National Black Tech Ecosystem Builder Association
Building a united and national black tech ecosystem.
Building a movement of black tech activists and black tech ecosystem builders to eradicate racial tech disparities and create black joy futures. We accomplish this by aligning black tech activist organizations with black community impact organizations within cities, assessing their black tech ecosystems, developing a funnel of financial resources, creating spaces for black tech activists to share best practices across cities, and developing a hyper local and national policy agenda. The Association will empower on-the-ground black tech activists and black tech ecosystem builders to eradicate racial tech disparities in their cities by helping them to strengthen their local black tech ecosystems.
A Black Tech Ecosystem is an ecology of institutions within black communities that are optimized and aligned to expedite the growth of black innovation which are populated by black tech founders, innovators, scientists, creatives, faith leaders, public interest technologists, and community tech leaders.
The National Black Tech Ecosystem Builder Association will unite black tech startup support organizations, black faith communities, K thru 12th Black STEAM educators, HBCUs, black civic tech organizations, and black technology organizations. As part of building a robust Black tech ecosystem, we will:
Develop a National Black Tech Ecosystem Builder Fellowship that will fund black tech ecosystem builders to go into cities and align conversations and actions around equity.
Support the Digital Equity Act of 2019 and Congresswoman Barbara Lee's Computer Science for All Act.
Encourage local municipal policies that will allow communities to easily identity and tap into dark fiber or community driven mesh networks
Partner with faith tech communities like the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries to create #BlackChurch Futures to translate this new world of technology to African Americans.
Form public policy recommendations from these open letters from Black STEM and Computer Science organizations: Blacks in Computing and Out Allies for Equity and Fairness, Black Tech for Black Lives, and STEMforBlackLives.
Disrupt the narrative that Black people’s mobile phone usage will solve the digital divide by examining black people's smartphone portability rates (e.g. Changing providers and phones due to cost).
Lobby every mayor and city-wide chamber in conducting a black tech ecosystem assessment of their city’s ability to create a thriving black tech ecosystem, and support this like we support Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) regional blueprint for creating a stronger, more diverse economy.
What YOU can do today: Join the movement.
#BlackChurch Future
Re-engineering Black Churches for worlds of Tech and Social Justice.
What is #BlackChurch Futures?
Out of the traditions of Black Liberation Theologies, Womanist Theologies, and Afro-futurism, #BlackChurch Futures is about how the Black Church has, historically and presently, played a pivotal role in:
Training Black Americans in workforce skills;
Training Black Americans for social justice leadership;
Forecasting societal norms and values;
Creating counter publics of political discourse;
Promoting communal spiritual growth;
On this foundation, we build the #BlackChurch Futures. #BlackChurch Futures is an organization that forecasts future tech trends and societal trends, prepares black churches for those trends, and inspires acts of black liberation, creativity, spiritual growth, and collective dreaming.
To learn more about #BlackChurch Futures please visit our Facebook Page.
Black Girl Stream
Supporting Black Women during COVID19.
Black Girl Stream supports the mental health of black women during the COVID19 pandemic by celebrating Black girl joy by streaming a movie every Friday at 7:00 pm/EST that highlights black women actors, directors, and stories. The genesis of Black Girl Stream was in direct response to the COVID19 virus. Among black women, we wanted to promote hope, joy, and sisterhood in these uncertain and scary times. Studies show that sister circles are powerful anecdotes against depression for Black women.
And, with this, Black Girl Stream creates digital sister circles weekly with our: (1) Streaming of a black woman centered movie; (2) Physical challenges of cosplay based on streamed movie; (3) Mental health exercises of sharing photos and memories based upon streamed movie; and (4) Belly laughs and emotional sharing during our post-ZOOM chat after the streamed movie.
The movies we have streamed are Self-Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam CJ Walker, Girls Trip, Fast Colors, The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel, Dream Girls, Eve’s Bayou, and Selah and the Spades. Additionally, our private Facebook group page grows by 100 new members, weekly. Right now, we have a captive audience of 3,000 black women. Furthermore, our movie streams can net 3,000 plus black girl joy comments, expressions, and posts during our 2 hour stream of a movie.
To learn more about Black Girl Stream, please visit our Facebook Page.
#BlackTechFutures Research Institute
Supporting transformative tech research for black communities.
We love using data to tell powerful and trans-formative stories about black people lived experiences. The #BlackTechFutures Research Institute allows us to ask meaningful questions that will help grow a national and unified black tech ecosystem.