An economic organization based in Cincinnati, Ohio obtained control of Black Tech Week, the biggest event for Black tech creators.
From July 18 to July 22, the Lightship Foundation will host the event this year at the Union Hall in the “Queen City.” Black Tech Week provides a variety of opportunities for up-and-coming Black tech entrepreneurs to help build a network amongst themselves and the people interested in funding their projects.
In an interview with local Cincinnati news outlet WCPO, the CEO of Lightship, Candice Matthews Bracken, announced that there’ll be different events throughout the special occasion such as an opening night and a special brunch specifically for Black women in tech. She also mentioned that there will be a day dedicated to giving showings of the projects the attendees have created and a competition where attendees can pitch their ideas for investments by Lightship.
“Black Tech Week is a culturally historic event that innovators of color have converged upon for the last seven years to expand their minds, their networks, and their access to capital,” said Matthews Brackeen in a statement on the company’s website.“I am thrilled to bring this conference to Ohio and provide thousands of Black techies throughout the Midwest the chance to attend.”
Black Tech Week was created in 2015 by Code Fever Miami, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping Black students learn to code and turn it into a successful career in tech. In a 2015 interview with funding company Digital Grass, Felecia Hatcher, one of the founders of Code Fever Miami, revealed that the lack of Black creators in tech motivated her to start the weeklong event.
“Ever since the big companies released their diversity numbers last year there’s been a lot of conversation around those numbers and of course the lack of diversity in the tech space,” said Hatcher to Digital Grass. “We really wanted to create something that was more focused on creating solutions to solve that problem.”
While many companies say representation is a growing concern for them, the presence of Black creators in tech has yet to increase. In a 2021 report by the Kapor Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to removing barriers in the STEM fields, they reported that only 5% of the tech world is made up of Black creators and, although $137 billion were invested in new tech companies, only 1% of this money went to Black tech founders.
For the Black creators that have already entered the tech world, there’s still a large divide between them and their white counterparts in terms of pay. According to the same report, Black tech workers earn $10,000 less than white tech workers in the same exact positions each year.
“The city of Cincinnati is committed to becoming a place where remarkable entrepreneurs of color feel supported and seen,” said the Mayor of Cincinnati, Aftab Pureval, in a statement on the Lightship Foundation website. “We are excited to be hosting Black Tech Week and look forward to continuing our work with the team at Lightship in diversifying the city of Cincinnati’s tech ecosystem.”
