacks and Latinos.

“My life’s mission has been leveling the playing field and closing gaps in opportunity and success,” he told the Associated Press. “I’m excited about trying a different approach.”

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Report: Americans Paying More for Slower Internet Speeds; Other Countries Have It Better

Americans face over priced slow internet speeds

America is a country shrouded in technology that uses the Internet far more than many other countries around the globe. So it may be surprising to discover that Americans actually received far slower speeds through their Internet providers despite paying much more than other countries.

Imagine if you went to the store to buy groceries and your total came out to $200 only for you to find out you could have tackled that same grocery list for $100 at another store that also provided better quality products.

That’s essentially what’s happening to Americans when it comes to the Internet.

Recent reports revealed that Internet users in Seoul, the capital city of South Korea, have some of the fastest connections at some of the lowest prices anywhere in the world.

In Seoul, Internet speeds of up to one gigabit per second only cost $30 a month, the New American Foundation’s Open Technology Institute report revealed Thursday.

While Internet users in Seoul are paying $30 a month for the Internet services, Americans in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and New York are getting speeds of half that while paying roughly $300 a month for it.

The report looked at nearly 25 U.S. cities total and compared them to other major cities like Hong Kong and Tokyo.

Each comparison still seemed to point to the same disappointing results – there is a serious gap in how much other countries are paying for their Internet and they are still receiving much faster speeds than Americans are.

The root of the problem, according to the report, could come down to the lack of competition in the U.S. combined with dirty politics.

Arguments have surfaced that without enough competition in the market there is no reason for Internet service providers (ISPs) to knock down their prices to match those of ISPs in other countries.

In other words, the only option many Americans have is to fork over more money every month for lower speeds.

There is an alternative for the select few, however.

Local broadband services are slashing their prices and providing speeds that are able to compete with major ISPs.

Chattanooga, Tennessee, built the country’s first citywide gigabit-per-second Internet network back in 2010 and offered the service for $70 a month.

Then there is Google’s up-and-coming Google Fiber service, which will also be priced at $70 a month, according to the report.

These new connections offer Americans speeds that are up to 100 times faster than what most people currently receive today, the Huffington Post reported.

This means buffering videos and waiting for images to load would be a thing of the past. It also means users would be able to share larger files in the blink of an eye.

The downside is the fact that Google’s service isn’t expected to expand to major cities anytime soon.

For now, it’s targeting several mid-size cities like San Antonio and Portland.

So what about other citywide gigabit services? That’s where dirty politics could potentially be slowing progress.

Nearly 20 states have already passed laws that ban publicly owned broadband networks, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

Advocates for more city-owned Internet networks claim many of the lawmakers have already received tons of financial backing from major Internet providers who are using those financial strings to limit competition.

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Text First, Call 911 Later: This Could Be the New Protocol for Carjacking Victims

Shut down car with text message

It’s hard to believe but new, developing technologies could have carjacking victims reaching for their phones to send a text before they even think about calling the police.

It’s all because of a Nairobi-based car security company called Sunrise Tracking.

The company has developed new technology that allows consumers to take matters into their own hands when their car is stolen.

In addition to being able to track the vehicle’s location, consumers would also be able to shut down the vehicle and prevent thieves from getting too far.

There are many services that allow the everyday person to track their car’s location, but the ability to shut down the vehicle from a simple text message is quite revolutionary.

Currently, this type of technology is reserved for police forces and often used on bait cars.

Bait cars are vehicles planted by police in order to capture would-be car thieves before they can target everyday civilians.

Sunrise Tracking founder, 23-year-old Kelvin Macharia Kuria, explained the technology to African Start-Up.

“Once a stop command has been sent to the vehicle, the hardware understands the language of that command and immediately cuts acceleration fuel function,” he said. “The vehicle immobilizes immediately until a resume command is send to mobilize back the car.”

It’s unusual to see such a young entrepreneur coming up with such innovative technologies for security, but the young entrepreneur quickly explained why this was so important to him.

“The reason I decided to venture into the business of security is simply because immediately after high school one of my relatives was carjacked,” he told African Start-Up. “And it was unfortunate we were not able to recover the vehicle.”

Later his own office was broken into and the thieves managed to escape with tons of electronics.

At that point the push for better security technologies became even more personal.

Today, Macharia Kuria has managed to obtain more than 500 clients.

While he hopes to continue to grow his clientele, he is also very well aware of the obstacles he will face trying to grow the business in Kenya.

“Being a young entrepreneur of course is a very huge challenge in terms of financials, in terms of your starting a business,” he said. “The other challenge that we are facing currently is that not many people are willing to adopt the locally made products within Kenya … Carjacking and robbery in Kenya and particularly in Nairobi is so high, but since security is so sensitive clients opt to go for big and international companies having in mind only such companies can give them better quality service hence killing the local innovation products.”

There could be yet another obstacle he will have to face as well.

While the ability to shut down a car with nothing more than a text sounds exciting and innovative, technology experts caution that it can be abused in the long run.

“In the past, hackers have exploited security weaknesses in mobile locator devices to monitor movements and patterns of a vehicle and even impersonate it,” said Chris Brauer, the director of Innovation at Goldsmiths, University of London. “In the short term, mobile security devices with mainstream appeal and price points will reduce carjacking and thefts. In the longer term, it all depends on whether the security providers can stay one step ahead of the hackers and thieves.”

 

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Could Amazon’s New Fire TV Stick Help It Recover From Epic Smartphone Failure?

Amazon may have made a major misstep when it comes to its flagship smartphone, but could the company’s Amazon Fire TV Stick actually go head-to-head with Google Chromecast and Roku Streaming Stick?

The major failure that followed after the launch of Amazon’s first smartphone was painful to watch for many tech lovers and fans of the company.

Sales of the device were less than impressive, and AT&T, who partnered with Amazon to push the phone, quickly lost its enthusiasm for the product.

Despite the flagship phone flop, Amazon has had some technology successes in the past (take the Kindle, for example) and the company is hoping to mimic that success with the launch of its Fire TV Stick.

The tiny stick is able to plug directly into consumers’ TV’s HDMI ports and will be able to bring a world of viewing pleasure to those who purchase it.

The Fire TV Stick will support Amazon Prime Instant video and music, Netflix, Pandora, Spotify, Hulu and more, according to Mashable.

It will also be able to support the needs of the average gamer. Nothing quite as extensive and demanding as the console-level gaming that is supported by Amazon’s Fire TV box, but still pretty impressive for the little stick that can slip into one’s back pocket.

Of course, if the product is sounding pretty familiar to you – a simple stick that allows you to stream a large variety of media content on multiple supported platforms – there is an obvious reason for that.

Amazon’s Fire TV Stick isn’t necessarily innovative, as it is simply Amazon’s take on Google’s Chromecast and the Roku Streaming Stick.

Amazon’s version does, however, come with a few perks.

Amazon’s product does boast more storage than Google’s Chromecast.

Google’s product gives consumers 2 GB of storage in Google Chrome while Amazon’s Fire Stick will give consumers an impressive 8 GB of storage.

Then there is also that nifty little remote.

While this is a perk that Chromecast users don’t get, it’s not too great of an advantage and it is something that Roku has already delivered on in the past.

As for Chromecast users, they have to use an app that will allow them to use their cellphones as remote controls and, quite frankly, most consumers don’t mind that at all.

Amazon’s Fire TV Stick may also deliver slightly short on its promise of wonderful arrays of content. The content that is available is certainly impressive and there is more than enough available materials for the average TV watcher, but some of the most popular titles won’t be making their way to the device just yet.

The Fire TV Stick does not support HBO Go.

While Google’s stick also doesn’t support Amazon content, it’s  more likely that consumers will be more upset over not having HBO Go than they will over not having access to Amazon’s content.

Of all the competitors, however, it seems like Amazon’s Fire TV Stick has the upper hand when it comes to gaming, according to Time.

Time also points out that there is no way anyone can lose by purchasing any of the three sticks.

What this means is that Amazon may have a product that can indeed keep up with its pre-existing competition, but the company may have needed a little more edge to its product in order to really beat out its counterparts.