Hack the Hood Illustrations

Recently, I got the chance to work with Oakland based organization Hack the Hood (HTH) on multiple illustrations for an internal document showcasing how they help young empower, attract, and retain youth of color in tech companies. Who is HTH? A dope tech based organization run by Susan Mernit and Zakiya Harris in Oakland California. I am extremely honored to work with them and so happy to help contribute to their success and the amazing work they do.

With the help of organizers, techies, teachers, activists, and students HTH is bringing young people of color into the tech world where their talent and presence are severely underrepresented. It was just three or four years ago that folks like Tracy Chou helped to get huge tech companies to release their diversity numbers. And when they did the picture that most poc already know became more clear; the world of tech is primarily white and male. News outlets like Wired, NY Times, The Guardian, Time, Fortune, Pbs, NPR, and more have written about the problem which not only ignores poc, but marginalizes women, and privileges white males. The bigger companies have vowed to do better, but their hiring, funding, and employee retention practices are not changing fast enough.

Organizations like Hack the Hood, Black Girls Code, Code 2040, Qeyno Labs, The Hidden Genius Project, Game heads, and a few others stopped waiting and started local and national programs to bring in the young people that these companies claimed did not exist or that they could not find. HTH is making paths to employment, wealth, upward mobility, innovation, and power that I wish I had as a kid. I'm emotionally ecstatic that they exist!

These are just some of the many illustrations I completed for HTH, but what they are essentially doing is demonstrating why tech companies must approach finding, working, with, and keeping youth of color differently. Inherent in this is the fact that youth of color come to the table with different cultural practices, knowledge, challenges, and values. Want to get involved? I thought so! GO HERE.

And please watch videos about their young scholars on youtube!

BIG thank you to Susan, Zakiya for bringing me in.

Who is She? 31 - Tracy Chou

Tracy Chou is an advocate for diversity in the Tech industry. A Bay Area native, she was born in 1987, and attended Stanford. She has written articles, spoke at conferences, and confronted the issue at large companies as an insider. Tracy's name kept coming up on my feed over the past few years just researching more about the field of technical and non-technical founders. She is a part of a much larger voice of women, people of color, queer folks, and white ally's working to bring in more voices into these companies that are affecting and changing the world. Tracy grew up in Silicon Valley, and actually has two parents who were involved in engineering. She started as an intern like many do in the tech world at companies like Google, and went on to work for some of them who were start ups such as Facebook, Pinterest, Rocket Fuel, and Quora. While working she became aware of the glaring fact that these spaces were mostly white and mostly male. So, like many others who have spoke out or founded their own initiatives she started to investigate. She wrote some pieces on medium and began collecting data about how many women were working at tech companies in technical positions. This was four years ago. Companies were shy to release the stats because they knew it would reflect a huge problem. Companies like Google, Intel, Apple, and more started to show what their staff's diversity or lack there of looked like. And sadly, things are not changing fast enough. Props to Tracy for being an advocate for bringing more women, queer folks, and people of color into the fields. Not only that, but trying to encourage young girls to get into tech and putting up with the backlash from people who may never "get it". Tracy has been interviewed or featured on sites or in spaces such as Tech Crunch, Vogue, Fast Co, Wired, CNN, Mother Jones, Today, and many more. She now works in New York and is continuing to code and to fight. Check out her articles "Where are the numbers" and "Why I care about diversity in tech".

Sources: We Code Harvard, Medium, Mercedes Benz, Twitter, triketora.com

You can purchase this piece, email me at info@robdontstop.com $40 (includes shipping) , i will donate a portion to Tracy's next mission to promote diversity.

Who is She? 21- Deldelp Medina

A Colombia native and Bay Area home grown entrepreneur/ activist Deldelp has done something no one else in the tech scene has done. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I can tell she is the only Latina (Latinx/Raza/Indigenous) woman to be the CEO of a start up tech company that nurtures and assists other Latina's to build their own companies. Ms Medina started "Avion Ventures" in 2014. It is what is known as a start up accelerator. It guides women, helps them develop their ideas, practice their pitches, mentors the, and helps them get the support they need to be entrepreneur's. Deldelp has worked to promote Latino culture through Cine+Mas (Latino Film Fest), as an activist with California Crime Victims, and worked in development and management through multiple non profit organizations,

Why is Avion Ventures revolutionary? Well, without getting into a huge history lesson about colonization, white supremacy, wealth gaps, and the myths of meritocracy I'll just say that numbers don't lie. Some of the biggest names in tech have disclosed their numbers on who is working for them, and for such huge companies which serve everyone and claim to be for everyone they are ignoring a huge group of people who already make up the majority in the US. Not only are they not paying attention to Latinas and Latinos but they are loosing vital ideas, genius, and insight into communities they may not know intimately. Engaging Latin@ communities is not only good business if companies wish to stay relevant, its 2016. Come on!

Also, it takes a huge amount of resources, money, time, and risk to start your own business which I know as a freelance artist. Also, in order to succeed in tech, that factor multiplies; not just for resources, but who you know who is connected. So, as Deldelp has said, she has been in too many rooms where she is the only woman, the only bilingual speaker, or the only person of color. That needs to change and she is leading that change alongside organizations like Code 2040, Hack the Hood, Latina Geeks, and Black Girls Code, and the Latino Start Up Alliance.

Sources: LatinPost (site), Platform (video), Deldelp.com (site), NPR (Radio), Avion Ventures (site)

Who is She? 15- Susan and Zakiya (Hack the Hood)

I met both Zakiya and Susan several years ago here in Oakland. Susan Mernit and Zakiya Harris are the Co-Founders of a ground breaking Oakland based organization called "Hack the Hood". The organization brings in mostly African American and other students of color to learn about the tech field. From the interview I heard with Zakiya on "Blacks in Technology" it sounds like a stretch for some at first, but they soon realize that everywhere they go they are no only participating in the tech industry but they can be active makers and producers in it as well. The students learn basic and complex coding skills by building websites for local businesses. They are not only learn coding, but they learn people skills, how to work with clients, and what it takes to run a business-therefore bringing more people of color into a extremely white, homogenized, and exclusive field.  Along with other organizations like Code 2040 they are changing the landscape of tech and empowering young people to be creators.

Susan comes from a background in tech, working for corporations such as Yahoo, Aol, and Netscape. She also founded or Co-founded several media and tech savvy businesses here in the Bay Area such as Oakland Local. She is the CEO and Executive director of "Hack the Hood". 

Zakiya I know from Oakland's historic arts culture of music. She was one half of the group Fiyawata, is currently working on a solo music project called "ShapeShifter". Zakiya has a long history of community organizing and youth education through organizations such as Grind for the Green at Ella Baker Center, TED, The Youth Leadership Institute, Global Exhcnage, and countless others. She is also a founding member of Oakland's Impact Hub which is the only HUb out of many worldwide run by Black women!

Sources: Blacks in Technology (podcast), http://www.hackthehood.org/our-team.html(site)