Tom Nyuma was awarded second place at the 2024 AFROTECH™ AI Hackathon , where innovators gathered to collaborate on impactful solutions for their communities and industries. Nyuma, who started programming in college, created Sickle Sense to “truly make a difference in the lives of those with sickle cell,” he shared in his submission to AFROTECH™.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by AFROTECH™ Conference (@afrotech.conference) As someone living with sickle cell disease, Nyuma initially planned to develop an app to help people find jobs. However, after reflecting on his own experiences, he decided to address a long-standing issue he had been passionate about for years — sickle cell disease management. While researching, Nyuma found a 2023 paper titled Artificial Intelligence in Sickle Cell Disease,  which explored how AI could transform the management of sickle cell disease through areas like early crisis detection, personalized treatment, and risk stratification. He said...

Tierra Whack wants to normalize conversations around financial literacy. The rapper, originally known as Dizzle Dizz, has teamed up with Venmo for its financial education series, “Money Talks.” The series features a range of artists and entrepreneurs, some of whom are Whack’s peers. Kicking off its second season, Whack sat down with North Philadelphia designer and seamstress Adriana Williams, who works a 9-to-5 while scaling her lifestyle brand. “We realized, we have so much in common and we had the same struggles,” Whack, a North Philly native, told AFROTECH™. “I really was like enlightened when I was talking to my friends, when we were filming. I’m like, ‘Yo, this is crazy.’ These are friends I talk to almost like at least twice, three times a week. And then we sat in front of the camera and I’m like, ‘Yo, I never knew you were going through this. I didn’t know.’  I don’t know what it is about us, but  that’s just kind of like the unspoken thing. Venmo helped us break the ice. I...

‘Tis the season for AFROTECH™ Conference 2024! This year, the highly anticipated annual event for Black techies will be touching down in Houston, TX, from Nov. 13-16. The new stages announced are as follows: Cybersecurity Stage On the Cybersecurity Stage, speakers will discuss topics such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT), security, and governance. AI Stage   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by AFROTECH™ Conference (@afrotech.conference) As AI continues to be one of the biggest trending topics in technology, the stage discussions will focus on quantum AI and automation, ethical AI, and regulation across job sectors. Data & Engineering Stage The Data & Engineering Stage is set to provide insight into career development for software engineers, data scientists, product managers, and others. AI Hackathon Speaking of AI, AFROTECH™ is calling on all diverse developers, coders, builders, hackers, and technologists for an upcoming...

As a leader in cybersecurity, Zinet Kemal is paying it forward to the next generation. Originally from Ethiopia, Kemal moved to the United States in 2013 with her husband and oldest son, who is now 14, due to a diversity visa lottery. She had previously worked in the legal field and had to make a career change when she came to what she deemed as the land of opportunity. Kemal took this opportunity to nurture her fascination with technology, believing it had the power to improve lives, she told AFROTECH in an interview. She enrolled in a local community college in Saint Paul, MN, and took a computer programming course, which she describes as a “complete reset.” By 2016, she had earned an associate’s degree at Saint Paul College, a community and technical college, in computer programming and transferred to Metropolitan State University to earn a bachelor’s degree in computer science. By her senior year, Kemal had stumbled upon the cybersecurity field by representing her school in a...

Seizing the moment has taken Lincoln Kennedy from the NFL to the restaurant industry.

Young Black tech entrepreneurs in need of inspiration, these two brothers have got you covered. Rusty and River Fields have launched “R-House” — the first Black residency hacker house right in their city of Bedstuy, Brooklyn — News 12 reports. View this post on Instagram A post shared by RHouse (@rhouse.nyc)  

Tiffany Haddish consistently tells the people, “She ready.” From journaling to stretching and all kinds of personal productivity hacks, Haddish gave the world some in-depth details of how the comedian readies herself daily.

A high school student is shattering the glass ceiling! While attending school in Nigeria, Damilola Awofisayo remembers unstable electricity disrupting educational lessons. At the time, Awofisayo and her classmates were not exposed to the solutions that existed in the world of computer science. Nearly four years later, Awofisayo moved to the United States and would attend Thomas Jefferson High School in Virginia. The computer science-driven school encourages all students to take a course in the field before graduating. Awofisayo did not understand the value of computer science initially. With that said, she planned to take the course her senior year of high school but a counselor placed her in the course her freshman year instead and the rest is history! “Within the first three weeks in the class, I fell in love with computer science. It was my tool to create solutions for problems I had seen in my society and with my experience living in Lagos, Nigeria,” Awofisayo said to AfroTech.