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During her Inspirefest 2015 keynote, Black Girls Code founder Kimberly Bryant cites the statistics that prompted her to take action and create an organisation dedicated to teaching young black women computer coding skills, so that they could create — not just consume — technology.
Video via Silicon Republic
Black Girls Code was created to provide young Black girls with the necessary tools to become proficient in coding and computer science. As many people know, the tech industry lacks diversity in terms of race and gender, but this organization is chipping away at those barriers.
This summer, Black Girls Code (BCG) hosted the Summer of Code Camp that included project-based camps in the Bay Area as well as in Washington D.C., New York City and Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
Kimberly Bryant founded the organization in 2011 with the intention to teach and inspire Black girls to get into the tech industry. Since the organization’s inception, Bryant has taught more than 2,000 girls and has even started boys camps with the same mission.
The organization will be hosting a variety of events in August and well into September. A common workshop BGC hosts for girls is the Build a Web Page Day, which teaches young girls from the ages of seven to 17 how to design their own web pages using HTML and CSS. There are also panels on diversity in tech, such as the Women of Color in STEM Career Panel on August 22.
One of the big events that BGC will have is the Robot Expo on September 19 in Memphis and the BGC Documentary Film Screenings and Community Meetups. There is still time to get involved with the planned activities.
Visit Black Girls Code for more information.
As the number of Black people working in technology increases, we continue to see more rise to the upper echelons of the tech world. Here is a list of 13 Blacks influencing technology today, according to Business Insider.
Condoleezza Rice, Board of Directors, Dropbox
Earlier this month, online storage startup Dropbox added Condoleezza Rice to its board of directors.
As the former secretary of state and an adviser to the National Security Agency, having someone like Rice as a liaison to Washington, D.C., could be very helpful to Dropbox.
At the same time, though, her history as an official in the Bush Administration is stirring up controversy. Protests on social media say she is a controversial figure after revelations of widespread wiretapping on US citizens during her time in office, as reported by BBC News.
Dropbox has raised over $1 billion to date and employs 698 people.
Ade Olonoh, CEO, Formspring
Ade Olonoh is the co-founder and CEO of Formspring, a social network that helped people find out more about each other.
Prior to founding Formspring, Olonoh founded online form building Formstack. Formspring has taken $14.3 million in funding and has about 12 employees. In 2013, Spring.me acquired Formspring’s assets and rebranded it.
Sheldon Gilbert, Founder and CEO, Proclivity
Sheldon Gilbert is the founder and chief executive of Proclivity Media, a company that specializes in digital advertising technologies.
Founded six years ago, Proclivity uses a retailer’s e-commerce data to best predict and match companies with ad placements that will bring in the most sales.
Proclivity has raised $8.82 million in funding and has eight employees.
Kimberly Bryant
Bryant founded San Francisco-based Black Girls Code in 2011 to help close the digital divide for girls of color. So far the nonprofit organization has trained more than 1,500 girls to work in technology fields such as robotics, video game design, mobile phone application development and computer programming.
This past July, Bryant, a biotechnology and engineering professional, was one of 11 people to receive the White House Champions of Change for Tech Inclusion award. The award is given to celebrate people in the U.S. “who are doing extraordinary things to expand technology opportunities for young learners—especially minorities, women and girls, and others from communities historically under-served or under-represented in tech fields,” according to whitehouse.gov.
Dr. Paul Judge
Dr. Paul Q. Judge is a serial entrepreneur and noted scholar with a doctorate in Computer Science from Georgia Tech. The Atlanta-based entrepreneur has founded several companies that expanded and resulted in successful acquisitions. In 2000, Judge joined the founding team of CipherTrust, an anti-spam email software company, which became one of the fastest growing firms in North America with 300 employees and over 3,000 customers, including half of the Fortune 500 companies, in more than 50 countries. CipherTrust was acquired by Secure Computing for $273 million in 2006.
Judge has received many awards and was recognized by the MIT Technology Review Magazine as one of the top 100 young innovators in the world in 2003. He was also featured in Black Enterprise magazine’s list of “50 Most Powerful Players Under 40.”‘
Ory Okolloh
Harvard-educated Ory Okolloh of Kenya has created both the watchdog site Mzalendo and the crime reporting site Ushahidi, and now serves as Google’s policy manager in Africa. Recognized as one of Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology last year, she is set to become the new face of entrepreneurship on the continent.
Shaun Evans
Shaun Evans is the chief executive officer of OMBO Apps, which is becoming one of Atlanta’s hottest tech companies to take on the mobile industry. His startup company develops cutting-edge mobile applications targeting the African-American market. Evans is a game-changer with one hit already under his belt, Urban Gossip FREE, the No. 1 black celebrity news app for iPhone and Android mobile devices.
Anthony Frasier
Anthony Frasier is a native of Newark, N.J., former co-founder of mobile startup Playd, and the award- winning gaming site TheKoalition.com. Anthony was also profiled in the online hit documentary Black in America: The New Promised Land – Silicon Valley, which has received over 1 million viewers.
In 2012 CNN Money profiled an elite group of eight minorities diversifying the tech industry and Frasier made the list. He was also listed in NBC The Grio’s “100: Making History Today” for his acclaimed work. Currently he’s working on building up the Newark tech scene and a new tech startup.