Here are 7 that black tech entrepreneurs should check out:
1. The Bombastic Brilliance of “Black Twitter”
About: Will demonstrate the phenomenon “Black Twitter’s” intelligence, humor, unique language production, emotions, hashtags, corrective narratives, cultural critique, organizing and entrepreneurial success, enhanced by fictive kin relationships that stun, amaze and inspire the world.
2. CNN’s Black in America/Silicon Valley: Aftermath
About: This panel will discuss the issues raised and footage not seen in the Black in America documentary, and the aftermath since airing.
3. Popping Your Bubble: Stories of the Digital Divide
About: Discussion will be around obstacles to and solutions for getting broadband access, as well as how people creating sites and online tools that want to reach these audiences can engage with them.
4. Mining Diversity: Developing a Community of Color
About: The session will discuss best practices and examples from companies & brands who have successfully developed communities.
5. Social Media Sharecropping: Black Tech Adoption
About: This panel is about the many ways in which modern internet adoption and use mirrors the development of agrarian sharecropping in the South following the Civil War- whereby African Americans provided massive amounts of labor to make other people rich, but could never move beyond basic subsistence living.
6. Race: Know When to Hold It and When to Fold It
About: This panel seeks to change the conversation from “What can technology conferences do about diversity?” to “What can attendees do about diversity at technology conferences?” The panel is composed of speakers who have each presented at multiple technology conferences on topics that did not focus on race or diversity but instead spoke on topics of sci-fi, electronic ownership of email and digital wills, the influence of mobile development via comic books, social media for youth and business automation lessons from Amazon.
7. Pay-It-Forward: Building Successful Startups
About: This workshop session is taught by Black Founders Startup Ventures. Black Founders Startup Ventures was founded to increase the success of black entrepreneurs in tech through educational workshops and events.
