article by Tanisia Kenney via atlantablackstar.com
Black women in the tech industry are few and far between. It’s an even more daunting task to get young girls of color interested in STEM, let alone present them with the opportunity to learn skills like coding and computing.
Earlier this year, the National Association for Women & Information Technology reported that Black women comprised a measly 3 percent of the technology workforce in 2015. An even smaller percentage — .04 to be exact — of tech startups were led by African-American women, according to #ProjectDiane.
In an effort to bridge this longstanding race gap and foster diversity in the tech industry, search giant Google is providing space at its New York headquarters to house a blooming non-profit dedicated to teaching young girls of color how to code.
Google and Black Girls Code have teamed up to launch a sprawling 3,000-square-foot work space at the company’s Manhattan office, CNet reports. The tech giant purchased the building in 2010, which will now serve as the new home of Black Girls Code.
Valued at nearly $2.8 million, the new space will be used to introduce students of color to the world of technology, inspiring them to possibly pursue a career in tech. The non-profit also hopes to tap into Google’s mentorship and internship opportunities.
With Black Girls Code housed at its headquarters, the space also gives Google access to fresh talent.
“We need a tech sector that looks like the society it serves, and groups like Black Girls Code are ensuring that we can cultivate and access talent in communities of color,” said William Floyd, Google’s head of external affairs.
According to Kimberly Bryant, founder and CEO of Black Girls Code, Google has hosted a number of student workshops at its New York office in the past. Their new partnership will allow the non-profit to have a permanent work space at the company, CNet reports.
“They’re able to influence these girls that Google is a company they might want to come work for once they graduate,” Bryant said.
Being a computer programmer herself, Bryant launched Black Girls Code in 2011 with the hope of providing young and adolescent girls of color the opportunity to learn technology and computer programming skills.
“That, really, is the Black Girls Code mission: to introduce programming and technology to a new generation of coders, coders who will become builders of technological innovation and of their own futures,” the company’s website states.
Serving as the non-profit’s first New York office, the space will double as a classroom and an outpost for its East Coast programs, according to Fortune.
The great thing about the Google/Black Girls Code partnership is that it’s mutually beneficial: the non-profit will have access to Google’s resources, while the tech giant will have the opportunity to foster talent from a group of young Black women.
To read more, go to: http://atlantablackstar.com/2016/06/29/non-profit-black-girls-code-gets-new-home-googles-new-york-office/
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article by Anya George Tharakan via huffingtonpost.com
(Reuters) – Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropy venture has made its first major investment, leading a funding round in a startup that trains and recruits software developers in Africa.
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative LLC, created by Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, led a $24 million Series B funding in Andela, the startup said on Thursday. Alphabet Inc., previously known as Google Ventures, was also part of the funding round.
Andela selects the top 1 percent of tech talent from Africa, trains them and places them in engineering organizations. The startup, which has nearly 200 engineers currently employed by its Nigeria and Kenya offices, will use the funds to expand to a third African country by the end of 2016.
“We live in a world where talent is evenly distributed, but opportunity is not. Andela’s mission is to close that gap,” Zuckerberg said in a statement.
To read more, go to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/zuckerberg-philanthropy-first-investment-africa-tech-talent-andela_us_5762ae0ce4b0df4d586f5970?ir=Black+Voices§ion=us_black-voices&utm_hp_ref=black-voices&
article via jbhe.com
Shalisha and Shonda Witherspoon are identical twins. They dress alike every day and both recently graduated from the College of Engineering and Computing at Florida International University in Miami. They also had identical grade point averages of 3.95, which was the best GPA of any graduating student in the College of Engineering and Computing. The sisters also earned minor degrees in Japanese language and literature.
The sisters will stay on at FIU to pursue master’s degrees and to work as graduate assistants for Professor Naphtali Rishe in the High Performance Database Research Center.
Professor Rishe stated that “those two ladies are extraordinarily responsible. They are very smart, they have great attention to detail, they are always reliable. Any project they are asked to do, it’s done perfectly. They are experts in geographic data analytics. They manipulate very large big data sets, and they have excelled. They have a great career path in front of them.”
The sisters’ ultimate goal is to move to Japan and start their own software engineering business together.
article by Fumnanya Agbugah via VenturesAfrica.com
On Friday, the World Economic Forum on Africa presented the five winners of the conference’s challenge to find Africa’s top women innovators. The winners, whose innovations were from the areas including mobile health insurance, solar powered vending carts, bio medical materials and IT training as well as food processing, hail from Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.
Currently, Africa has the youngest population in the world and this is expected to double by 2045. In view of this, several global leaders have attested to the fact that Africa’s future lies in the hands of its youthful population. The region’s start-up businesses are gaining confidence and scale with a growing number of innovations achieving recognition beyond the region’s borders. However, a lot still has to be done in order to create an enabling environment that will allow women to flourish. Due to this set back, the World Economic Forum decided to run this competition to find Africa’s top female innovators especially as the potential of women entrepreneurs is far from optimum.
“I strongly believe that the 21st century will be Africa’s century, that its young population has the potential to build a world where they are not only materially better off, but also where things are fairer, more sustainable and more tolerant than at any other time in history. But this will not be achieved unless women are able to make a full contribution. This is why we are showcasing Africa’s best female entrepreneurs in Kigali this week,” said Elsie Kanza, Head of Africa at the World Economic Forum.
Here are Africa’s top female innovators, selected based on the criteria for the WEF Africa challenge. This required entrant companies to be less than three years old, be earning revenue for at least a year and have proven innovation and positive social impact.
Natalie Bitature – Musana Carts, Kampala, Uganda
Musana Carts has used frugal innovation to develop environmentally friendly, solar-powered vending carts. With a price point of $400, each Musana Cart saves 3,000 tons of carbon emissions and improves the health of cities by eliminating pollution from charcoal and kerosene stoves.
Audrey Cheng – Moringa School, Nairobi, Kenya
Audrey Cheng established Moringa School to enable an entire generation gain the skills they need to compete in the digital economy. Two years on, graduates work in the top tech companies in the region, earning, on average, 350 percent more than before they completed the course.
article by Fumnanya Agbugah via VenturesAfrica.com
On Friday, the World Economic Forum on Africa presented the five winners of the conference’s challenge to find Africa’s top women innovators. The winners, whose innovations were from the areas including mobile health insurance, solar powered vending carts, bio medical materials and IT training as well as food processing, hail from Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.
Currently, Africa has the youngest population in the world and this is expected to double by 2045. In view of this, several global leaders have attested to the fact that Africa’s future lies in the hands of its youthful population. The region’s start-up businesses are gaining confidence and scale with a growing number of innovations achieving recognition beyond the region’s borders. However, a lot still has to be done in order to create an enabling environment that will allow women to flourish. Due to this set back, the World Economic Forum decided to run this competition to find Africa’s top female innovators especially as the potential of women entrepreneurs is far from optimum.
“I strongly believe that the 21st century will be Africa’s century, that its young population has the potential to build a world where they are not only materially better off, but also where things are fairer, more sustainable and more tolerant than at any other time in history. But this will not be achieved unless women are able to make a full contribution. This is why we are showcasing Africa’s best female entrepreneurs in Kigali this week,” said Elsie Kanza, Head of Africa at the World Economic Forum.
Here are Africa’s top female innovators, selected based on the criteria for the WEF Africa challenge. This required entrant companies to be less than three years old, be earning revenue for at least a year and have proven innovation and positive social impact.
Natalie Bitature – Musana Carts, Kampala, Uganda
Musana Carts has used frugal innovation to develop environmentally friendly, solar-powered vending carts. With a price point of $400, each Musana Cart saves 3,000 tons of carbon emissions and improves the health of cities by eliminating pollution from charcoal and kerosene stoves.
Audrey Cheng – Moringa School, Nairobi, Kenya
Audrey Cheng established Moringa School to enable an entire generation gain the skills they need to compete in the digital economy. Two years on, graduates work in the top tech companies in the region, earning, on average, 350 percent more than before they completed the course.
A team of Cleveland teens just won the FIRST Robotics World Championship, in a championship competition that included 20,000 students from 42 countries. Youth Technology Academy Team 120: Cleveland’s Team, along with students from Illinois, California and Virginia, took the top prize on April 30.
“Everybody worked, had a part to do in the robot, it’s just teamwork,” said Peng Zhou.“Some nights we stayed until 10 or 11 o’clock,” said Mark Goeser. “Friday night consisted of this, we didn’t go to parties, we’re just here working on the robot, it’s a lot of work!”
The team, which consists of hundreds of students from the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, all of whom are looking forward to STEM and engineering careers.“This is where we aspire, it’s where we learn to innovate and become the future,” said Iris Harris. “I feel like this is not only a big win for Cleveland but it’s also a big win for us and this helps our future!”
Source: Cleveland teens win Robotics World Championship
article by Breanna Edwards via theroot.com
A Forest, Va., fifth-grader got the chance to see his mother clearly for the first time ever through the use of new electronic glasses, ABC News reports.
A Forest, Va., fifth-grader got the chance to see his mother clearly for the first time ever through the use of new electronic glasses, ABC News reports.
Thanks to the new wearable technology called eSight, Christopher Ward Jr. was able to “really see for the first time in his 12 years of life,” his mother told the news station.
“The very first thing he did was turn to me and say, ‘Oh, Mommy! There you are!” Christopher’s mom, Marquita Hackley, told ABC News today. “And then to hear him say, ‘I saw my mom, and she was very pretty,’ was so heartwarming. And aside from pretty, just the fact he could even see me meant the whole world to me.”
ESight uses a small, high-speed camera that captures live video, which is then sent to a LED screen in front of the user’s eyes, the network notes.
Christopher was born with optic nerve hypoplasia, which means his optic nerve never fully developed before he was born. As a result, he “only has little light perception in his left eye and very, very low vision in his right eye,” Hackley explained.
“Something has to be up in his face, almost touching, for him to see it,” she said. “And even though [he] wears glasses on a daily basis, they’re more for protection than vision because there is a strong possibility he could lose the little sight he does have if he were to get hurt or hit on the face.”
Hackley’s insurance didn’t cover the cost of eSight, so she created a crowdfunding page on the YouCaring site, asking for $15,000 to purchase the technology. Once the community got wind of her need, the story went viral and donations started pouring in. The donation page, which is now closed, raised over $25,000. Hackley noted that all the money over the cost of the glasses would be put into a trust for her son.
“Christopher is just a very loving kid, always happy, and never complains about anything,” she said. “I’ll do anything to help get him what he deserves.”
Read more at ABC News.
article by Katie Dowd via sfgate.com
In the days since the death of music legend Prince, stories of his secret, wide-ranging philanthropy efforts are finally being told. Two of Prince’s major charitable endeavors were centered in the Bay Area: bringing solar panels to Oakland and helping young people of color learn how to code.
In an interview with CNN, political activist Van Jones revealed that, while he was the face of environmental group Green For All, Prince was the driving force and checkbook.
“There are people who have solar panels right now on their houses in Oakland, California that don’t know Prince paid for them,” Jones said.
But that wasn’t all. Prince also helped found #YesWeCode, an initiative to help young people from “low opportunity backgrounds” learn the necessary skills for jobs in the tech sector. “He insisted we create ‘Yes We Code,'” Jones told USA Today, “so that kids in hoodies could be mistaken for kids in Silicon Valley.”
In fact, Jones says that concerts in Oakland (and other cities) were a “cover” so he could visit and check in on charitable organizations and local community groups.
“He did not want it be known publicly, and he did not want us to say it. But I’m gonna say it because the world needs to know that it wasn’t just the music,” Jones said. “The music was just one way he tried to help the world, but he was helping every day of his life.”
article by Samara Lynn via blackenterprise.com
Comcast and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today announced a joint effort to deliver Internet access to public housing in Florida’s Miami-Dade County and the cities of Nashville, Philadelphia, and Seattle.
The program is called Internet Essentials. It includes high-speed Internet service with download speeds up to 10 Mbps, a free Wi-Fi router, access to free digital literacy training, and the option to purchase a computer for less than $150.
The initiative is part of the President Obama and HUD ConnectHome program to extend affordable broadband access to families living in HUD-assisted housing.Today’s announcement marks the eighth time in five years Comcast has expanded eligibility for the program in the company’s efforts to aid in closing the digital divide.
Initially, Internet Essentials was offered to families with children in the National School Lunch Program. It was then expanded to those with children in the reduced price school lunch program. Since, Comcast has expanded the program to include families with children in parochial, private, charter, and cyber schools, as well as students who are home-schooled.
Last year, Comcast created a pilot program to offers the service to low-income seniors and low-income community college students.
Source: Comcast and HUD to Provide Internet Access to Public Housing
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (follow @lakinutcherson)
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Northrop Grumman Foundation and the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) have launched a three-year, $2-million program designed to expand the nation’s engineering workforce through a partnership with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The Northrop Grumman Corporation/NSBE Integrated Pipeline Program will provide 72 engineering students with $8,000 scholarship grants, internships with Northrop Grumman and year-round academic and professional development support.
The program’s three HBCU partners — Florida A&M University, Howard University and North Carolina A&T State University — will receive grants, technical assistance and a package of programs researched and managed by NSBE, to increase their already high capacity to recruit, retain and graduate engineers. NSBE is one of the largest student-governed professional societies based in the United States.
“Northrop Grumman and the Northrop Grumman Foundation are committed to helping improve science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education to ensure a future workforce that can protect our nation and maintain our global leadership,” said Sandra Evers-Manly, Northrop Grumman vice president, global corporate responsibility and president of the Northrop Grumman Foundation. “Our partnership with NSBE will help us achieve that goal and develop the pipeline of diverse talent that is so important to our company and our society’s future.”
“We are delighted to receive this endorsement of our work from one of America’s most innovative companies,” said NSBE Executive Director Karl W. Reid, Ed.D. “For years, we have spoken about the vital role that engineering diversity plays in our national economy and national security. Northrop Grumman’s investment in this program illustrates that they understand the need exists and are willing to do something about it. This fact is reflected not only in their longtime support of NSBE but also in the high ratings the company receives from our membership.”
The first cohort of 24 Northrop Grumman Corporation/NSBE scholars will be selected in December, and their participation in the Pipeline Program will be kicked off with a summit meeting in March 2017, during NSBE’s 43rd Annual Convention in Kansas City, Mo. Summer internships for the first cohort will begin in May 2017.