Over 37,000 people attended AfroTech, a conference for Black professionals and leaders, many of whom flew to Houston for the first time. Simultaneously, Black Tech Saturdays – a Detroit-based initiative to bring together Black tech enthusiasts, which hosted a networking event in the city saw a considerable turnout.
Conference attendees said the decision to bring these conferences to Houston highlights the city’s diversity and the growing interest in tech among professionals of color.
Johnnie Turnage, a co-founder of Black Tech Saturdays, which he started in Detroit with his wife, Alexa, says Houston’s diversity strengthens its communities and creates an atmosphere where professionals can hustle and pursue their ambitions.
“When you meet someone in Houston, they’re dedicated to getting from start to finish. And I love being around that energy,” Turnage said. “The things that Houston has done over the last decade here have been impressive both with economic development. There’s a really special thing about Detroit and Houston.”
Why the achievement gap needs to be closed
The community has long been underrepresented in the industry. While Black people comprise 14.4% of the country’s population, they make up only 7% of the computing workforce. This percentage also includes “computer support specialists” jobs. Among them, only 3.7% are in roles with large tech firms.
According to Pew Research, the share of Black STEM workers has remained unchanged since 2016. However, those who work in the field face racial and ethnic pay gaps that have widened in recent years. In 2016, the Black-to-White earnings gap in the STEM workforce was 81%, the study says. Moreover, Black professionals occupy 4.4% of seats in boardrooms.
These numbers decrease further for Black women. According to a research report from Accenture, women in tech make up 27% of the industry’s workforce, and Black women only 3%. Even fewer, ie. less than 0.5%, Black women have leadership roles in Silicon Valley. Some believe that biased hiring processes exclude Black women, and some believe it’s the sheer number of Black women who choose this field.
Turnage says Black individuals are often hesitant to participate in spaces where the community’s representation is low, leading people to misread their nervousness as underpreparedness.
“When I think about some of the barriers to tech, both for Black people and women, for all people of color, and our struggles in breaking into it, it’s because the industry isn’t always built for us to belong,” said Turnage. “There’s a lot of othering…Black and brown people, we don’t raise our hands for situations because we think we’re not prepared, we’re scared, we’re nervous. When you’re in an extreme minority in a space, it creates an imposter syndrome in you that forces you to behave like you would behave.”
Even when a trailblazer paves the way for future generations, they are soon forgotten. A classic example is the popularity of Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Steve Jobs. However, very few know of Gerald “Jerry” Lawson, the “father of the videogame cartridge,” one of the few Black men in tech during the 1970s. As the Director of Engineering and Marketing for Fairchild Semiconductors, he created a gaming console that allows users could swap out games via cartridges. This innovation impacted giants like Nintendo, Xbox, and PlayStation.
Why networking events are important to close the Black tech achievement gap
Brandy Guidry, a consultant and third-generation STEM professional specializing in engineering, says her family background helped her ease into the field. She completed her studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and started off her career in intelligence at the Department of Defense. Before consulting, Guidry also spent 8 years with General Electric in various roles, including product manager and engineering productivity leader, among others. Most recently, she also helped build the Pearland Innovation Hub.
As a child, she naturally took an interest in computers and games. However, over her years in the industry, she has observed that Black women are still severely underrepresented in tech. She knew early on that she would be underrepresented whether she chose engineering or medicine. Growing up in Houston, amidst the oil and gas industry, she observed the dearth of women and women of color in these fields.
She attributes this dearth to a stigma surrounding a dogmatic and undersaid rule about what careers suit a Black woman.
“A lot of times, unfortunately, I am stereotyped to be an admin or marketing or teacher,” Guidry said. “A lot of people don’t see us in those careers. I’ve seen a lot of women mid-career, 10 to 15 years in, feel like they’ve plateaued because they can’t see somebody in C-suite. They feel that’s not a place for them.”
Guidry believes that education and shattering the illusion of “unnecessary competition” and “unwritten rules” must be addressed to break these preconceived notions. When she is perceived in a different identity, Guidry now intentionally lets people know her profession.
“I am intentionally here for a reason. I’m not a spectator and I belong to be in this space,” she said.
Michael Polk, the CEO and founder of Stock Pal, created an artificial intelligence-powered platform that connects social media with trading. It allows users to discover publicly traded brands and companies that they naturally interact with on their social media timelines and make investment decisions based on those interactions. Polk was a retail trade investor who later realized that most people miss out on investment opportunities because of hesitation.
He has been a regular at Black Tech Saturdays since June. He believes conferences like these reflect the demographics of a city while creating a space that is community-oriented and fosters camaraderie among other entrepreneurs who envision building “successful, long-lasting companies.”
“The people closest to the problem get to solve the problem. That’s what we believe in,” Polk said. “I figured I need to create a tool that will help everybody become an investor. “What motivated me was just life was looking at the standard of living in the world. I decided instead of waiting on somebody else to create the better way, I should just start creating a better way to do a lot of things.”
For entrepreneurs like Dee Ware, her company’s transition to tech was based on circumstance. D Ware, a media company specializing in digital brand strategy and campaigns in the fashion and lifestyle sectors, now relies heavily on tech-based operations.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, she could not continue meeting with her clients. Instead, she helped her business-owner peers and family members take their businesses online and curated strategies for their growth. Soon, she implemented these strategies in her venture.
As a native Houstonian, Ware aims to curb outsourcing and keep businesses local to the community.
“We’re [Houston] very heavy in hospitality and land development. Again, there is a tech component to that,” Ware said. “We’re outsourcing our needs. I think we can be better served by bringing some of that to the city of Houston so we don’t have to outsource so much.”
Entrepreneurs’ guide to breaking into tech
Guidry advises young Black women with an interest in tech to find like-minded peers and practice their skills.
“Don’t be scared. Even if you don’t have an affinity for it, if it’s something you like and want to pursue, do it,” she said. “Get mentors, and don’t let anybody, including yourself, tell you ‘no.’ There’s a space for us we’ve created, that you have a community reach out. There are plenty of us that wanna help and continue that because we want to have the next generation behind us.”
Per Polk, understanding why people hesitate to break into tech fields that create wealth stems from their perception of themselves—“they think they need to be smarter than they have to be,” he said.
“Most of the people that run these large tech companies aren’t that smart,” he said candidly. “You are just as smart because if you have a problem nine times out 10, somebody else has that problem. If you create a fix for that problem, you’ll have a successful company. That’s all it takes.”
This story is part of the Digital Equity Local Voices Fellowship Lab. The Lab initiative is made possible with support from Comcast NBCUniversal.
