Dr. Paul Judge represents one of the four percent of blacks that work in the IT Security space according to a July 2008 Diversity Report conducted by SC Magazine. I first learned about Dr. Judge while researching graduate programs in IT Security to apply to and saw a video of him speaking at a Georgia Tech security conference.
Dr. Judge is a Morehouse College graduate with advanced degrees in Information Security from Georgia Tech. He is a digerati (look it up!) that holds six patents and has 19 that are pending. Back in 2000 he joined at that time security start-up Ciphertrust as its Chief Technical Officer (CTO). The company primarily focused on e-mail security creating a product called Ironmail that brought arond 3000 clients in roughly five years.
Ciphertrust was eventually sold in 2006 to Secure Computing for $273 million. By October 2007 Dr. Judge left the organization with a vision and and a desire to start his own venture, which he did in November called Judge Ventures. Most recently Dr. Judge co-founded and took on the role of CTO of new security startup Purewire Inc.
Purewire is primarily focused on developing security based solutions for the new wave of Web 2.0 applications. Dr. Judge stated in the August issue of Black Enterprise that attackers have moved to try and reach users through web activity versus solely attacking companies directly. The solutions developed by Dr. Judge and his team will sit between the user and the web.
Today marks the beginning of the first annual Blogging While Brown conference taking place July 25-27 in Atlanta, GA! I must confess, I am really SICK right now because I was really looking forward to meeting my fellow bloggers of color, but I procrastinated and Gina shut down registration on us late folks! Shout out to Gina!
The Blogging While Brown Conference will be three days of innovative panels, instructional seminars and networking events. Now some of you may be wondering, why is there a Blogging While Brown Conference? Well I'm glad you asked! According to the Blogging While Brown wiki site (http://bloggingwhilebrown.pbwiki.com) the reason for the conference is because:
"Bloggers of color are at an inflection point in the development of the blogosphere. Our ideas and thoughts matter! with several other tech/blogging conferences such as SXSW, BlogHer, and YearlyKOS, it's about time for something similar for bloggers of color."
Nicely put!
The young lady responsible for creating this wonderful conference is the one and only Gina Mccauley from the blogs, What About Our Daughters, Michelle Obama Watch and Blogging While Brown. Also at the conference is my friend Angela and the crew from BlackWeb 2.0. Earlier today BlackWeb 2.0 in conjunction with Key Influencer hosted a meet-up today to take advantage of everyone at attendance at the Blogging While Brown Conference. The event took place from 3pm-6pm and was streamed live (which I missed because I was swamped at work) and displayed on a large screen allowing the virtual attendees to interact with the peeps at the meet-up.
During the meet-up my girl Angela did a quick interview with James Andrews from the KeyInfluencer.com who hosted the event. Check out the interview:
Angela from BlackWeb 2.0 interviewing James Andrews
I want to end this post my extending my congrats to Gina and the Blogging While Brown committee for putting together what I'm sure will be a GREAT conference and experience for bloggers of color! I am really looking forward to the reviews.
The National Black Data Processing Associates just announced this years results of the Best Companies for Blacks in Technology based on research done by WorkplaceDiversity.com The best companies are:
Eli Lilly and Company
Health Care Service
Wells Fargo Bank
Allstate Insurance
HSBC North America (good company!)
Merck and Company (good company!)
Monsanto
State Farm Insurance
Wal-Mart Stores
WellPoint
**I can't say that I totally agree with the top 3 let alone the majority of the list as related to this first study, but they're the experts right?!**
I have to admit to you'll, this list d*mn near depressed me. Those are the best companies for Blacks in Technology to work? I mean IBM is not on the list which is typically listed at the top of the best companies for minorities (let alone Blacks) in Technology to work. Since I wasn't satisfied with what I found I did some more digging and found research done in March of this year by Jungle Magazine. The survey was conducted (separate by each minority group) by the Universum USA and they listed the top 20 ranked companies for African Americans, which includes more consulting, tech and media companies than the study done by WorkplaceDiversity.com! The top 20 companies are:
Mckinsey & Company
Google (yay!!)
Goldman Sachs
Bank of America
Coca-Cola
Procter & Gamble
Deloitte
Citigroup (excellent company)
American Express
Bain & Company (prominent consulting company)
The Boston Consulting Group (great company, but long hours for their consultants)
Booz Allen Hamilton (great company, but long hours for their consultants)
Nike
Apple (yay!!)
Lehman Brothers
Microsoft (do people still want to work at Microsoft?!!)
Johnson & Johnson
General Electric
Verizon
Chevron Corporation
Now that's more like it!
The Jungle Magazine study went on to breakdown (percentage wise) what each minority group is looking for in a top employer. The breakdown for African-American's was as follow:
Diverse workforce (44%)
Industry leadership (37%)
Financial strength (26%)
Overall I would say the study done by Jungle Magazine was more thorough than the study done by WorkplaceDiversity.com. Nonetheless, they both left off IBM and JPMorgan Chase, which is the company I currently work for.
Opportunities abound for Black Technologists today in Corporate America. However, if you're jaded by the whole Corporate America environment, you may consider starting your own company and become the next Rushmore Drive!
Digital Talented Tenth
Source(s): Jungle Magazine March 2008 Diversity Issue and WorkplaceDiversity.com
Let me start by confessing that I am an Apple addict and I pretty much purchase close to every product they put out, including the 3G iPhone that hits AT&T and Apple Stores at 8am this Friday! So it's only fitting that I would be currently reading this book (with all colored pages) called "The Cult of Mac" by Leander Kahney. The book basically takes the reader inside the world of the Mac addict. There is one story in the book about a Mac addict that I was instantly drawn to because the guy called himself "iBrotha".
Now iBrotha is a black guy by the name of Rodney O. Lain who was known to hold various full-time day jobs and worked part-time as a Mac columnist/evangelist and at local computer superstores for the pure pleasure of preaching and selling Macs face-to-face. Rodney was known by many names within the Mac community notably "iBrotha", "Angry Mac Man", and the "black Guy Kawasaki" after Apple's former pitch man.
His writing as a Mac columnist earned him a large and dedicated audience on the web. A cool thing about this brother is that he would use the Mac platform as a way of writing about issues like poverty, racism, and politics. He would grab readers to his columns attention by using catchy titles like "Vaulting computer users to civil rights martyrs" or "The Macintosh is the Nigger of the Computer Industry". Rodney worked full time as a technical supervisor at UPS before he was hired full time at Power on Software, a Mac software publisher, after operations manager Corey Johnson at Power On witnessed Rodney selling Macs to a group of customers.
The sad and tragic part of this brother's story is that he shot himself at his home in Eagan, Minnesota, back in June 2002. His widow Irma found her 34 year old husband shortly after he killed himself. It is reported that he'd been treated for depression, but some of his friends say he stopped taking his medication a few days before his death.
This story stood out to me for several reasons. For one this brother was a black technologist who lived his life with enthusiasm and passion. What is your passion? But the story also stood out because the brother struggled with depression which is not a topic (e.g. mental health) that is talked about very much in the black community. I appreciate authors like Terrie Williams who took this issue of mental health in the black community head on by writing the book "Black Pain: It Just Looks like we're Not Hurting". I encourage anyone reading this post to find your passion if you haven't found it already. Lastly, if you struggle with depression PLEASE reach out to someone you trust before you even consider taking your life.
R.I.P Rodney O. Lain: The iBrotha
Digital Talented Tenth
Source: The Cult of Mac, by Leander Kahney, pg. 88
Loren Feldman of 1938 Media caused an uproar last year when he posted a video blog titled "Where are the Black Tech Bloggers?" Apparently in a lame attempt to be funny, Loren states that he poses the question, because as he puts it, "black guys love technology." He goes on to say, "I mean, car stereos, cell phones, mp3 players, all that stuff!" Later in the video Loren appears dressed as the white male tech version of Eminem wearing a do-rag, smoking weed, speaking Ebonics, tongue kissing a girl, drinking Bacardi, among other things while screaming "welcome to TechNigga.com" (with Salt 'N Pepper Whatta Man playing in the background). Are you serious?
The original video
On Monday of this week activists Najee Ali of Project Islamic Hope and Paul Porter of Industry Ears as well as several civil rights organizations formed a coalition and called for Lowell C. McAdam, President and CEO of Verizon Wireless, to withdraw a distribution deal he recently signed with Feldman's company. In a press release, Najee Ali said the following:
"Feldman has a history of using the internet to promote racism and demeaning and negative racial stereotypes against African Americans on his internet site." (Source: Eurweb.com)
The plan for Verizon to drop their distribution deal with Mr. Feldman and his 1938 Media it appears took but a hot second to happen! This morning (07/08/08) Urban/Black Entertainment news site Eurweb.com reported that Verizon Wireless, as of yesterday morning, removed clips from 1938 media off their V cast service. Apparently Verizon listened to the complaints from the formed coalition groups and agreed that 1938 Media along with its founder Loren Feldman "promotes racism."
After Verizon made its announcement, Paul Porter of Industry Ears gave this statement:
"We are glad to hear that Verizon moved quickly to cease 1938 Media's offensive content off their V Cast. Corporate responsibility is not an option. In lesthan twenty-four hours the voice of the consumer was heard loud and clear. Industry Ears values our partnership with Project Islamic Hope and the strength of the web to deliver information that consumers truly need to hear." (Source: Eurweb.com)
The video is offensive, but it didn't personally offend me. Let me explain before you scream "oh no he didnit" just say that he's not offended! As a blogger who happens to be black and works in the IT field, I'm used to somepeople's ignorance and outright shock when they find out that black people are interested and involved heavily in technology. This shock and awe has occurred some many times to me and my other black friends who are bloggers and or work in IT that I decided to start this blog.
Now to answer Mr. Feldman's original question, where are the black tech bloggers? Well, I made a list for him below and did him one even better and included black bloggers PERIOD!
Black "Tech" Bloggers Digital Talented Tenth (That's Me!) Blackengineer.com Black Web 2.0 (shout out to Angela and Markus) Ejovi.net (he was apart of the prominent security company @Stake that was acquired by Symantec) Dec.net Randal Pinkett (http://www.randalpinkett.com/forum/blog/index.asp) lynnedjohnson.com themhshow.com
Other Black Bloggers Industry Ears Electronic Village What about our daughters Pimp My Vote 2008 (shout out to Keli Goff representin' on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC) Black Women Vote (shout out to my girl Arlene Fenton!) Aunt Jemimas Revenge Black Snob AverageBro Books or Bullets
Before you think or ask, the above list of black bloggers is not exhaustive! I left off some and there are others out there that I don't know about yet. The point is Mr. Feldman asked where we were, and now he knows! Oh by the way, Mr. Feldman issued an apology/angry rant last year with the video first made news. Do we accept? Check out the videos below.
In April of 2008 IAC (one of the world's largest Internet services company) launched a search engine by the name of RushmoreDrive.com tailor made for the 12.4 million blacks on-line according to Nielsen Online. According to their site, Rushmore Drive delivers a blend of mainstream search results plus a layer of more relevant search results influenced by the Black community.
President & CEO Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. is quoted as saying to USA TODAY's Mike Snider that "blacks want everything we already get from Google plus highly relevant news". He goes on to say in an interview with BlackPR.com that RushmoreDrive.com "will be the online home for all Black people in American whether they be African American, Black Caribbean, Black Hispanic, or people of African heritage".
The technology (algorithm) working behind the scenes that produces the search results is pretty sophisticated. According to an article on the search engine in the New York Times, the results are based on years of search data from IAC's Ask division. Also, what Rushmore Drive did was analyze 3,000 popular search results in areas with large black population and found out that those searching for hair products, cars, etc., ended up on vastly different Web sites than people who lived in areas with smaller black populations. What the algorithm for RushmoreDrive.com does is moves the Web sites preferred by black people (depending on the search query entered) near the top of the search results.
For example, CEO Johnny Taylor stated that typing in the word "Whitney" at Rushmoredrive.com may yield Whitney Houston and Whitney M. Young, two prominent African-American individuals, and in a mainstream search engine it may only yield results for Whitney College or Whitney Muesum.
I encourage everyone to go to RushmoreDrive.com and play with the search engine like I did and post you thoughts and critiques on my blog.
Many people remember Dr. Randal Pinkett as the first African American Rhodes Scholar and season 4 winner of Donald Trump's Apprentice program. What many people don't know is that Dr. Randal Pinkett is also an established and prominent entrepreneur, speaker, author, and scholar and community servert. He is the Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of BCT Partners, a multimillion dollar management, technology and policy consulting firm based in Newark, NJ. Prior to founding BCT Partners, Dr. Pinkett worked as apart of the technical staff for General Electric, AT&T Bell Laboratories and Lucent Technologies.
Dr. Pinkett is a sought after public speaker for corporate, youth and community groups, and has appeared on nationally televised programs such as CNN and featured in the New York Times and Boston Globe. As mentioned in the first sentence, Dr. Pinkett is a Rhodes Scholar, rated one of the Top 20 Scholars by USA TODAY, and he won the MIT Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership Award.
Dr. Pinkett holds five academic degrees including the following: Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, that he completed with a 3.9 GPA while servering as President of MEET, the Rutgers Chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE); Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Computer Science from Oxford University England; Master of Science (M.S.) in Electrical Engineering from the MIT School of Engineering and Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) from the MIT Sloan School of Management as a participant in the MIT Leaders for Manufacturing (LFM) Program; and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) from the MIT Media Laboratory.
A published writer and author, Dr. Pickett's first book, Campus CEO: The Student Entrepreneur's Guide to Launching a Multimillion-Dollar Business, was released in February 2007. Lastly, he is currently co-authoring a book with Rutgers roommate and business partner, Dr. Jeffrey Robinson, tentatively entitled, Black Faces in White Places, which chronicles their experiences as African Americans who have successfully navigated predominantly white institutions.
Ejovi Nuwere grew up impoverished in the Bed-Sty section of Brooklyn. After watching a close friend gunned down as a teenager and his mother succumb to drugs, Nuwere began searching for an escape and found it in technology. By the age of 15 Nuwere had become a computer security professional working for an Internet Service Provider in Manhattan. At age of 21 he was already an accomplished security expert working for one of the world's major investment bank. He also worked as a Security Consultant for prestigious security startup @stake which was later acquired by Symantec.
Nuwere has appeared as a commentator on CNN and NPR and has been featured or quoted in Wired, Boston Globe and MSNBC. Ejovi was one of Businessweeks top 25 under 25 in 2005. The article discussed his security company SecurityLab Technologies which provides security for the growing voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) phone business. He raised the startup capital by consulting, but now he focuses on developing security products for large companies looking to deploy VoIP calling to save money on telephone service.
SecurityLab's first product will be a box that a company can install on its internal network. Overtime, Nuwere hopes to evolve his business into a hosted Web service. The first trial is already underway with a financial services company in New York City.
Ejovi Nuwere Interview with Dr. Bobby Austin [1 of 4]
Ejovi Nuwere Interview with Dr. Bobby Austin [2 of 4]
Ejovi Nuwere Interview with Dr. Bobby Austin [3 of 4]
Ejovi Nuwere interviewed with Dr. Bobby Austin [4 of 4]
Najee K. McGreen is chief executive officer and president of Techmaster Computer Works LLC. Najee is a certified Microsoft IT Professional and Experienced programmer in languages including: C++, Java, HTML, ASP, and PHP.
He has 7 years of experience and know-how, with an engineering vision and a strong business and entrepreneurial background. Najee is a prize winning alumni of the NFTE (National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship). He has won numerous awards from corporate giants such as Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and American Bank. While being voted 2006 Teenpreneur of the Year by Black Enterprise, Najee has also served as a panelist on Tavis Smileys' 2006 State of the Black Union aired live on C-Span.
Window Snyder is currently the Chief Security Something-Or-Other (a tongue-in-cheek CSO title) at Mozilla Corporation. Snyder joined Mozilla in September 2006. She is co-author of Threat Modeling, a standard manual on application security.
She was senior security strategist at Microsoft in the Security Engineering and Communications organization, most notably as security lead. She also played a significant role in the releases of Service Pack 2 and Window Server 2003. Outside of working at Microsoft, Window has had stints as a principal Security Consultant with Matasano Security LLC, and a founding member and Director of Security Architecture at @stake (which was acquired by Symantec).
Snyder is considered to be a prominent figure in the Security Industry who is a frequently requested speaker at security conferences like RSA and Black Hat Security.
Dr. Paul Judge represents one of the four percent of blacks that work in the IT Security space according to a July 2008 Diversity Report conducted by SC Magazine. I first learned about Dr. Judge while researching graduate programs in IT Security to apply to and saw a video of him speaking at a Georgia Tech security conference.
