The battle for equal opportunity in high technology is not over.
With a nod to Fleet Week during San Francisco Tech Week, we’ve just begun to fight.
Mica Eades Mayo, Attica Alexis Jaques and Felicia Mayo brought out the ICBMs during SF Tech Week for a session of their Untapped Investments angel group. Instead of the news that 300,000 Black women had lost their jobs, they touted that 57% of their investments had gone to Black women founders.
“Even though this is SF Tech Week, we are intentionally in Oakland, and we are intentionally at Oakstop,” said Mica Mayo, who moderated the panel Oct. 9.
Ahmad Thomas, President of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group; California State Controller Malia Cohen and Dr. Maynard Holliday, CEO of Strategic Technologies AI, joined her.
Dr. Holliday, formerly principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for critical technologies, part of the most significant scientific policy making cohort of African-Americans in U.S. history for the past four years, touted the $90 million University Affiliated Research Center contract he helped set up with Howard University and eight other HBCUs to address tactical autonomy, artificial intelligence, and cyber defense.
“We’re not going to be able to contend with China unless we have all our hands on deck,” said Holliday.
Thomas, whose members include the top CEOs in Silicon Valley, said he continues to stress the importance of inclusion despite a tide of resistance.
Mayo continued to use the term “global majority” to describe the 85 percent of the world’s population whose behavior, creativity and insights are the seed corn for the artificial intelligence future, but are not seen among the ranks of those getting funded or leading tech companies.
Controller Cohen, chief financial officer for the world’s fourth largest economy, noted that she sits on 70 board, including the two largest pension funds in the country, CalPERS and CalSTTRS. She continues her career long focus on small businesses participating in public contracts and investments.
Untapped Investments is an angel group designed to reach those not represented in the tech ecosystem.
In my annual Silicon Ceiling reports, I’ve shown since 1998 how discrimination in high tech industries is now causing labor shortages from health care to programming. As a result, San Francisco metropolitan areas is the third most prosperous in the nation, but ranks 122d in Black aggregate income.
Oakstop, which has aggregated 80,000 sq. ft. of space in Oakland is providing a needed ladder for Black-owned companies to connect with key decision makers like Holliday, Cohen and Thomas.