10 Black Women in Tech to Know
It’s hard to imagine that for the majority of the 20th century people did not have computers. Yet today, in the 21st century, it is likely that you are reading this article from your Laptop, iPhone or Pixel to name a few of the new technologies that have dramatically transformed our world.
However, from racially biased artificial intelligence to the disproportionate online abuse of young Black people it seems that the technology sector, one of the most innovative and exciting sectors that exists today, is often not the most inclusive place it could be. In fact, less than 2% of the tech industry is non-white and only about 0.7% of Black women work in IT.
There are, however, many influential Black women within the industry making waves and making inroads to make the tech world a safer and more inclusive place for Black people. These are just a few of them:
1. Seyi Akiwowo @seyiakiwowo
Seyi, once a Labour councillor in East London, is the founder and director of Glitch, a UK-based charity that lobbies and organises workshops designed to help make the internet a safer place for marginalised groups and is particularly focussed on helping Black women and young girls escape online abuse.
2. Fadzai Madzingira @FlyFazFly
Whilst Fadzai’s primary training is in law- she did the prestigious Bachelor of Civil Law degree at the University of Oxford- she is now Facebook’s Public Policy Manager, working to protect Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp users from online abuse in particular. After the recent news coverage on the constant abuse footballer Marcus Rashford was experiencing on Instagram, she announced that Facebook (which owns Instagram) is taking new measures to protect users from abusive direct messages on the site.
3. Esther Kuforiji @EstherKuforiji
Esther is someone else who was originally trained in law but now works at Facebook. Esther, who describes herself as a ‘writer, an innovator and a philanthropist’ is a product manager at Facebook, helping to develop exciting new software products. She is also the co-founder of Sisters in Tech, a family-run business, which provides events and support to Black women seeking to enter the tech industry.
4. Oyinkansola Adebayo
Oyinkansola, who holds degrees in Business Management and Economics, has been working in the technology industry since 2017 and once worked as a Programme Controller for Rolls Royce. Now, she is the founder of Níyó Enterprise, a Birmingham-based business which provides Black women quick and easy access to hair stylists, at affordable prices, and provides training to Black women looking to enter the technology industry. One of Níyó’s most-well known initiatives has been the Black CodHer Bootcamp, a 30-week programme which provides Black women with rigorous coding skills.
5. Charlene Hunter @charlenephunter
Charlene Hunter works with Oyinkansola to provide the BlackCodHer Bootcamp, through her non-profit, Coding Black Females. Coding Black Females was set up in 2017 to provide opportunities for Black female developers to interact and connect with one another. Charlene, who wrote her first line of code when she was 10-years old, holds a master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Birmingham and currently runs Charlutions, a software consultancy business.
6. Flavilla Fongang @FlavillaFongang
Flavilla Fongang, who holds degrees in economics and business and who has lectured at Goldsmiths University, is the founder of TLA (Tech London Advocates) Black Women In Tech, a non-profit which seeks to ‘inspire, support, connect the tech sphere to allow more Black women to excel and tech companies to perform better through diversity & inclusion.’ The founder of 3 Colours Rule award-winning branding and marketing agency helping tech brands move people, businesses, and the world forward. She also hosts the hosts Tech Brains Talk podcast where she chats with people who are part of or helped create ‘iconic tech brands’ like Shazam founder Dhiraj Mukherjee and so it is unsurprising that she was recently listed as one of 2021’s top 100 influential leaders in IT by Computer Weekly.
7. June Angelides @JuneAngelides
June Angelides, MBE, is the founder of Mums In Tech, a coding school that ran from 2015-2017 that helped young mums learn how to code. Now, in 2021, she is a mentor at the University of Oxford’s Foundry, an entrepreneurship hub for Oxford students opened by Apple’s Tim Cook in 2017, and is an investment manager at Samos Investments.
8. Nneka Abulokwe @NnekaAbulokwe
Nneka Abulokwe, OBE, was listed as the 4th most influential BAME person in tech by the Financial Times, in part because she was one of the first black people to sit on the board of ‘a top five European IT services organisation’. She is the founder MicroMax consulting, a consultancy firm that advises businesses how to meet their business goals through the use of technology.
9. Ebele Okobi @ebeleokobi
Ebele Okobi was recently ranked as the 6th most influential Black person in the UK, by the Powerlist foundation, and currently works as Facebook’s Public Policy director for Africa, the Middle East and Turkey.
10. Buki Kekeré @Bukikekere
Despite getting a degree in Psychology from Brunel, Buki Thompson, known as Buki Kekeré on social media, pivoted to a career in tech and now works as a software engineer. She has run successful #CodeXHipHop masterclasses for a few years now, where young creatives learn how to code.
