Podcasts about Black Girls Code

This week on SUPERWOMEN, I'm joined by Cristina Mancini, CEO of Black Girls Code, the nonprofit on a mission to change the face of tech. Before joining Black Girls Code, Cristina built a career in film and television, where her curiosity about how to reach audiences between releases led her into the world of technology. What began as a quest to better engage fans soon evolved into a passion for using tech to drive impact and inclusion. Cristina is leading a powerful expansion of the organization's focus: beyond teaching girls to code, she's focused on launching them into the rooms where decisions are made. With her, Black Girls Code has grown to include not just education, but inspiration and real-world opportunity, ensuring that girls and women of color not only learn the skills, but build the confidence and community to thrive in tech. Mancini's vision is clear: access isn't enough, especially in a society in which “people are developing technologies that are not built with inclusion in mind.” Under her leadership, Black Girls Code has evolved beyond education, expanding into college campuses and adult programs that inspire, equip, and launch talent into real-world careers. Whether it's helping a girl build her first app or ensuring she lands a paid internship, Cristina is building a future where representation is the rule, not the exception.In a world where AI and emerging technologies are shaping everything from healthcare to hiring, Cristina is clear: inclusion isn't optional, it's crucial. From building out summer camps and national programming to creating pathways for paid internships and leadership, she's working to ensure no girl is left behind just because the tech world wasn't built with her in mind. Thank you for listening! Don't forget to order my book, “Fearless: The New Rules for Unlocking Creativity, Courage, and Success.”Follow SUPERWOMEN (@rmsuperwomen) and Cristina (@crisbmancini) on Instagram.Support this podcast: https://bit.ly/rmsuperwomen 

Could a unicorn pillow or a spinning toy change the face of the tech industry? In this episode, Lindsay Pedersen talks with Debbie Sterling, founder and CEO of GoldieBlox, about how a simple idea to get more girls into engineering turned into a multimedia movement. Debbie shares the story behind building a brand that challenges gender stereotypes in toys, the decision to grow as a for-profit business, and what it takes to stay playful and purposeful as a leader. This is a conversation full of insight, honesty, and practical inspiration for anyone building something with heart. You'll hear them discuss: Representation - the moment Debbie realized how few women were in her engineering classes and how that sparked a mission to change the narrative. Stereotypes - why toys still fall into “pink” and “blue” aisles, and how GoldieBlox is working to redefine what's seen as “for girls.” Evolution - how GoldieBlox has grown from building toys to creating videos, apps, and games that make STEM fun and accessible. Business model - what influenced the choice to go for-profit and how that decision has shaped the company's impact and reach. Partnerships - how working with organizations like Black Girls Code is helping to expand access to high-quality, free STEM content. Culture - how the company has matured over time and what it looks like to stay focused without losing its creative spirit. Wellbeing - the simple but powerful habits Debbie relies on to stay energized, present, and effective as a leader. Resources: Debbie Sterling on the GoldieBlox | GoldieBlox Instagram | GoldieBlox YouTube | LinkedIn Lindsay Pedersen - Contact me to tell me who you'd like to hear as a guest! | Connect with me on LinkedIn

Felicia and Rachel chat with Mica Le John, the Chief of Staff at Black Girls Code. We dove into her super interesting career journey and explored her passion for digital spaces, meaningful partnerships, and support for young people - they're the future! Speaking of the future, we also discussed the future of the tech industry, workplace inclusion, mental health, and so much more. Mica shared insights into her work at Black Girls Code, the need for equity in the tech industry, the impact of social media, and the role of millennials and Gen Z in shaping digital spaces. Let's go!Links:For ThemIdoruBlack Girls CodeKim Stanley RobinsonChapters:00:00 Intro00:57 Election Day Reflections and Team Policies 02:08 The Importance of Mental Health and Productivity04:54 Newsletter Announcement and Welcoming Mica05:58 Mica's Journey: From Child Actor to Chief of Staff12:31 The Role and Impact of Black Girls Code14:17 Challenges and Opportunities in Tech Diversity24:07 Humanist Technologist: Balancing Tech and Humanity27:25 Nostalgic Dive into the 'Uglies' Series28:05 Books vs. Movies: A Lifelong Debate29:39 Entrepreneurial Insights and Challenges30:03 Ideal Life and Personal Reflections34:04 Future of the Digital Space36:01 Generational Perspectives on Technology46:51 Climate Advocacy and Personal Goals50:35 Geeking Out: Plants and Speculative Fiction52:07 Final Thoughts and Farewell Visit us at InclusionGeeks.com to stay up to date on all the ways you can make the workplace work for everyone! Check out Inclusion Geeks Academy and InclusionGeeks.com/podcast for the code to get a free mini course.

In this episode I talk with Tamer Baker around the not always clear topic of Zero Trust. While the term has been around while, it definitely gets overused by security vendors. However, because of Tamer's role as the Chief Technology Officer in the Healthcare space, he is also to bring several different points of view to the conversation.  Several of these are key to solving questions such as:Is Zero Trust truly expensive and painful? (Radiologist user experience example)As more and more healthcare systems are having to worry about budgets, he challenges the concepts on doing the same with 'less'.A lot of security vendors are talking AI in their products, what things is your company doing that is actually using AI?These are just a few of the tough questions that we tackle. So, set aside some time in your day to listen in to a great conversation!Episode CharitySince 2011, Black Girls Code has supported girls of color in tech through coding education and more. We partner with schools and organizations to offer a range of programs, both in-person and virtual, for ages 7-25.Episode SponsorZscaler is a Cloud Security company based out of San Jose California.

Thanks for stopping by! This week's guest is the wonderful and talented Bob The Drag Queen! Bob and Caleb talk football positions, touring with Madonna, the concept of straight people, a harrowing experience at an Amish party, and much more! To help us in honoring the memory of Bob's mother, please join us in supporting Black Girls Code! https://www.wearebgc.org/donate Join our Patreon for an exclusive extended interview with Bob and other bonus content! https://patreon.com/SoTruePodcast?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink Follow Bob! @bobthedragqueen Follow the show! @sooootruepod Follow Caleb! @calebsaysthings Produced by Chance Nichols @chanceisloud Recorded at Bad Ladder Collective in Los Angeles, CA 

Stacy Brown-Philpot is a unique voice in Silicon Valley. She began her career as a public accountant and worked at Goldman Sachs before landing at Google. She was the COO and then the CEO of TaskRabbit, which she saw through its sale to Ikea. Today, she's on a number of corporate boards including HP, Nordstrom, StockX, Noom, and Black Girls CODE. She's also a founding member of the SoftBank Opportunity Fund, which invests in Black, Latinx, and Native American founders. Throughout, she's been a consistent advocate for building cultures where people can bring all aspects of their rich and varied lives to work. The importance of setting out what you want to be and fully committing to it is the wisdom she's held her entire life: “My grandmother's always telling me, if you don't stand for something, you fall for anything.” In our conversation, we touched on Google's rise and its eventual tumble from its “don't be evil” ethos, what it was like to pioneer the sharing economy at Task Rabbit and the pivots the company went through along the way, and why selling the company to Ikea was dependent on its mission because “they weren't going to buy anything just to buy it. They needed to buy something that they believed in because they're only a part of something that they believe in.”  Stacy's model of compassionate leadership is inspiring, as is the fun she's had executing it for the last few decades, even when things were bumpy. She had a lot to say about both, as well as: What “the greater good” really means Going from 50,000 people at Google to 60 at TaskRabbit The value of sharing meals The importance of celebrating things that happen outside of work at the office  Carrying forward a founder's legacy into a new era for the company Fomenting crisis to foster growth How constraints breed creativity Taking the chaff with the wheat, at work, as a parent, and anywhere else The role of the board  DEI — Brought to you by: Mercury – The art of simplified finances. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Learn more⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. DigitalOcean – The cloud loved by developers and founders alike. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Neo4j – The graph database and analytics leader. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Learn more⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. — Where to find Stacy Brown-Philpot • X: https://x.com/sbp04  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacyphilpot/ Where to find Eric: • Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ericries.carrd.co/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  • Podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ericriesshow.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  • X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/ericries⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  • LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/eries/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  • YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@theericriesshow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  — In This Episode We Cover: (00:44) Meet Stacy Brown-Philpot (05:11) The heyday of Google's “don't be evil” culture  (08:01) Google's IPO (11:20) Stories from Google's hyper-growth era (13:44) The shift to backing away from idealism (15:46) How the 2008 downturn changed Google's DNA (24:13) The difference between cultures at Goldman Sachs and Google (29:43) Mistakes, apologies, and creativity (31:18) Stacy's transition from Google to TaskRabbit (33:52) “the serendipity of what it means to be building something together” (35:00) Navigating culture change at TaskRabbit (42:31) Pivots at TaskRabbit (46:08) Cutting categories and losing revenue for a longer-term goal (47:35) Inside the TaskRabbit pivot war room (48:59) Stacy's stories of taking client and customer calls from her couch (57:20) The Ikea acquisition and cultural alignment (1:00:15) Ikea's foundation ownership model and its “vertically integrated” mission (1:01:27) Stacy's reflections on her startup experience (1:04:05) Stacy's view of the board's role in a company (1:06:07) How she came to be on the board of HP and the companies that followed (1:07:26) The pandemic at TaskRabbit and on the Nordstrom board  (1:08:21) George Floyd  (1:11:20) Stacy's views on DEI, where we are now, and its cyclical nature (1:14:45) Lighting round — Production and marketing by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://penname.co/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Eric may be an investor in the companies discussed.

Copywriter, Apple Inc. Makeda Loney (she/her) is a Copywriter and Content Creator based in the Bay Area, currently working as a Copywriter for Marcom Creative at Apple Inc. During her career, she has been named to a couple of impressive industry lists, including The Drum's 50 under 30 in the U.S. in 2018, joined the ADCOLOR FUTURES Class of 2019, The Pitch Fanzine's 100 Supermen and Women of 2020 and Business Insider's 50 Stars of Madison Avenue. By night, Makeda becomes Kedapalooza, a variety streamer, pastel lover, and body liberation advocate who prioritizes comfort, safety, and advocacy in her community, Camp Kedapalooza. Since she began streaming on Twitch in October 2020, she has been named a spring 2021 BroadcastHER Grant recipient by the 1,000 Dreams Fund, and a fall 2021 Creator Diversity Fund recipient by StreamElements. She has also served as an ambassador for Hot Topic, the It Gets Better Project, and Paidia Gaming. She's also been featured on BuzzFeed and CNET for her work. Camp Kedapalooza has raised nearly $10,000 for charities including The Trevor Project and Black Girls Code.

February 29, 2024 In honor of the 2024 Black History Month theme of African Americans and The Arts, Vernon interviews Lauren Ruffin, Director and Lead Strategist of the Art Program at Michigan Central. Vernon and Lauren will discuss her cooperative journey, and her feelings about how "African Americans and The Arts" impacts lives and history. Lauren Ruffin is Director and Lead Strategist of the Art Program at Michigan Central, a 32-acre Innovation Campus in the heart of Detroit. She is also Associate Professor of Worldbuilding and Visualizing Futures at Arizona State University where she explores the unprecedented and rapid political and social changes taking place in every facet of our lives, largely due to advances in technology. Her research centers on the best practices organizations and companies should embed to ensure that their platforms are safe, equitable, profitable, and joyful for all users, and particularly users from Black and Indigenous, disabled, and queer communities. Prior to these roles, Lauren co-founded CRUX, an immersive storytelling cooperative that collaborates with Black artists as they create content in virtual reality and augmented reality (XR). She also served as co-CEO of Fractured Atlas, the largest association of independent artists in the United States. In 2017, she started Artist Campaign School, a new educational program that has trained 74 artists to run for political office to date. Lauren has served on the governing boards of Black Innovation Alliance, Black Girls Code, and Main Street Phoenix Cooperative; and is on the advisory boards of ArtUp and Black Girl Ventures. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a degree in Political Science and obtained a J.D. from the Howard University School of Law.

In this episode of B The Way Forward, host Brenda Darden Wilkerson talks with CEO of Black Girls Code, Cristina Jones about her work to solve the lack of representation of Black women in technology. Only 2% of the STEM workforce are Black women, and Cristina is hoping to change that. She tells our listeners how she plans to achieve the mission of Black Girls Code, which is to launch 1 million girls into technology by 2040. Her unique perspective as a former Hollywood executive makes her a powerful new force in the tech space, telling a more inclusive story that encourages black girls to join the tech industry. Brenda and Cristina dive into terminology and tech talk and why language in the industry is so important for young girls to feel empowered and welcome into the space. Cristina's breadth of advice is endless. You'll learn why it's crucial to know and articulate your value proposition and the strengths you have to offer in the workforce.  “The hardest notion to break is a preconceived notion, especially the ones that are made about yourself.” For more of Cristina Jones and her work check out... Instagram - @blackgirlscode LinkedIn - /Black-Girls-Code Facebook - /BlackGirlsCodeOrg X - @BlackGirlsCode TikTok - /@blackgirlscode YouTube - /BlackGirlsCode --- At AnitaB.org, we envision a future where the people who imagine and build technology mirror the people and societies for whom they build it. Find out more about how we support women, non-binary individuals, and other underrepresented groups in computing, as well as the organizations that employ them and the academic institutions training the next generations. --- Connect with AnitaB.org Instagram - @anitab_org Facebook - /anitab.0rg LinkedIn - /anitab-org On the web - anitab.org  --- Our guests contribute to this podcast in their personal capacity. The views expressed in this interview are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology or its employees (“AnitaB.org”). AnitaB.org is not responsible for and does not verify the accuracy of the information provided in the podcast series. The primary purpose of this podcast is to educate and inform. This podcast series does not constitute legal or other professional advice or services. --- B The Way Forward Is… Produced by Dominique Ferrari and Paige Hymson Sound design and editing by Neil Innes and Ryan Hammond  Mixing and mastering by Julian Kwasneski  Associate Producer is Faith Krogulecki Executive Produced by Dominique Ferrari, Stacey Book, and Avi Glijansky for Riveter Studios and Frequency Machine  Executive Produced by Brenda Darden Wilkerson for AnitaB.org Podcast Marketing from Lauren Passell and Arielle Nissenblatt with Riveter Studios and Tink Media in partnership with Carolyn Schneller and Coley Bouschet at AnitaB.org Photo of Brenda Darden Wilkerson by Mandisa Media Productions For more ways to be the way forward, visit AnitaB.org

On this week's episode the group goes over a new deck Daniel made. With the recent spoilers for the heroes of the realm cards, a new champion reigns for group hug. Elusen the giving is a commander that will continue to generate value for the table, if they let you play it ! The card was given to wizards employees who were part of philanthropic parts of the year. "The second card, Elusen, the Giving, was posted to X by Jontelle Levson-Smith. Illustrated by Livia Prima, the multicolored Angel Advisor was awarded to those who went out of their way to support philanthropic work with WotC affiliated charities like Black Girls Code, The Trevor Project, Extra Life, and many more. Elusen passes from player to player during each postcombat main phase, and whenever another player donates a permanent, the donating player draws a card, gains 1 life, and creates three Treasure tokens."Definitely support the great charities mentioned above ! Deck list below https://archidekt.com/decks/6181565/elusen_gift_exchangeWhat would you have put in this deck !? Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Intothe99Looking for some cards but they're too expensive? Check out our Friends over at AbyssProxyShop.com Where you can order high quality proxies to help with the deck budget!Also, tell them we sent you with our Promo Code IT99 for 15% off your order!Check out our sponsor Flare ! https://www.flareaudio.com?sca_ref=4904958.B0mVv186HHReally nice quality earplugs that will allow you to still hear conversation and take the edge off of unwanted background noise! Find all our content in one easy place: www.intothe99.comWe have new merch! Make sure you check it out!teespring.com/stores/intothe99Support the show

Black Girls Code is a nonprofit organization that focuses on engaging African American girls and other youth of color with computer programming education to nurture their careers in tech. Its CEO Cristina Jones joins Tavis to share her career and the organization.

For this week here's a throwback episode from Season 2 with Angie Jones!   Angie Jones is a Java Champion and Senior Developer Advocate who specializes in test automation strategies and techniques. She shares her wealth of knowledge by speaking and teaching at software conferences all over the world, writing tutorials and technical articles on angiejones.tech, and leading the online learning platform, Test Automation University.   As a Master Inventor, Angie is known for her innovative and out-of-the-box thinking style which has resulted in more than 25 patented inventions in the US and China. In her spare time, Angie volunteers with Black Girls Code to teach coding workshops to young girls in an effort to attract more women and minorities to tech.   In this episode, I chat with Angie Jones who is a Senior Developer Advocate specialized in test automation strategies & techniques about how she discovered her niche in tech. Angie shares how she got her patents, teaches us her secret to fighting imposters syndrome, and shows us how having a personal brand can help you level up in your career.   Key takeaways from this episode: What is test automation? The skillsets needed to become an effective test automation engineer One simple exercise you can do to combat imposter syndrome The # 1 type of testing everyone should know about Misconceptions about being a test automation engineer The importance of speaking up and sharing your ideas How developing your personal brand can level up your career 3 major keys for getting into tech as a developer Connect with Angie : YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/angieluvboo?sub_confirmation=1 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angiejones Website: https://angiejones.tech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/techgirl1908 Free Courses: https://testautomationu.applitools.com/instructors/angie_jones.html Connect with Grace: Twitter: https://twitter.com/GraceMacjones LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gracemacjones/   Follow the podcast: Twitter: https://twitter.com/techunlockedpod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techunlockedpod/ LinkedIn: Tech Unlocked   Thank you so much for listening to this podcast! If you enjoyed listening to this episode, please leave a rating and review on iTunes. Use the hashtag #Techunlocked to ask questions and share your thoughts. Have a tech-related question? Shoot us an email techunlockedpod@gmail.com

The first day on the job sets the tone, which is why Dom Scandinaro, SVP of Engineering & Data at fan connection app Cameo, encourages new hires to deploy code to production on their very first day. As an experienced software engineer and technology leader, Dom fosters day-one collaborations when bringing on a new team member. Even during growth periods with competing priorities.In this episode, Dom discusses his journey in software engineering and his own spirit of curiosity, which was inspired by his entrepreneurial father. He talks about his work with Black Girls Code, whose mission is “to provide Black girls access to engaging computer programming education that sparks their interest in technology, unlocks their potential and leads to more equitable communities.” He shares how Black Girls Code encourages curiosity in those new to coding and stresses the value of embracing unfamiliar challenges. Dom also provides insight into hiring talent, examining processes during growth periods, and how individual contributors can develop into managers.(02:27) – Finding software engineering(04:46) – Black Girls Code(08:47) – First day on the job(11:57) – Leading and decision-making in growth periods(17:44) – An entrepreneurial father(20:10) – Embracing new things(23:30) – Growing into leadershipDom Scandinaro is the Senior Vice President of Engineering & Data at Cameo. An experienced software engineer and technology leader, Dom has held roles at Mac & Mia, Luxury Garage Sale, DialogTech, and HelloWorld. Dom earned a bachelor's degree in computer science at Wheeling University. He is a member of the core Chicago team for Black Girls Code.If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to Innovation and the Digital Enterprise in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.Podcast episode production by Dante32.

Chris Tillett is a well-known figure in our industry.  He is in product management and R&D at Palo Alto Networks.  He is also a great guy, funny, and can wield the snark quite well.  He is the perfect foil for Allan Alford as the two of them take the gloves off, pick on one another, and tear apart bad vendor and bad CISO behaviors.  LIVE!  At Black Hat!   The two tackle some of the most sensitive pain points on both sides of the fence, and get into solutioning some of the most common CISO/vendor problems.  All while donating to Black Girls Code whenever a buzzword gets used.   Their ultimate conclusion?  We'd better figure out how to lock arms, as the bad guys have no problems coordinating with each other.   Come together.  Right now.  Over The Cyber Ranch Podcast.   Sponsored by Palo Alto Networks XSIAM. Find out more at a workshop near you!

We have a lot to get to this week that should help manage your website so let's get to it.  Also, snack talk ended up extending this episode, sorry (not).Welcome back after a long weekend - Juneteenth As a company, we're donating to Black Girls Code https://wearebgc.org/Provide black girls with computer programming and technology education Migrate to GA4 reminderMigration guide for beginners This isn't a SmartEtailing thing, but rather a Google thing. From the Client Success team:Missing/Mismatched SKUsWhy do they need to be dealt with/deleted?How to do that - POS Sync Management Catalog IndexingStructure changesDuring/after POS Sync processingProduct List vs Product Detail pagesTech Tip: Third-party apps and code snippets that require access to your site HTML - sometimes people are concerned that they won't have access to the HTMLSettings > Marketing > Custom TagsPage Level scripts and CSS - Page SettingsHTML page blockSettings > Catalog settings - Shopping Cart Page Message AND Order Confirmation Page MessageDANGER!Spiderman reference: with great power comes great responsibility - we don't support, edit, or troubleshoot HTML, JS, or CSS custom code. Use these sections at your own risk.SNACKS - road riding perks = gas stationsdiscovered blue raspberry lemonade Swedish fish this weekend If you're a current SmartEtailing website client with questions about your website, reach out to support@smartetailing.com or call 303-527-0676 x 1. If you are not currently a SmartEtaililng website client with questions about how our programs work, email info@smartetailing.com and we'll gladly show you around.Find Us on LinkedInRyan Atkinson, President + Co-OwnerSuzie Livingston, Marketing + CommunicationsMark Still, Business DevelopmentWe also publish Up Next on our YouTube channel if you'd like to watch while you listen. Here is our Up Next playlist.If you have any questions about the topics discussed in this episode of Up Next or if you have ideas for new topics we can cover, schedule a time to meet with Mark Still here or email mark.s@smartetailing.com.#email marketing #marketing #bikeshopwebsites #merchandising

Brian Douglas is the CEO of OpenSauced which helps enterprises discover the best engineers in Open Source. Victoria and Will talk to Brian about meeting as many developers as possible, setting goals, and keeping himself accountable, and what makes a successful open source project. OpenSauced (https://opensauced.pizza/) Follow OpenSauced on Twitter (https://twitter.com/saucedopen), GitHub (https://github.com/open-sauced), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/opensauced/), YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/opensauced), Discord (https://discord.com/invite/U2peSNf23P), and Dev.to (https://dev.to/opensauced). Follow Brian Douglas on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianldouglas/), Twitter (https://twitter.com/bdougieYO), or visit his website (https://b.dougie.dev/). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: VICTORIA: Hey there. It's your host Victoria. And I'm here today with Dawn Delatte and Jordyn Bonds from our Ignite team. We are thrilled to announce the summer 2023 session of our new incubator program. If you have a business idea that involves a web or mobile app, we encourage you to apply for our 8-week program. We'll help you validate the market opportunity, experiment with messaging and product ideas, and move forward with confidence towards an MVP. Learn more and apply at tbot.io/incubator. Dawn and Jordyn, thank you for joining and sharing the news with me today. JORDYN: Thanks for having us. DAWN: Yeah, glad to be here. VICTORIA: So, tell me a little bit more about the incubator program. This will be your second session, right? JORDYN: Indeed. We are just now wrapping up the first session. We had a really great 8 weeks, and we're excited to do it again. VICTORIA: Wonderful. And I think we're going to have the person from your program on a Giant Robots episode soon. JORDYN: Wonderful. VICTORIA: Maybe you can give us a little preview. What were some of your main takeaways from this first round? JORDYN: You know, as ever with early-stage work, it's about identifying your best early adopter market and user persona, and then learning as much as you possibly can about them to inform a roadmap to a product. VICTORIA: What made you decide to start this incubator program this year with thoughtbot? DAWN: We had been doing work with early-stage products and founders, as well as some innovation leads or research and development leads in existing organizations. We had been applying a lot of these processes, like the customer discovery process, Product Design Sprint process to validate new product ideas. And we've been doing that for a really long time. And we've also been noodling on this idea of exploring how we might offer value even sooner to clients that are maybe pre-software product idea. Like many of the initiatives at thoughtbot, it was a little bit experimental for us. We decided to sort of dig into better understanding that market, and seeing how the expertise that we had could be applied in the earlier stage. It's also been a great opportunity for our team to learn and grow. We had Jordyn join our team as Director of Product Strategy. Their experience with having worked at startups and being an early-stage startup founder has been so wonderful for our team to engage with and learn from. And we've been able to offer that value to clients as well. VICTORIA: I love that. So it's for people who have identified a problem, and they think they can come up with a software solution. But they're not quite at the point of being ready to actually build something yet. Is that right? DAWN: Yeah. We've always championed the idea of doing your due diligence around validating the right thing to build. And so that's been a part of the process at thoughtbot for a really long time. But it's always been sort of in the context of building your MVP. So this is going slightly earlier with that idea and saying, what's the next right step for this business? It's really about understanding if there is a market and product opportunity, and then moving into exploring what that opportunity looks like. And then validating that and doing that through user research, and talking to customers, and applying early product and business strategy thinking to the process. VICTORIA: Great. So that probably sets you up for really building the right thing, keeping your overall investment costs lower because you're not wasting time building the wrong thing. And setting you up for that due diligence when you go to investors to say, here's how well I vetted out my idea. Here's the rigor that I applied to building the MVP. JORDYN: Exactly. It's not just about convincing external stakeholders, so that's a key part. You know, maybe it's investors, maybe it's new team members you're looking to hire after the program. It could be anyone. But it's also about convincing yourself. Really, walking down the path of pursuing a startup is not a small undertaking. And we just want to make sure folks are starting with their best foot forward. You know, like Dawn said, let's build the right thing. Let's figure out what that thing is, and then we can think about how to build it right. That's a little quote from a book I really enjoy, by the way. I cannot take credit for that. [laughs] There's this really great book about early-stage validation called The Right It by Alberto Savoia. He was an engineer at Google, started a couple of startups himself, failed in some ways, failed to validate a market opportunity before marching off into building something. And the pain of that caused him to write this book about how to quickly and cheaply validate some market opportunity, market assumptions you might have when you're first starting out. The way he frames that is let's figure out if it's the right it before we build it right. And I just love that book, and I love that framing. You know, if you don't have a market for what you're building, or if they don't understand that they have the pain point you're solving for, it doesn't matter what you build. You got to do that first. And that's really what the focus of this incubator program is. It's that phase of work. Is there a there there? Is there something worth the hard, arduous path of building some software? Is there something there worth walking that path for before you start walking it? VICTORIA: Right. I love that. Well, thank you both so much for coming on and sharing a little bit more about the program. I'm super excited to see what comes out of the first round, and then who gets selected for the second round. So I'm happy to help promote. Any other final takeaways for our listeners today? DAWN: If this sounds intriguing to you, maybe you're at the stage where you're thinking about this process, I definitely encourage people to follow along. We're trying to share as much as we can about this process and this journey for us and our founders. So you can follow along on our blog, on LinkedIn. We're doing a LinkedIn live weekly with the founder in the program. We'll continue to do that with the next founders. And we're really trying to build a community and extend the community, you know, that thoughtbot has built with early-stage founders, so please join us. We'd love to have you. VICTORIA: Wonderful. That's amazing. Thank you both so much. INTRO MUSIC: VICTORIA: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Victoria Guido. WILL: And I'm your host, Will WILL. And with us today is Brian Douglas, CEO of OpenSauced, helping enterprises discover best engineers in open source. Brian, thank you for joining us today. BRIAN: My pleasure. Thanks for inviting me on the podcast. VICTORIA: Just tell us a little bit more about OpenSauced. BRIAN: Yeah, it's opensauced.pizza is the URL. So I always point that out because it's easy to found. WILL: I love it. BRIAN: And OpenSauced is a platform for engineers to find their next contributions and enterprises to discover the best engineers doing open-source, so... VICTORIA: Right. So maybe tell me what led you to start this company? BRIAN: Yeah, that's a great question. Actually, if you don't mind, I'll start further back. I graduated college in 2008 during the financial crisis with a finance degree. And what I learned pretty quickly is, like, if you don't know anybody in finance, it's a little hard to get a job in a bad market. So I took a sales role instead, mainly because I just wanted to learn. I was very much introverted. I wanted to learn how to talk to people, and have conversation, and communicate. So I did that four years and then got my MBA. And then started learning how to code while building an app, which is...I mentioned before we hit record I learned about this podcast around that time, which is, like, very serendipitous to be on this podcast years later. But, fast forward, OpenSauced, like, because of the whole networking aspect of how I got my job in sales and how I was able to do sales when I learned how to engineer, I knew the connection to open source, or how I learned how to code was, like, a wealth of information. So I made it my career goal to meet as many developers as possible. And then, I was working at this company called Netlify. I was employee number three there. And my role was to basically be a front-end engineer, but where I was actually getting more adoption to the product by doing open source. Like, every time I'd do an open-source contribution, I'd add a Netlify deploy preview manually in my PR. And that would give the maintainer enough juice to review the PR sooner. And I was doing a lot of open-source contribution at the time. So I wanted to build a tool to maintain, like, all the PRs I had opened in-flight that I needed to respond back to or...because back in, like, 2016, notifications on GitHub they weren't the greatest. WILL: [laughs] BRIAN: So I built a tool just to keep up to date on what I had opened and how I can communicate back with the maintainer. And saw a need...actually, I didn't see the need. I used this thing myself, and then in 2020, I started live streaming myself, building more features on top of this, like, CRM tool, and had a few people ask, "Hey, can you add a login to this? I'd love to use this, too, with my own database and stuff like that." So I did that. I added login. And I say database, like, we actually originally started with no database. We used GitHub Issues as a tracking mechanism for tracking repos and conversations. We've since moved away from that because, now, obviously, GitHub's got way more advanced in how notifications work. But the sort of ethos of the project still lives today, and what we have in the open-source platform. So that's, like, the long tale of how we got to where we are today. And then, I spoke at GitHub Universe on OpenSauced back in 2017. And from that talk, I had GitHub employees reach out to me and ask me to work at GitHub. So I accepted, and I worked at GitHub for almost five years, sort of putting OpenSauced to the side up until last year, decided to go ahead and pursue it again. And at that point, decided to make it a company. VICTORIA: What a cool story. There are so many things in there that I want to follow up on. I'm sure, Will, you also are like -- [laughs] WILL: [laughs] Yes. VICTORIA: I have so many questions. [laughs] WILL: Wow, that's amazing just hearing the story from you [laughs] got a four-year degree in finance, 2008 happened, no job, very hard to get a job because of who you know. And then you go and changed directions to start learning to code. And I love how it's kind of guided your path to where you are here right now. Like, who knows? But would you have been the CEO of OpenSauced if 2008 would have never happened? So it's amazing to see it. So, I guess, because I love the idea of OpenSauced...because I am that developer that wants to get into open source, but it is hard. It is hard to find the issues that you can work on. It's hard to get into the community to do that. So, if you can just explain to me a little bit more as from there, and we can do it from the enterprise portion later. But, as far as a user: a developer, what does it look like for me to use OpenSauced as a developer? BRIAN: Yeah, yeah. And that's a great question, too, as well. It's funny how serendipitous the story is today, but when I was living it, it was like, oh, man, I'm never going to get a job. [laughter] Or I'm never going to learn how to code. And I think anybody listening who might be where I was ten years ago, I just want to preface, like, your story is like a guided path through experiences. And every experience is like an opportunity for that sort of one piece of, like, the sort of stepping stone to move on to, like, CEO of whatever your next startup is or senior engineer, or staff engineer, whatever it is. But, to answer your question, Will, we built a Discord, and the Discord itself is how we sort of discovered this sort of onboard ramp into open source. So today, if you sign up to OpenSauced, again, opensauced.pizza, you connect to your GitHub account, and you get on-boarded into a flow to ask a couple questions. So, like, what languages are you interested in? And then, what time zone are you in? And the reason for those two things is, one because we're going to do recommendations for projects pretty soon. Everything is open source, so you can literally see the issues that are open about recommendations; happy to take contributions and feedback on it. And then time zone is because communication is pretty key. So, like, if someone is not awake when I see their PR, I have an expectation of, like, cool, I'll write a response, and I'll wait for them to wake up and respond back to that. So the goal there is there's a lot of projects on GitHub, like, 372 million repos is the number off the top of my head. They literally announce this stuff, and they share the data. But of those repos, only 225,000 have more than five contributors. Understanding what you're looking to accomplish first out of doing open source to either share knowledge, or gain knowledge, to get exposure, to get a job, or just to enhance your current job by go try something that's not in the roadmap of what you're working on. Eventually, we'll start asking those questions around, like, what type of contributor that you want to be, so we can start recommending those types of projects. But I mentioned that 225,000 repo number because there are a lot of projects that don't have five contributors that could use their second contributor, or third, fourth. And my recommendation is always find up-and-coming, like, growth-stage projects. A lot of people want to contribute to React. You had mentioned you did React, Will. That's a really big lift to go contribute upstream to a project maintained and supported by millions of enterprises around the world. But there are tons of projects that go trending every week that have no documentation, that have no README, that have no structure and are just getting off the ground. Like, those are the best projects that we try to showcase. So, like, that's hot.opensauced.pizza is our sort of up-and-coming project list. And the way that works is like projects that are trending based on our open-source community; we surface those there. There's a lot of work we have to do on that project. That was, like, a Hack Week project we did a couple of years ago as a community. But the basis of that is they're looking to build our recommendation engine off that. So, step one is find a project that is welcoming, that needs some work done, and then find the path in. So the path usually is going to be your CONTRIBUTING.md, which is like established projects will have this. But if you don't find a CONTRIBUTING.md, but you find a project you want to use, chances are you could build that CONTRIBUTING.md and ask the question, so, like, hey, how would I contribute? Like, how can I be supportive? Actually, I did this talk a couple of years ago at Juneteenth Conf. It was a remote conference on Juneteenth, which a bunch of Black Engineers we all gave our technical expertise sponsored by Microsoft. And I was talking about the idea of open-source hospitality. The best thing you could do is be that sort of hospitable person, either you're a maintainer or a first-time contributor. Like, be that person to set it up for the next person behind you. And the idea of hospitality, you go to a hotel. Like, you know where the towels are. Like, you know where the soaps are. Like, you know exactly where everything is all the time. And, in open source, like, if we could set up our projects in a very similar fashion, like, not franchise them in a way like the Hilton or Marriott, but set the expectation that there is a way to source information and to interact and operate, so... VICTORIA: Yeah, I mean, I love, [laughs] like, hot.opensauced.pizza. That's hilarious. And I love how you have used humor to...even though it's a very serious product, we're making it more friendly and more hospitable like you're saying. And I like how you said, you know, the journey is cool looking back on it, but it was really hard to go through it. And now you're this wonderful speaker and a CEO. But you said that you weren't actually good at talking to people at first. And you specifically sought to get better at that skill. So I wonder if you would share more about that, how that's impacted your career, and why that's important as a developer to have those communication skills. BRIAN: Yeah, it's like...I have a twin brother since birth, basically. And my twin brother is very extroverted. Like, he actually used to wait tables in college. It was like he was the person that would make you feel very special as a server. Like, he's the type of person that kind of lights up the room when you walk in. His name is Brock. My entire life growing up, I was always Brock's brother. And it's like, oh, you're Brock's brother. And it's like, yeah, I'm Brock's brother. And I'm more of a person, like, if you meet me in person, like, I'm very much reserved. I'm sort of reading the room, waiting for my point to jump in. And I made it a point for me to, like, have enough comfort to speak on a podcast or speak at a conference because I knew that skill set would be valuable. Because I definitely had, in my sales career, definitely got overlooked for a lot of opportunity because folks thought, oh, I don't think Brian could do it. So coming into tech and seeing that when every time I went to a meet up...because meetups also are places where I cut my teeth and got to learn about the industry and the community. They always needed someone to speak. So I was, like, oh, there's an opportunity. I can leverage this opportunity of them always looking for speakers and me always wanting to share knowledge and learn something new to do talks. So my first-ever conference talk was in San Francisco. And I had learned React Native, but prior to React Native, I had learned Objective-C. And then, in between Objective-C and React Native, I learned Swift because React Native and Swift came out the same year. Well, React Native went public, open source, the same year as Swift. So it was like a really interesting year back in; I think it was 2017 where...actually, it might have been 2016. But, anyway, everything came out at the same time. And I was learning iOS development. So I made it a point for me to give a talk. But my pet peeve for giving talks is, a lot of times, people just go directly into the code, and there's, like, no connection to a story, or why do I care about this? So I always bring storytelling into my conversations and talks. So, like, that talk about Swift, and Objective-C, and React Native, I made the comparison of, like...it was the same year that Kanye West took the mic from Taylor Swift at the VMAs or whatever the award show was. And the correlation was React Native took the mic away from Swift because it built similar interactions for JavaScript developers to understand and build iOS applications that was not like Ionic or RubyMine or...I forgot the Ruby one. But, anyway, what I'm getting at is, I just wanted to bring story to this because usually what happens is like, you see cool things, but you never remember what the name is. You try to find that REPL again, or you try to figure out who that speaker is. And it's usually hard to find it after the fact. So, like, my goal was always to make it memorable, which is why I go by Bdougie because Bdougie is easier to Google than Brian Douglas. Shout out to Brian Douglas, who's based in Ireland who does system engineering, and has a great YouTube channel. Like, I want to be memorable. And I want to make it easy for folks to find me after. So, while at GitHub, when I was developing all this sort of like Kanye West-type speaking and stuff like that, well, literally, I would use Kanye West years ago as the example to understand storytelling. I no longer use Kanye West. I'm now a Beyoncé advocate. [laughter] So I use Beyoncé instead. But I guess what I'm getting at is, like, I just had a goal. And I knew if I could teach myself to code...and it was about 17 weeks it took me from zero to ship a Ruby on Rails app. And I felt confident enough to talk about it. I knew basically anything I could just accomplish just by putting some effort and consistency behind it. So that's the...sorry, that was a little more long-winded than expected. But I just keep accountable and set goals for myself and try to achieve enough to feel proud about at the end of the year. WILL: Yeah. It's so funny because I recently had a similar situation. At thoughtbot, we try to engage with the community, and one of the ways was writing a blog post. I've never been a writer. It just hasn't been my thing. But I was telling my boss, I was like, I'm going to do that to get outside my comfort zone and to really stretch myself. And at the same time, I was like, why a blog post? Like, I don't know, it doesn't really make sense why a blog post. Well, when I started writing the blog post, I was like, oh, you have to really know, one, what you're talking about in order to write about it. And so I had to really do some research, really had to study it. And I finished it last week. And then, now, looking back over the last couple of months it took me to write that blog post, I'm like, wow, I feel stretched. But I feel really good, and I feel really good about the topic that I did. So that's interesting that you went through that process to stretch yourself and to grow and even learning to code and get to that point. So talking about...you were at Netlify, and then you worked at GitHub. And then you're at your current one OpenSauced. How have Netlify and GitHub, the work that you did there, how has it prepared you for your position right now? BRIAN: You know, actually, that's a great question. I don't know how much thought I put into that. Like, Netlify prepared me because it gave me an opportunity. So I was employee number three, but I had a sales background. And so I got to be an engineer, but they kept always trying to ask me like, you know, business questions and strategy. And, like, I pitched them a 30-60-90 in my interview of, like, what's the growth strategy of Netlify, like day zero when I start? And I go into way more detail in other content. But that prepared me because I got to see how startups work, being so early. I got to see that startup go from seed-funded, just closed their seed round to get their series B is when I left. At GitHub, I got to see what it looked like at a bigger company, which, like, it doesn't matter how big or small you are, like, there's always chaos. Like, GitHub was, like, so much chaos, and there was a lot of good that was happening but a lot of uncertainty at the time I joined in 2018. And then, nine months later, Microsoft acquired GitHub. So then I got to learn stability and what it looks like to...for personal reasons, I always had a budget but never had extra money, even years into my engineering career. And that taught me what it looks like when success meets career. With that being said, like, the problem that I'm solving, I got to learn firsthand while being at Netlify and getting adoption and traction through open source. And then going to GitHub and seeing every single other company that looked at GitHub as a solution to their open-source collaborations and interactions. And then also seeing that there was a hole in just understanding, like, how do you survive? How do you sustain yourself as your career but also your open-source project? Like, a lot of folks want to know, like, what success looks like for open source. Like, how do you get on the trending algorithm? Like, how do you get noticed? It's more than just pushing to GitHub and hoping for the best. There are, like, other things that happen for projects to be successful. And for us to choose the next in the future technologies, it really comes down to community, marketing, and then resources. And those three things end up making projects successful. With OpenSauced, we're working to help inflate some storytelling and add some of those resources to open-source projects. VICTORIA: Great. So you were able to really get, like, the full vision of what it could be if you had a product that became successful and stable, and you knew you wanted to build it on open source. So I love that you really just...you had this problem, and that's what you built the product around. And that ended up becoming the business. What was surprising for you in those early discovery phases with OpenSauced when you were first thinking of building it? BRIAN: I guess what's really surprising is we're not, like, crazy traction today. But we've done a pretty good job of getting, like, 2,000 developers to sign up to it since December. And then the conversations with enterprises so far just by the sheer...like, basically, what was surprising is if you use proper sales technique and you're early stage as a startup, so, like, not necessarily hire salespeople, but as a founder or as a stakeholder, just go talk to your future customers and your users. Everyone says it, but that's actually super valuable. And I think in the same vein of open source, folks they see projects die on the vine, but then you see projects succeed. And I think it also comes down to how often the maintainer of the project is talking to the contributors and the users and also that distinction as well. There are folks who want to contribute code to the codebase, but then there are folks who want to use the codebase. And, like, how do you interact between the two? And how do you cross the chasm for those folks as well? And, a lot of times, it's just fascinating just, like, just by trying, and just by showing up, that's half. It's all cliché stuff, like, I could say, but it's all true. Like, showing up is, like, it's, like, step one. Just show up, do the thing, do the work. And then talk to people is, like, step two. And it's hard to say, like, okay, yeah, because we are not a multibillion-dollar company, like, we're just getting started. So I can't say, like, yeah, we're super successful. But we've survived the year. And we've survived the year based on those two steps, the showing up and then talking to people. Because a lot of times, we could get lost in the sauce, per se, of just shipping code and never talking to anybody and never coming up for air. And I think what I learned, going back to what I learned from GitHub and Netlify, is talking to people and getting that feedback loop going is the best thing you could do for any product. Any early project, any feature you're working on, talk to people about it and see if it's actually valuable for somebody that after you ship it, something will happen. WILL: You're talking about communication is a big thing for a successful project. Have you noticed any other trends that make a successful open-source project? BRIAN: Yeah, that's...Any other trends? Yeah. I mean, AI, [laughs] just kidding. WILL: [laughs] BRIAN: No, I mean, but it also it is true, like, having a trend not sort of following the herd, but catching the herd earlier is extremely valuable. Like, at Netlify, we caught the trend of React. So, basically, Netlify built essentially GitHub Pages but a product and a company. And that was, like, the original project of Netlify. It's expanded so much further from that. But at that time, when I joined, I joined three months before Create React App was developed. So, like, it was a CLI tool to build React apps easy. And, prior to that, React was, like, super complicated to get up and running. Like, you had to know Webpack. You had to know, Babel. You had to make all that glue happen together. And then there wasn't an easy process to go host it somewhere. So the prevalence of build tools like Grunt, and Gulp, and Browserify, they all made it easier to build a static output from React. And that trend is what took Netlify to where it is today. It's like, people needed a place to deploy these static applications. GitHub Pages was like the solution for a lot of folks. Because Heroku, like, why pay $7 for something you could host on S3 for free? But the challenge was S3 it requires way more thought in how you host and take it down and deploy, and then it becomes like a Kubernetes nightmare. So the trend there was, like, people just wanted to have a better developer experience. When it comes to, like, open source, the developer experience in JavaScript has improved so much more. But folks are now looking at the next thing like a Zig, or a Rust, or all these other new languages and server renderings and stuff like that. So I guess when I take a step back, when I look at how I chose things I wanted to work on, and communities I wanted to hang out in...before committing to React...I'm based out here in Oakland, so San Francisco, basically. By seeing the sheer number of RSVPs to the React meetup, it made me confident that React would be something I should pay attention to. When you look at the RSVPs of now all these AI meetups that are happening in San Francisco, like, every single weekend is a hackathon. Highly confident that if you're engineering today, you probably want to know what embeddings are and know how OpenAI works. Not that you necessarily have to build AI stuff, but it is going to be the thing that people are going to be using. So just like we had to learn build tools, and servers, and CDNs prior, now it's all trivial stuff that you can sort of use Cloudflare for free. Like, AI is going to be very similar, and it's probably going to happen much quicker. But, in the time being, the trend right now is, like, you should probably understand whatever the players are in that space so that way you're able to talk confidently about it. WILL: That's really good advice, yep. VICTORIA: Absolutely. And, you know, in my role as Managing Director of Mission Control, or, like, DevOps, SRE platform, I spend a lot of time looking at trends, more on the engineering side. So I think my question is, [laughs] as someone who hires people to work on open-source projects, and who actively maintains and contributes to open-source projects, what should I be thinking about how to use OpenSauced as in my role? BRIAN: For hiring and sourcing skilled folks, we're actually working on a tool right now to make it more discoverable. So, today, when you onboard as an individual developer, you can check a box in your settings to say, like, if you want to collaborate with other folks, you have to opt into it. So if you want to be discovered on OpenSauced, it's in the settings. We'll probably expose that and share more about that in the future, like, in the next month or so. But for, in particular, our user flow today for folks looking to find other people to contribute alongside their project is, you add your project to what we call an Insight Page. You click on the tab on the top and create a page with your project. And then, you can see contributions in your project in the last 30 days. And then you can also add other projects like your project, so you can see who else is contributing. So, that way, you can start discovering folks who are making contributions consistently and start to get some stories of, like, if they're interested in collaborating, they'll check that box; if they're not, the box won't be checked. But at least you know the sort of scope of the ecosystem. As an individual developer, we have the onboarding flow, but then we also have highlights. So, eventually, we'll do recommendations to get you to make contributions. But, for now, if you're already making contributions, you can highlight the contributions you've made so that way, you're more discoverable on the platform. And the highlights are very much like a LinkedIn post or a tweet. You just drop in a PR, and then we'll either generate that description for you, or you write a description: I did a thing. This is what it was. This was the experience. And then, now you're attached to the project through not just a code contribution but also a discovery mechanism, which is a highlight. And then, eventually, we'll start doing blog posts, and guides, and stuff like that, as they're written. Like, if you want to attribute your career, and your journey to your participation to, like, documentation updates and stuff like that, those will also be highlights coming soon. WILL: I love, love, love that. MID-ROLL AD: Now that you have funding, it's time to design, build and ship the most impactful MVP that wows customers now and can scale in the future. thoughtbot Lift Off brings you the most reliable cross-functional team of product experts to mitigate risk and set you up for long-term success. As your trusted, experienced technical partner, we'll help launch your new product and guide you into a future-forward business that takes advantage of today's new technologies and agile best practices. Make the right decisions for tomorrow, today. Get in touch at: thoughtbot.com/liftoff WILL: I hear you saying that you have some things that's coming soon. In a high, high level, what are some of the things that you have coming? And what does success look like, six months, a year? What does that look like? Because it sounds like you have some really good ideas that you're working on. BRIAN: Yeah, yeah. So, like, six months to the end of the year, what we want to do is actually start getting more deeper insights to what's happening in open source. What we're doing right now is building the individual developer profile and experience so that way, they're able to be discovered, find projects to work on. And then what's next is there are tons of enterprises and companies that are maintaining open-source projects, SDKs. And what we're seeing right now is we're seeing massive layoffs happening currently in the industry. So like, as of today, I think Facebook laid off 4,000 people, ESPN laid off, like, 7,000 Disney employees as well. And some of those employees are around the Disney+ place. It's a lot of technical engineering stuff. So I guess what I'm getting at is there...we want to be able to see the trends of places that activity is happening and start recommending people to that. But also, we want to give an opportunity for folks who...companies...sorry, I'm avoiding trying to name specific companies because nothing is in contract yet. But certain companies, like, you, don't think of as an open-source powerhouse. So, like, a company we're now talking to right now is walgreens.com. And Walgreens they have tech. They've got open source that they participated. But they're not thought of as a place like, oh, I want to go work at Walgreens and go work on some cloud infrastructure stuff. So, how does Walgreens get exposure? And, like, hey, we're involved in the kubectl, and the Kubernetes platform and stuff like that, like, be aware that there's opportunity here. So we're going to start driving that connection to folks. So, as you develop your career doing open source, you can also be noticed, and folks can reach out to you. And also, I want to stand on the notion of open source is not for everybody. But I also want to point out, like, my entire career in open source has not been nights and weekends. It's always been finding a company that supports my interest to do open-source at work. Part of my story is, like, I was getting an MBA. My first kid, who's nine years old now he, was born 11 weeks early. And he's the reason why I built an app because I wanted to build an app to solve a pain point that I had, and ended up building that in 17 weeks. And that turned into opportunity. So I guess what I'm getting at is, like, folks being laid off right now, you might have some extra free time. You might be submitting like 100 applications a day. Consider taking that down to 50 applications a day, and then try to contribute to a couple of open-source projects a month. So that way, there's some more story to be shared as you're in the job market. VICTORIA: I love that you created that app when you had your son and you had that need. And for developers wanting to get noticed and wanting to get their next leg up or maybe even negotiate for higher salaries, what's the traditional way people do that now to kind of highlight themselves? BRIAN: The traditional way what people are doing is they're tweeting. They're speaking at conferences. They're sharing their stories. It's like zero to I'm an influencer in the open-source space. There's no real clear guide and steps to get to that point, which is why we have highlights today. Like, we want to make it low effort for folks to write 200 characters about something they contributed to. We're actually working on something to generate pull request descriptions because I think that's another missed opportunity. Like, when you open a PR in an open-source project, and it says no description added, like, that's a missed opportunity. Like, there's an opportunity for you to share what you've learned, what Stack Overflow questions you looked at, like, how you got to the problem, and why this is the right solution. All should be in the pull request description. And then that pull request should be in your cover letter for your resume so that people can go back and say, "Oh, wow, you did some real work." I can go see the history of your contributions because perhaps the job you got let go from you only worked in private repos. You couldn't really showcase your skills. That now gives you a competitive edge. And I guess when I look into this, like, going back to my original onboard ramp into engineering, I graduated with a finance degree with no network. I had one internship at an insurance company, but that wasn't enough. Like, everyone who I interned with, like, the guy who got a job at the internship, like, his dad was a client, was a big client at that firm. And another guy he worked at a golf course, and he'd be the caddy for all these big finance folks where I went to school. So, once I learned that there's an opportunity to get a job by just knowing people, that changed my entire path. Like, when I got to sales, like, oh, or when I got to engineering, I just knew go and meet people. Go have conversations. Go to meetups. What I'm trying to do with OpenSauced is make that step closer for folks, so they could look up and be like, you know, I've made all these contributions, or I don't know where to start. Let me just look at people who I know and follow in the industry and see where they're contributing, and make that connection. So, like, we've kind of closed that gap without the need of, again, you don't need 100,000 Twitter followers to get noticed. Just make some contributions or show up and ask questions. And, hopefully, that's the first step to establishing your career. VICTORIA: Well, that sounds great for both people who are looking to get hired, but also, as someone who hires people, [laughter] I know that there's a lot of amazing developers who are never going to do a conference talk, or they're not going to post on Twitter. So I love that that's available, and that's something you're working on. BRIAN: Yeah, it's just coming out of my own pain of, like, I was saying, like, looking at the story now, it sounds great. [laughs] But part of that story was like, hey, I was getting severely underpaid as an engineer in San Francisco, living in a one-bedroom apartment with two kids. Like, all that part of the story is like nothing I dwell on. But it's like, all that opportunity and knowledge-sharing that I ended up benefiting from, it's like what I constantly try to give. I pay it forward with folks. And I'm more than happy to talk with folks on Twitter and in OpenSauced Discord and other places because I think there's a lot of opportunity in open source. And if anybody's willing to listen, I'm willing to show them the path. WILL: I'm so glad you brought that up because this is one of my favorite questions I ask on the podcast: So, knowing where you're at right now and your story, you've gone the ups, the downs, all of it. If you can go back in time and know what you know now, what advice would you give yourself at the beginning? BRIAN: Honestly, I would say write it down. Like, one thing that I did is I did a blog post, and that's part of the reason why I was able to find my first job in engineering is I started a blog, which was really for myself to learn what I did yesterday. I tell everyone who I mentor it takes two hours every time you want to sit and learn something new because one hour is to remember what you did yesterday, and then one hour is to do something new. And so, I usually write it down and then make it a blog post just to solve that problem. I wish I did more with that, like, you know, wrote a book, or created a YouTube channel, or something because all that knowledge and that sort of sharing is actually what got me to level up faster. I was asked by one of my close friends, like, "Hey, how do you do it? How do you accomplish everything you've done in the last, like, 9-10 years?" And I didn't know what the answer was then. But the answer today for my friend, and I'll share this with them, is it's because I wrote it down. I was able to go back and see what I did. And then, at the end of six months, I was able to go back six months and see what I did. It's like the idea of relativity with, like, Einstein. Relativity is the idea of motion and the perception. Like, if you're in a train, it feels like you're just going slow. But you might be going 100 miles per hour, but you don't feel that. And when you're going on your journey, you could be going 100 miles per hour, but you're thinking, oh, man, I failed yesterday. I could have solved a problem. But yeah, you solved six problems while trying to solve for one. It's that situation. So advice for myself, in the beginning, write it down and then share it way more than I did when I started. Because a lot of the stuff I'm like, even in this conversation, I'm thinking, oh yeah, this, this, and this. And I never shared that before, and I wish I did. So yeah. WILL: I love that. Because yeah, I feel like that's development, like, you have some weeks that you're shipping out multiple features. And then other weeks, you're like, I barely got one out, or I barely fixed this one bug that I've been trying to...struggling with the last couple of weeks. So yeah, I like that advice. Write it down. And remember where you've been, remember. I just love the example you used, too, because it does seem like I haven't made any movement. But when you look back, you're like, no, you actually made a lot of movement. And you were very successful with what you did. So that's great advice. VICTORIA: I sometimes write things, and then I go back maybe six months later and read them. And I'm like, who wrote this? [laughter] I don't remember learning this stuff. Oh yeah, I guess I did, right, yeah. [laughs] No, that's so cool. What questions do you have for us, Brian? BRIAN: I'm curious in, like, how do thoughtbot folks stay up to date? Like, what does your involvement in open source look like today? VICTORIA: Yeah, so we are known for being active maintainers of a lot of very popular Ruby on Rails gems. So we're a consulting agency. So we're able to structure our time with our clients so that we can build in what we call investment days, which is typically Fridays, so that people can contribute to open-source projects. They can write blog posts. They can do trainings. And so that gives us the structure to be able to actually allow our employees to contribute to open source, and it's a huge part of our business as well. So if you have a Ruby on Rails project, you're probably using one of our gems. [laughs] And so, when there's other crises or other things happening in an organization, and they want to bring in an expert, they know that that's who thoughtbot is. Of course, we've expanded, and we do React, and now we're doing platform engineering. And we have some open-source TerraForm modules that we use to migrate people onto AWS and operate at that enterprise level with a mix of managed products from AWS as well. And that continues to be, like, how we talk to people [laughs] and get that buzzword out there is, like, okay, there's this cool open-source project. Like, one I'm excited about now is OpenTelemetry. And so we're digging into that and figuring out how we can contribute. And can we make a big impact here? And that just opens the door to conversations in a way that is less salesy, right? [laughs] And people know us as the contributors and maintainers, and that creates a level of trust that goes a long way. And also, it really speaks to how we operate as a company as well, where the code is open and when we give it back to the customers, it's not. Some organizations will build stuff and then never give it to you. [laughs] BRIAN: Yeah. So it sounds like folks at thoughtbot could probably benefit from things like OpenSauced for discoverability. And I get a lot of conversation around in OpenSauced as like, how do I get connected to maintainer of X or maintainer of Y? And the first step is like, how do I even know who the maintainer is? Because when you go to GitHub, you could sort this by last commit date, which not a lot of people know. You can sort the contributors by most frequently and stuff like that. But it's challenging to find out who to reach out to when it comes to packages, especially when people move on. Like, someone created a thing. They have tons of commits. And then they look like they're the number one committer for the past ten years, but they left five years ago. Those are things that we're trying to make more discoverable to solve that problem. But then, going into that thoughtbot thing, is like being able to reach out to thoughtbot and be like, oh, who can I reach out to about this gem? And, say, I have an idea, or we have an issue; how can we get unblocked because we're using this in our product? And I imagine with consulting, there's an opportunity to say, hey thoughtbot...which, honestly, at Netlify, we used thoughtbot to solve some harder problems for us. We were just like, yeah, we don't have the bandwidth to go down this path. Let's go to consulting to unblock us in this arena. VICTORIA: Right. And that was really important to me in making the decision to join thoughtbot last year is that it was built around open source. And that ethos really spoke to me as, like, this is a place where I want to work. [laughs] And you can think of, like, if you're looking for vendors, like, oh, I want to work with people who have that same ethos. So yeah, OpenSauced seems like a really cool product. I'd be curious about how we can leverage it more at thoughtbot. BRIAN: We just shipped a feature called Teams, which it's self-explanatory. But, basically, when you build an insight page, you're able to build a team to help the discover process of what's happening in contributions. You get details and reporting on OpenSauced. The goal is basically to unblock teams who are involved in open source together and make it more discoverable for folks who want to find maintainers and collaborate with them. VICTORIA: Will, I know we're running close on time. But I had one more question about what you said around making open source more hospitable. And, you know, you mentioned going to Juneteenth Conf. And I'm curious if you have a perspective on if open source is equitably accessible to everyone or if there are things we can be doing as a community to be more inclusive. BRIAN: Yeah, it's a great question. So the first answer is quick, it's no. The reason why it's no is because we have to admit [laughs] where there are inequitable situations. And as much as we want to set this up of, like, I want to say that there's opportunity for everyone to contribute based on no matter where their background, but just by your time zone, makes it inequitable of, like, whether you can contribute to open source. Because if you look at the data and zoom out, most open source happens in the West Coast U.S., so from San Francisco to Seattle. Like, majority of contributions are there. There are reasons for that. Like, California has a very, very expressive clause of like where you can contribute. And, technically, your employer can block you on doing open-source contributions. Unless you sign...like, at Apple, you sign away your rights to be able to do that in your employee offer letter. Sorry, [laughs] not to be a dig against Apple. Apple buy lots of open source. But what I'm getting at is that the opportunity is there, but it's the awareness thing. I'm part of an organization called DevColor. It's an organization of Black engineers in tech. We have squads and monthly meetings where we just talk about our career, and growth, and stuff like that. And I attribute a lot of that interactions to my success is, like, talking to other folks who are years ahead of me and have a lot more experience. But I say this because the majority of the folks that I interact with at DevColor they don't do open source because they all...to be a Black engineer at a level of like senior engineer at Netlify, or a staff engineer, or a manager...sorry, I meant, like, Netflix but Netlify too. You basically had a career path of, like, you probably went to school at a decent engineering school, or you figured out how to get a job at Facebook or Google. And, like, that's pretty much it. And, like, this is a blanket statement. I totally understand there are outliers. But the majority of the folks I interact with at DevColor they have a job. They have a great job. And they're doing the thing, and they're being very successful. But there's less community interaction. And that's what DevColor exists for is to encourage that community interaction and participation. So, at the end of the day, like, there's opportunity to make it more equitable. So things like, every time there's a release cut for a major open-source project, why not go to Black Girls CODE and have them build something with it? And, again, very specific, like, React 19 that's currently being tested, why not go to all these other underrepresented organizations and partner with them to show them how to use this project? Because the assumption is everyone in open source, you got to be senior enough to participate, or if it's too hot, get out of the kitchen. But if we set up a place for people to interact and level up, in three or four years from now, you'll see the open-source ecosystem of that project be completely different as far as diversity. But it takes that investment to have that onboard ramp to even have that connection or conversation about testing early releases with underrepresented groups in engineering. That's where we have to start, and that's what we're trying to do at OpenSauced. We want to make that connection. I have a whole plan for it. I'll share in a blog post. I also mentioned that a lot of these thoughts are on our blog as well. I've been writing blog posts around these conversations. So opensauced.pizza/blog if you're interested. VICTORIA: Very cool. Thank you for that. WILL: I'm just processing on the whole conversation. It has just been great. VICTORIA: Yes. Thank you so much for sharing with us. And I wonder, do you have any final takeaways for our listeners today, Brian? BRIAN: Yeah, final takeaways. Like, if anything at all resonated in this conversation, please reach out, bdougie on GitHub. I'm pretty active with my notifications. So if you @ mention me in a random project, I'll probably jump back in and respond to you. But also Twitter @bdougieYO. And then, I mentioned our blog. We also have a newsletter. So, if you're interested in any of this OpenSauced journey, please join us there, and keep in touch. VICTORIA: Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your story. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter @victori_ousg. WILL: And you could find me @will23larry This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thank you. ANNOUNCER: This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot, your expert strategy, design, development, and product management partner. We bring digital products from idea to success and teach you how because we care. Learn more at thoughtbot.com. Special Guest: Brian Douglas.

Kimberly Bryant started a movement out of a passion project. Black Girls Code has scaled significantly over the years and now has over 15 chapters across the United States and DREAM partnerships with brands like Google, TikTok, Verizon, the NBA, and Capital One.This inspiring conversation touches on so many pillars of growing a nonprofit organization from the ground up. You'll hear Kimberly's “founder's story”, her obsession with building their brand and making it pop, and how she scored all of those incredible brand partnerships for the long-haul. Plus, Kimberly shares the new trailblazing venture she's creating with Black Innovation Lab, a space to help marginalized founders and entrepreneurs build pathways to financial freedom and ownership.In This Episode:How the power of story, authenticity, and vulnerability helped Kimberly expand Black Girls Code so rapidly in the early daysKimberly's scrappy approach to creating their digital footprint, from leveraging volunteers and stock images, to pro-bono supportThe first role Kimberly hired within marketing and how she remained flexible to move people within the organization, especially if it was a better match for their talents and passionsHow Kimberly secured a multimillion dollar grant from Google to fund their New York headquarters (and how she ensures partnerships aren't just “one and done”)The moment where Kimberly saw an article on Twitter, which inspired her to turn an abandoned, historically Black college, into what will become the Black Innovation LabResources & LinksLearn more about Black Girls Code and follow Kimberly on Twitter and Instagram at @6gems. You can follow ASCEND Ventures Tech on LinkedIn to learn more about the Black Innovation Lab.What inspires website visitors to invest in your mission? Are you providing donors with a desirable online journey that keeps them coming back? Join my virtual session at the DonorPerfect Community Conference. I'll see you on June 6th and 7th! Applications for my Monthly Giving Mastermind program are now open. If you have been wanting to start a monthly giving program but haven't had the time or the team to make it happen, this is for you. We start in July, so apply now!Want to make Missions to Movements even better? Take a screenshot of this episode and share it on Instagram. Be sure to tag @positivequation so I can connect with you.  Let's Connect! Send a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn and let us know what you think of the show! Head to YouTube for helpful digital marketing how-to videos and podcast teasers Want to book Dana as a speaker for your event? Click here!

In this episode, podcast co-hosts Tim Cynova and Lauren Ruffin discuss recent pay transparency law changes that require companies to disclose pay ranges, as well as the laws' potential to shift power and information sharing in workplaces. They explore the importance of clearly defining job requirements and the benefits of fixed-tier compensation to ensure equal – if not entirely *equitable* – pay. Lauren addresses the issues of location-based pay adjustments and speculates that increased transparency may lead to more organizations unionizing. Tim highlights the ongoing reevaluation of work's value and the need for businesses to adapt to Long COVID by creating more inclusive and equitable environments. They end the episode with a cliffhanger and agree to revisit this topic as the laws' effects become clearer.Lauren Ruffin (she/her) is a thinker, designer, & leader interested in building strong, sustainable, anti-racist systems & organizations. She's into exploring how we can leverage new technologies to combat racial and economic injustice. She frequently participates in conversations on circular economies, social impact financing, solidarity movements, and innovative, non-extractive financing mechanisms. Lauren is an Associate Professor of Worldbuilding and Visualizing Futures at Arizona State University and a co-founder of CRUX, an immersive storytelling cooperative that collaborates with Black artists as they create content in virtual reality and augmented reality (XR). Lauren was co-CEO of Fractured Atlas, the largest association of independent artists in the United States. In 2017, she started Artist Campaign School, a new educational program that has trained 74 artists to run for political office to date. Lauren has served on the governing boards of Black Innovation Alliance, Black Girls Code, and Main Street Phoenix Cooperative, and on the advisory boards of ArtUp and Black Girl Ventures. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a degree in Political Science and obtained a J.D. from the Howard University School of Law. Learn more on LinkedIn.Tim Cynova (he/him) is the Principal of Work Shouldn't Suck, an HR and org design consultancy helping to reimagine workplaces where everyone can thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator, and has served on the faculty of Minneapolis College of Art & Design, the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design, and Strategic HR. In 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a $30M, entirely virtual non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist,...

Things may look bleak now, but a better future is still possible. Danielle is joined by Sofia Mohammed, interim CEO of Black Girls CODE.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The march continues through #womenshistorymonth for #womenintech with #Technology pioneer #KimberlyBryant. Kimberly is a Memphis, Tenn., native, and always thought of herself as a “nerdy girl.” She loved math and science at an early age and it drove her passion to pursue a STEM career. Bryant was enticed by the early technology of microchips, personal computer and portable cell phones. She worked for numerous companies in the electrical, biotech and pharmaceutical fields such as Pfizer, Merck, Genentech and Novartis. Once Kimberly founded Black Girls Code, a nonprofit organization that focuses on providing technology and computer programming education to African-American girls, Bryant was listed as one of the "25 Most Influential African-Americans In Technology" by Business Insider. FOLLOW KIMBERLY: https://linktr.ee/ascendventures FOLLOW MTG: mtgthepodcast.com CLUBHOUSE TWITTER  CO-HOSTS: @octanedesigns / @bougienursebabe / @getsillycreative

Technology is touted as the future but one thing the industry has not been able to solve is its lack of gender and racial diversity within the field. Black Girls CODE was founded in 2011 to improve the pipeline of Black girls in tech. To change the landscape of what technology looks like and to build a new generation of computer programmers. Today, Black Girls CODE aims to deepen their impact by showing the world that Black girls can code, lead, innovate, and engineer their own futures.  We spoke to Sofia Mohammed, Interim Executive Director of Black Girls CODE

Technology is touted as the future but one thing the industry has not been able to solve is its lack of gender and racial diversity within the field. Black Girls CODE was founded in 2011 to improve the pipeline of Black girls in tech. To change the landscape of what technology looks like and to build a new generation of computer programmers. Today, Black Girls CODE aims to deepen their impact by showing the world that Black girls can code, lead, innovate, and engineer their own futures.  We spoke to Sofia Mohammed, Interim Executive Director of Black Girls CODE

Kimberly Bryant is the Founder and CEO of ASCEND Ventures and the Founder and creator of the groundbreaking and revolutionary non-profit organization Black Girls CODE; a social change organization founded to “change the face of technology” by introducing girls of color (ages 7-17) to the field of technology and computer science with a concentration on entrepreneurial concepts. Under Kimberly's leadership, Black Girls CODE grew from a local grassroots initiative serving only the Bay Area to an international organization reaching more than 30,000 students with chapters across the U.S. and in Johannesburg, South Africa. Kimberly has been nationally recognized as a thought leader for her work to increase opportunities for women and girls in the technology industry and has received numerous awards for her work with Black Girls CODE. Kimberly has been awarded the prestigious Jefferson Award for Community Service for her work to support communities in the Bay Area, named by Business Insider on its list of “The 25 Most Influential African-Americans in Technology”, and named to The Root 100 and the Ebony Power 100 lists in 2013. Kimberly has been named one of FastCompany's Most Creative People. Kimberly was named a White House as a Champion of Change for her work in tech inclusion and for her focus on bridging the digital divide for girls of color and received an Ingenuity Award in Social Progress from the Smithsonian Institute. Tune in today to hear Kimberly's Story as an African American Female Entrepreneur braking barriers and creating a better future for women of color in tech. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/unapologetech/support

Curious about investing in emerging technologies such as crypto and NFTs but don't know where to start? You've come to the right episode! While traditional forms of wealth-building such as the stock market and real estate are still relevant, tech is becoming an increasingly important space for wealth-building, and in this episode we're sharing how to get started.Our guest today is Grace MacJones. Grace is a Nigerian-American technologist, podcaster, and Azure Cloud Engineer at Microsoft. She is a STEM advocate for underrepresented groups and is passionate about democratizing technology through mentoring, speaking at tech events, and volunteering with tech organizations such as Black Girls Code, Women Who Code, and DigiGirlz.She's also the host of the Tech Unlocked podcast which aims to demystify and diversify the tech industry by giving people of color the keys they need to unlock their successful tech careers. In addition to all of that, she's the founder of Women of Color in Emerging Tech (WOCIET) which is a community helping WoC onboard into web3 and beyond.In this episode, Grace and I discuss the opportunities available for building wealth in tech. She demystifies working in tech, and helps us understand emerging technologies to invest in including cryptocurrency and NFTs.We Also Talk About…New ways of building wealth outside of stocks and real estate.What cryptocurrency is, and how to invest in it.How web3 will impact the creator economy.How creators can use NFTs to protect their work.Resources:Follow Grace on Instagram @gracemacjonezListen to Grace's podcast, Tech UnlockedJoin the Women of Color in Tech ComunitySponsors:Framebridge | Looking to get artwork framed? Visit Framebridge.com and use the code “BALANCED” for 15% off your first framing order.Skillshare | Check out the amazing courses and community on Skillshare to launch your next business or fine-tune your new hobby. Visiting skillshare.com/balanced for one month free.Going Wild | Add Going Wild with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant to your podcast lineup. You can listen on Apple Podcasts, NPR One, or your favorite listening app.balancedblackgirl.com ◉ IG: @balancedblackgirlpodcast @balancedles 〆Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/balanced-black-girl/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacySupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/balanced-black-girl/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Sylvia Wilson Thomas joins host James Di Virgilio for a limited series that explores stories of innovation, patent protection, and product commercialization in the state of Florida. Dr. Sylvia Wilson Thomas leads the University of South Florida research enterprise and is the first African American female to lead an R1 university research program in Florida. Dr. Thomas also serves as President of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Engineering in Medicine and Biology Florida West Coast Section, advisor for Society of Women Engineers and National Society of Black Engineers, and member of the Board of Directors for Black Girls Code and Florida Senate Appointee to the Florida Education Fund Board of Directors. This series was made possible in partnership with the Cade Museum, Florida House on Capitol Hill, and the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame.

Sylvia Wilson Thomas joins host James Di Virgilio for a limited series that explores stories of innovation, patent protection, and product commercialization in the state of Florida. Dr. Sylvia Wilson Thomas leads the University of South Florida research enterprise and is the first African American female to lead an R1 university research program in Florida. Dr. Thomas also serves as President of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Engineering in Medicine and Biology Florida West Coast Section, advisor for Society of Women Engineers and National Society of Black Engineers, and member of the Board of Directors for Black Girls Code and Florida Senate Appointee to the Florida Education Fund Board of Directors. This series was made possible in partnership with the Cade Museum, Florida House on Capitol Hill, and the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha asked: What happens when a Black founder was ousted? Alex was back on the mic after a week away, and we brought on Dominic-Madori Davis (follow her on Twitter and Instagram) to talk us through the topic. After all, the core question was inspired by her latest TC+ column.Here's what we got into:The growing tensions at Black Girls Code, which began last December with Bryant's "indefinite suspension."Bryant's eventual ouster, which happened earlier this month, and the outpouring of public support for the leader. That conversation brought us into the reality of who gets to speak up publicly, and who can only do so off the record and without attribution.Davis piece about the symbolism of a Black founder being removed from a position of leadershipInherent bias and how to navigate that in the stories we hear and tips we receive.Equity drops every Monday at 7 a.m. PDT and Wednesday and Friday at 6 a.m. PDT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

More about Fatima and SugarFatima Dicko is the founder & CEO of Sugar, a platform that helps apartment residents feel more at home.  Before Sugar, Fatima spent 5 years at P&G as a senior engineer on a product team developing products 3-10 years away from market. Fatima came to the U.S. from Mali at a young age and grew up in New York City, receiving her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University and MBA from Stanford Business School.  Fatima is a frequent mentor and volunteer for organizations such as Built By Girls, Black Girls Code and MLT. She was named as '18 Inspiring Women to Watch' by Inc and listed on the 2021 Forbes 'Next 1000' list. She has also been featured in TechCrunch, Business Insider, Crunchbase, Black Enterprise and CNBC.Sugar allows residents to pay rent, unlock doors, socialize with neighbors and easily communicate with management - all inside a single app. By elevating the residential experience at their properties, Sugar helps managers attract new residents, increase lease renewal rates and introduce additional revenue streams. Follow Fatima on Twitter Connect with Fatima on LinkedIn Follow Sugar on Twitter Check out Sugar

In this week's episode, our guest is Kimberly Bryant, the Founder and CEO of Black Girls CODE, a non-profit organization dedicated to “changing the face of technology” by introducing girls of color (ages 7-17) to the field of technology and computer science with a concentration on entrepreneurial concepts. Have questions/comments/concerns? Email us at heartofgivingpod@gmail.com. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a comment on iTunes.

Join us as we talk to Stacy Brown-Philpot, Founding member of SoftBank's Opportunity Fund, Board Member of HP Inc., Nordstrom, Noom, StockX, Black Girls Code, the Urban Institute, and former CEO of TaskRabbit. We chat about launching new markets, scaling culture, leading authentically, and investing in founders of the future. How does the small size of apartments in Wembley, England and Ikea Pax wardrobes lead to improvements in TaskRabbit's app? What does the NYC metro and grid lock traffic in LA mean for expansion in quirky markets? I couldn't have asked better questions myself, you'll have to check out the podcast to find out :) Let's talk about culture. We all know culture is crucial when leading a company, but how do you scale it? How do you avoid the many stories of culture gone wrong? Stacy shares her insights on creating an environment where the flowers can bloom, where there isn't one single great culture, but a melange of unique cultures in every office. Leading authentically is certainly a buzzy phrase right now, but what does it mean to actually create a space where people can bring their full selves? It's not simple, but it starts with building an organization that is representative of the folks you're serving, searching for people that are already living your organization's values, and creating systems that promote and reward teams. It's not a “pipeline problem”, there's a lack of capital focused on investing in founders of color. We talk about how SoftBank's Opportunity Fund is intentional about its focus on diversity, creating opportunities, building community, and mentorship. Enough teasers check out the podcast!

The lightning-fast pace of innovation brought on by the rapid advances in our testing technology owes at least part of its success to building, writing, and deploying a coding language that allows humans to follow and track it in a way that resembles how we think. This week, we explore how software-defined test has helped us improve and optimize our test, the differences between spoken language and coding, and the opportunities that arise when you are armed with a new vocabulary. To explore how we can better speak the language of test, host Derek Burrows welcomes Kimberly Bryant, founder and CEO of Black Girls Code, and NI's  Eli Kerry.  Learn More About: What is Kimberly's perspective on the differences between spoken language and coding language? What are the similarities? How has software-defined test helped us improve and organize in the automotive domain and beyond? While spoken languages may help us navigate and define the world around us, coding languages help us build them.Why was LabView created, and what does LabView code look like? With novel technologies like AI, we are teaching the computer how to solve problems sequentially by following a set of algorithmic steps, much like the teacher teaches their student. As our computers get smarter, will we see the line between our language and theirs start to blur?  Resources Mentioned: NIKimberly BryantBlack Girls Code Eli Kerry 

Zach sits down with Kimberly Bryant, founder and CEO of Black Girls CODE, to talk about her journey, lessons learned, and advice for other Black and brown founders in and outside of tech. Connect with Kimberly on LinkedIn & Twitter. https://bit.ly/3wOxDdo https://bit.ly/3lIWIBn Interested in learning more about Black Girls CODE? Check out the website. https://bit.ly/3yPehHY Interested in supporting Living Corporate? Check out our Support page. https://bit.ly/3egO3Dk

In this episode of Women In Technology, I am joined by the amazing McKenna Yeakey, Security Engineer. We will be chatting about all things Cybersecurity including misconceptions about the Red and Blue Teams, a day in the life of a security engineer, plus McKenna shares helpful insight into the field for those looking to pursue Cybersecurity! McKenna Yeakey is a Security Engineer with a passion for guiding others toward a successful career. By mentoring and sponsoring emerging talent, McKenna ensures women have the advocate they need to flourish in tech and cybersecurity. Apart from her leadership efforts, McKenna is dedicated to promoting cyber literacy among marginalized communities by sharing her cyber defense strategies and techniques expertise. She emphasizes the importance of asking questions, seeking support, and establishing sustainable systems and processes in order to develop meaningful solutions. ✉️ Connect with McKenna: LinkedIn https://linkedin.com/in/mckenna-yeakey Twitter @CyberKenna

Kimberly Bryant spent decades building up her career as an engineer in corporate America – until she decided to leave it all behind to pursue her true passion. In 2011, she drained her retirement savings to launch Black Girls CODE, a non-profit focused on building community while teaching technology skills to Black school-age girls. Today, Black Girls CODE has trained nearly 20,000 girls and is a $40 million powerhouse whose backers include Google, MacKenzie Scott, and the Gates Foundation. In this conversation with LinkedIn Editor-in-Chief Daniel Roth, Bryant discusses her inspiration for the non-profit, the challenges she faced as its leader, and her surprise suspension from the organization she founded. Follow Kimberly Bryant on LinkedIn Follow Daniel Roth on LinkedIn Join our This is Working community by subscribing to Dan's newsletter and posting your thoughts using the hashtag #ThisIsWorking.

In this podcast, our host Tate Chamberlin reimagines philanthropy with HATCH Rethinking Philanthropy lab facilitator Ada Williams Prince and esteemed lab guests, Asiaha Butler and Kimberly Bryant. Ada Williams Prince is the senior advisor for program strategy and investment at Pivotal Ventures, where she works to accelerate positive social programming and evolution, particularly in the areas of adolescent mental health and empowerment and access for women and girls of color. Former electrical engineer and current founder and CEO of Black Girls CODE, a non-profit that introduces girls of color to technology and computer science, Kimberly Bryant has grown her grassroots initiative since 2011 to reach over 30,000 young women worldwide. And Asiaha Butler, co-founder and CEO of the Resident Association of Greater Englewood or R.A.G.E. in Chicago, works to reinvigorate the greater Englewood neighborhood by mobilizing “residents and resources to force a change in the community.” Through the voices and experiences of these commanding women of color, this podcast provides a glimpse of the struggle, the passion, and the power behind change and its makers.

Techish is back with a brand new bonus episode! Abadesi and Michael, break down:- The Molly Mae controversy that has been dominating the headlines O.37- Elizabeth Holmes: Where is the former Theranos CEO now?  10.39- Is the media doing its due diligence on founders and whether their businesses actually work? - 15.21- NFT marketplace OpenSea is now worth $13B+ 19.50- Black Girls Code founder Kimberly Bryant was suspended from her own organization 26.09- Career Karma founder Ruben Harris raises $40M in Seed B - 32.52—————————————————————www.pocitjobs.com for roles for POC in techwww.hustlecrew.co for talks and training to make your company more inclusive—————————————————————Extra Reading:https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/molly-mae-hague-apology-podcast-the-diary-of-a-ceo-steven-bartlett-b975901.htmlhttps://techcrunch.com/2022/01/08/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-startup-friends/https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/04/nft-kingpin-opensea-lands-13-3b-valuation-in-300m-raise-from-paradigm-and-coatue/https://peopleofcolorintech.com/break-into-tech/update-black-girls-code-ceo-releases-statement-and-denies-allegations-of-work-place-impropriety/https://peopleofcolorintech.com/front/imposter-syndrome-believing-youre-enough-and-raising-40m-founder-ruben-harris-tells-all/————————————————————Use the hashtag #Techish on Twitter & IGSupport Techish at www.patreon.com/techishAdvertise on Techish: goo.gl/forms/MY0F79gkRG6Jp8dJ2————————————————————Stay In Touch:www.twitter.com/michaelberhane_www.twitter.com/abadesiwww.twitter.com/hustlecrewlivetwitter.com/techishpodEmail us at techishpod@gmail.com

1.11.2022 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Biden-Harris & Voting Rights, Black Girl Code CEO on leave, Black Virtual Mall, LA 1st Black Female Sheriff President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris take a trip to the epicenter of the American civil rights, Atlanta. Today, they paid their respects to Martin Luther King, Jr. before speaking at the Atlanta University Center Consortium on the urgency to pass voting rights legislation and protect Americans' sacred right to vote. Georgia Congressman David Scott is here to help us break down what the president said. And a coalition of twenty-five faith leaders from across the nation has been on a hunger strike since the first anniversary of the insurrection to urge Congress to protect democracy by passing voting rights legislation by Martin L. King, Jr. Day. Three of them are here with us tonight. We now know the name of the white off-duty police officer who gunned down a black man who he claims jumped on his truck. We'll have the latest from North Carolina. She was suspended from the organization she founded. Tonight, I'm talking to Kimberly Bryant from the Oakland-based tech nonprofit, Black Girls Code about the suspension and the investigation. Plus, she's making history in Louisiana by being elected the first black female sheriff in the state's history. We will be talking to Orleans Parish Sheriff-Elect Susan Hutson about her plans for the parish. And in our Marketplace segment. She made going to the mall easier, and you don't even have to leave your home. The mastermind behind the first-ever Black Virtual Mall will explain how it works. #RolandMartinUnfiltered partners: Verizon | Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband, now available in 50+ cities, is the fastest 5G in the world.* That means that downloads that used to take minutes now take seconds.

HAPPY SATURDAY! Send all the love to my girl Brandi, the audio isn't great for this episode but trust me it only goes up from here! STICKERS ALERT! Don't miss out, buy yours today, visit etsy.com/shop/aanddcreates to buy yours today! Follow them on Facebook & Instagram too at A and D creates! PLEASE PLEASE GO LOOK AT HER SHOP!!!Pour yourself some wine, a cocktail,  or water, and buckle up with this awesome episode with Brandi! REMEBER YOU ARE POWERFUL AND ARE THE MOST POWERFUL BEING IN YOUR WHOLE WIDE UNIVERSE! NO ONE ELSE'S!Like, Follow, and subscribe!Don't miss out on an episode! Follow me on Patron at patreon.com/boozylove  join our Facebook page at Boozy Love Podcast and follow me on Instagram at Stephanie.Isabell to keep up to date with my erratic schedule!  JOIN THE SUBREDDIT TODAY and share your stories to be read on the podcast anonymously! https://www.reddit.com/r/BoozyLovePodcast/new/Stephanie.isabell on Instagram Stephanie Huizar on Facebook Please join our Facebook Group to apply for Brandi's bachelorette inquiry! The Facebook group is Boozy Love Listeners and the password is Prosecco and you need to accept all the community guidelines to be accepted into the group! You can find Brandi at Smiley Bee Love Chicago Childbirth Doula on Facebook, Smileybee_love on Instagram, and check out her website smileybeelove.com!Also, look out to subscribe to her YouTube at Smileybee Love! Some of the places you can send your support and donations for not only black history month but also just to help fight the fight against birth injustices and support girls in STEM programs check out these organizations below! Black Girls Code: https://www.blackgirlscode.com/what-we-do.htmlChicago Volunteer Doulas: https://www.chicagovolunteerdoulas.orgDoula Foundation: https://doulafoundation.org/get-involved/The Doula Project: http://www.doulaproject.org/p/support-us.htmlNational Black Doulas Association: https://www.blackdoulas.organd any others that Brandi mentions during the podcast! Thank you so much for tuning in! Please let me know what else you would like to hear! Don't forget to subscribe and give this podcast 5 stars!If you are ever in need of a doula consultation or overall information on how to find doulas in your area that might share the same or differing views as I or you please reach out!Support the show

Grace Macjones is a Nigerian -American technologist, mentor, podcaster, and Azure Customer Engineer.She is a STEM + inclusion advocate for women of color and underrepresented groups. She is passionate about democratizing technology through mentoring students, speaking at tech events, and volunteering with tech organizations such as Black Girls Code, Women Who Code, ChickTech, and DigiGirlz. Grace has been a mentor at Year Up, Husky Tech, and The Master of Science in Information Systems program at the University of Washington Foster School of Business. Grace is also the host of the Tech Unlocked podcast which aims to demystify and diversity the tech industry by giving people of color the keys they need to unlock their successful tech career.During this episode, we take a look behind the 'LinkedIn curtain' and discuss the mental strength and courage that powers a path less travelled.

Hiiiiii from your Questie Besties! This week, the gang welcomes the amazingly kind and incredibly talented Danny Pudi! Danny's so nice, even David can't resist complimenting him. The girls (women) get Danny to dish on what it's like playing a villain, why he's afraid of squirrels, and what “bro-ing out” with David actually looks like. They also dive into Dana's true love of video games and highlight some phenomenal organizations like Black Girls Code (http://blackgirlscode.com) which is a non-profit that focuses on technology education for African American girls. Check the links below for some more game-changing programs.  You want some more? You want some more?! Then click on the episode and get listening! Thumbstick Mafia http://thumbstickmafia.comBrown Girl Gamer Codehttp://browngirlgamercode.com

On this episode, news about: The "Summer of Legend" announcement by Wizards of the Coast signals some cool stuff headed our way in just a month or so (including Modern Horizons II and Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, a D&D inspired set)! PLUS: Sealed Arena Open trouble, an upcoming MPL League Weekend, info on the Strixhaven College Cup, and Black Girls Code gets almost $1 Million from MTG fans! Help support the show on Patreon! Visit the GLH5 Website Watch The Upkeep on YouTube Follow us on Twitter Peep our Insta Like our Facebook Buy Some GLH5 Swag Follow us on Twitch  

When faced with an existential crisis in business, tech founders are left with three basic but tough decisions: maintain the status quo, change markets, or shut down the business.  Prior to the pandemic, our guest, Fatima Dicko had launched a rapidly growing business which served as the “Craigslist” for college campuses.  When universities shut down, she found herself pondering which of the three decisions she would make.   Today, Fatima is leading the charge as an innovator in proptech.  Her team at Sugar is closing on a $2.5mm funding round to enable their mission to bring connectivity to residential living.  In this episode, Fatima gives a live sample of her investor pitch.  It was completely unplanned, and she nailed it! Make sure you tune in!   Founder Bio: Fatima Dicko is the Founder & CEO of Sugar. Sugar makes residential properties feel like home by fostering community among residents and integrating deeply with the technology stack that powers modern buildings. The company has raised VC funding from some of the top investors in the PropTech sector. Before Sugar, she worked as the youngest senior engineer on a product innovation team at Procter & Gamble, receiving several awards such as ‘Most Transformative Product Research' and the P&G ‘Global Innovation Seed Fund Grant'. Fatima came to the U.S. from Mali at a young age and grew up in New York City, receiving her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University and MBA from Stanford Business School.  Fatima is a frequent mentor and volunteer for organizations such as Built By Girls, Black Girls Code and MLT.   Timestamps: 2:36  What Fatima and her family moved from Mali, Africa to New York City 5:26  The decision to study chemical engineering at Columbia Univ. 6:45  Developing products 3-5 years from going to market (at P&G) 11:10  Getting started as an entrepreneur + Uncomfortable conversations with parents 14:00  Humble beginnings and overcoming failure on the path to entrepreneurial success 19:20  Pivoting: Launching Sugar as a “hyper-local Craigslist” on college campuses 21:15  Should I shutdown? How Fatima decided what to do after COVID shutdown college campuses 27:28  Fatima's approach to raising a $2.5mm VC round 32:51  The little known secret to interacting with investors 36:57  Fatima's experience building an MVP and the VERY interesting way she found her CTO

Main Stories Switch Pro Rumor https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-04/nintendo-plans-switch-model-with-bigger-samsung-oled-display Hogwarts Legacy https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-02/harry-potter-video-game-will-allow-for-transgender-characters and https://www.thegamer.com/hogwarts-legacy-lead-designer-resigns/  Sinking City Drama https://www.polygon.com/2021/3/2/22307983/the-sinking-city-nacon-frogwares-steam-legal-case-pirated-copy-hacked  Epic Buys Fall Guys Banana Controller and PSVR 2 controller https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-03-02-sonys-controller-tech-is-literally-bananas-patent-trawling ESA Donates to Black Girls Code https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-03-04-esa-commits-usd1-million-to-support-black-girls-code  Awards and accoladesBAFTA 2021 NomineesDelays Nintendo World in Orland   Watch Dogs Legion Online mode for PC Game Events, Releases, and Updates  PSVR games Shovel Knight and Arby's  Dead by Daylight K-Pophttps://www.polygon.com/2021/3/2/22309245/dead-by-daylight-chapter-19-all-kill-trickster-yun-jin-lee-lore-abilities-overview Kena Bridge of Spirits is only going to be $40 Signs of the Sojourner coming to consoles Shut Up and Take My MoneyMinecraft dungeons arcade machine https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/minecraft-dungeons-going-arcade A special thanks to all Patrons, especially those at the Supporter and Sponsor level: 5eth Aaron Bennet Aaron Espinoza Alfred Field Andy Richmond Blacclumberjack  Brttney Campbell Cameron Carlton Cedric Reid Corey Scott Dalton Runberg Dan Anthony Angeles DarkTagger Duncan MacDougal Eddie De Santiago Edwin Garcia Francisco Gio Huey Flow  Hustle&Motiv8 Ian Dobbins Jake Urick Jared PEtty Jeomaro 89 Jesse Calrk Joao Gabriel Costa Pinheiro  Kelsey Lewin Kevin Fair Kristofer Scott Leonardo Roberto Talavera-Barocio Live From The Pool House Mara Truman Margarita Castillo Marquis Terrell Menthatic (Kyle) Michael Zayas Nerd Much Nina Kahn Nina McKee Oknata PapayaKing55 Phantom23 PlayItJason Randleton Richard Geerling Robery Haynes Spencer Icasiano Stefan Lachiver  TheLittleLola Thomas Dale Timothy Sheridan

Julia Collins is the Founder and CEO of Planet FWD, a company on a mission to tackle climate change by expanding regenerative agriculture adoption. The company is building a software platform for regenerative agriculture alongside Moonshot Snacks, its climate-friendly snack brand that carbon neutral, organic, kosher, plant-based, non-GMO and has no sugar added. Planet FWD has raised over $5M in venture capital from funds including Emerson Collective, BBG Ventures, MCJ Collective, January Ventures, Concrete Rose, Kapor Capital, Arlan Hamilton and more. Julia is a serial entrepreneur who has started companies like Mexicue, Murray's Cheese Bar, Harlem Jazz Enterprises, and Zume Pizza, where she raised over $250M in venture capital and became the first black woman to co-found a unicorn company. Julia serves on the board of Black Girls Code, sits on the advisory council for Launch with GS, and serves on the All Raise operating committee. She is an active angel investor focused on funding female entrepreneurs and BIPOC founders. In this episode, we will cover: Julia's first exposure to entrepreneurship and what motivated her to become a founder How Julia prepared herself to start her first company and what it felt like to actually make the leap and jump in Julia's experience starting a company with a co-founder vs. on her own, plus her advice on building the initial team What Julia learned from founding Zume Pizza and how that informed her approach for Planet FWD Julia's experience raising venture capital and her perspective on what matters most in generating momentum for that first round of capital Julia's advice for founders just starting out, particularly the mindset they must have in the early days Julia's inspiring vision for how Planet FWD will change our lives and positively impact the planet

While black history month is all year long around here, we close out the national black history educational season with a look at black centered/focused organizations. Like the month itself, these organizations do not just spring out of nowhere, for no purpose and no reason. They are in fact a direct result of being stiff armed and excluded. Donald leads this one opening with a conversation about realizations nearing thirty and a treehouse (4:20). We move into the inspiration for and rise of popular black centered orgs such as HBCU's, Black business districts, National Black Caucus and the like (6:40). Donald highlights Tulsa's Greenwood District (19:05), the creation of Black student orgs on college campuses (31:40) and Black Girls Code (40:56) to drive the point home. And if you did not know about the latter group, we highly suggest you check them out https://www.blackgirlscode.com (https://www.blackgirlscode.com)

CHECK OUT THIS AWESOME BONUS CONTENT ON OUR PATERON! I SWEAR YOU WILL BE SO SAD IF YOU MISS IT! SUBSCRIBE TODAY FOR ONLY $3 TO LISTEN TO THIS AWESOME PODCAST TODAY! Welome Patrons! This is out very first Patreon bonus episode and it is very special for BLACK HISTORY MONTH! So pop open a bottle of wine or Champagne in my case, relax, and enjoy the podcast! You can always find me at Stephanie.isabell on instagram and Stephanie Huizar on Facebook. Please join our Facebook Group to apply for Brandi's bachelorette inquiry! The Facebook group is Boozy Love Listeners and the password is Prosecco and you need to accept all the community guidelines to be accepted into the group! You can find Brandi at Smiley Bee Love Chicago Childbirth Doula on Facebook, Smileybee_love on instagram and check out her website www.smileybeelove.com! Also look out to subscribe to her YouTube at Smileybee Love! Some of the places you can send your support and donations for not only black history month but also just to help fight the fight against birth injustices and support girls in STEM programs check out these organizations below! Black Girls Code: https://www.blackgirlscode.com/what-we-do.htmlChicago Volunteer Doulas: https://www.chicagovolunteerdoulas.orgDoula Foundation: https://doulafoundation.org/get-involved/The Doula Project: http://www.doulaproject.org/p/support-us.htmlNational Black Doulas Association: https://www.blackdoulas.organd any others that Brandi mentions during the podcast! Thank you so much for tuning in! Support the show

We don't need anyone's permission. We're grown-ass women. We don't have a commercial today, but I am donating $104 (what a commercial would earn me on this show ) to Black Girls CODE. Black Girls CODE is a cause near and dear to my heart. Working in a tech field, I do not come across a lot of women, especially women of color in my workspaces. But you can find every version of frat boy you've ever met without issue. Black Girls CODE introduces little girls as young as 7 to careers in STEM, specifically teaching them how to CODE. You can donate too at blackgirlscode.com. Next week's topic: Becoming so confident in yourself that you don't care when people are assholes to you anymore.

Have I always been a moral leader? No. I have not. But when you know better, you should do better. All money made on today's show has been donated to Black Girls CODE. Find out more and how to donate at blackgirlscode.com. Show Sponsor: EveryPlate dinners are the cheaper alternative to takeout or delivery, they come together in about 30 minutes – definitely faster than a trip to the grocery store and starting a meal from scratch. Enjoy your first week of EveryPlate meals for only $3.99 per meal by going to EveryPlate.com and using code attagirl1.