On this show we often discuss how difficult it can be to break into the technology industry for anyone who isn’t a white male. The same inequalities can also be applied to the tech employee’s paycheck. According to Recode.net and Hired—a job site that helps place people in tech jobs—nearly two in three women receive lower salary offers than men for the same job at the same company. While the numbers are up from last year when 69% of women received lower offers, for black women in tech, the disparity still looms large. Currently black women in technology make $.79 to every white man’s dollar or $79,000 for every $100,000 a white man makes. To stop the race and gender disparity in the tech sector and focus on encouraging and supporting the next black female-led billion-dollar company is Lauren Washington, the founder of Black Women Talk Tech, a new event series that supports diversity and inclusion in the startup ecosystem. Lauren is also the winner of Buffalo, New York’s million-dollar 43North competition for her social media manager app, KeepUp.
LAUREN WASHINGTON“We won $450,000 to build out Buffalo to create tech talent and new industry there.”
“I love the way Basecamp runs their company. They give their employees a lot of power and trust.”
“I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I sourced tomatoes from my neighbors garden and sold them to other neighbors.”
“Everything you do that’s bigger than yourself is going to create fear.”
“At my last job we took social media data to create invites for businesses. The tools were so expensive.”
“I love solving problems through new ways. You have to be open to possibilities and solutions will come through a changing world.”
“I started Black Women Talk Tech with two other amazing women who I kept seeing on the tech trail. It started as a retreat.”
“We partnered with Google and put the spotlight on black women in tech.”
“Our mission is to help support the next billion dollar tech company run by a black woman.”
“Women and black women face similar barriers. It’s an unconscious image people see in tech.”
“When I go into pitches I can’t point to someone who’s been where I’ve been.”
“I hope we move away from quotas when it comes to diversity.”
“Diversity creates better ideas.”
“You have to create a company where they can’t say no.”
“There are only 14 black women who have raised over a million dollars. It’s chump change for the VC market.”
“$36,000 is the average a black woman can raise from VC. So they’re cobbling money anyway they can.”
“43North was put on by Gov. Cuomo. It’s in its 4th year. We were one of the winners.”
“We could barely name a black woman who’s a tech founder.”
“We’re turning Black Women Talk Tech into its own company.”
FAITH POPCORNFuturist, consultant and trend visionary Faith Popcorn is the founder and CEO of her own marketing firm, BrainReserve. She’s been called ‘The Trend Oracle’ by the New York Times, Fortune Magazine has called her ‘The Nostradamus of Marketing’. She has a 95% accuracy rate and has identified the trend to move toward four-wheel drive vehicles as well as the demise of film. In 1981, she advised Coke to go into bottled water, warned Kodak to go digital, and has predicted the trend of micro-clanning—or creating more intimate groups of friends based on similar beliefs—from which she coined the term digital “cocooning,” where people only follow accounts with the same core beliefs as their own.
“When we were looking forward to VR we wanted to talk to the deceased.”
“You had to prepare companies for the right strategies.”
“The future is really right in front of you. Most people choose not to see it.”
“Everything is about disruption because if you’re doing it, it’s hard to see it will be over.”
“Einstein said the same people who created the problem can’t solve it.”
“We predicted supermarkets would be over and our male clients were like ‘how will women talk to each other?’ Do they know any women.”
“We all know that robots will mate with us and we’ll be half robots.”
“If you have an artificial knee you’re half robot.”
“I think it’s an intentional blocking of women, especially black women in tech.”
“Men are so uncomfortable with women in the workplace. It’s hard to get ahead as a woman in Fortune 200.”
“I predict a female revolution. People are getting angry.”
“I went to the HS of the Performing Arts in NYC. I had to go to college and started my company Faith Popcorn Brain Reserve.”
“So far, we’ve been right.”
“I was fired so many times from various advertising agencies. I started my own company on my credit card like so many women do.”
“I built this Brain Reserve solving problems together.”
“I was interviewed by Fortune early on. I had no clients so I told them what I thought would happen. Everything was spot on.”
“You’re moving mega-businesses ahead on what you say is going to happen.”
“Where’s a credit card or bank for females?”
“You won’t have to learn French, you’ll have a chip.”
“AI is not artificial, it’s real intelligence.”
“In 1981 we said people would be cocooning. Now it’s as an armor.”
“People are going to connect digitally by traveling and holograms. Who wants to go anywhere anymore?”
“Health is going to be a big biography.”
“I am a great proponent of drinking. It loosens your mind. Let go.”
“Everybody has the genetic ability to look forward.”
“Nobody can fire you if you work for yourself.”
Subscribe to the Dot Complicated newsletter and receive a monthly update containing our latest blog posts, events, and more so you can stay informed on digital solutions and tech trends without getting overwhelmed. 