On episode 7 of AfroTech’s Black Tech Green Money podcast, host Will Lucas sits down with data journalist, social entrepreneur, and speaker, Sherrell Dorsey, to discuss The Plug — a daily news and insights newsletter created to cover Black innovators in tech, venture capital, future of work policy, and more.
“Are people interested in this?”
That’s what Dorsey asked herself when she launched The Plug in 2016. She created the platform during a time when many tech and business news outlets failed to report insights from businesses and technologists hailing from communities of color.
“I wanted to be solid in what I was creating, first,” Dorsey explains while discussing the early process of creating The Plug and the significance of early testing and adapting. “You kind of mature the idea and you, as a leader, as a practitioner, you’re maturing as well.”
The Seattle native also discusses the importance of Black people being able to collect and publish our own data due to the roadblocks put in place by entities that didn’t want to see the information out there.
“Why it’s so significant is because once this stuff is published, it’s transformative,” says Dorsey. “How we’ve gotten anything done in the last 5 years as it pertains to the Black tech eco-system is because of having to publish research to prove to the powers that be that we’ve been disenfranchised. We have been underfunded. We have been discriminated against. We constantly have to prove our humanity.”
For more truth on Black tech data and news, check out this episode and subscribe to the Black Tech Green Money podcast on iTunes and Spotify.
