The World at Work is powered by GE. This new series highlights the people, projects and startups that are driving innovation and making the world a better place.
Name: NewME Accelerator
[More from Mashable: Light Painting: 7 Stunning Works of Art [VIDEO]]
Big Idea: NewME startup accelerator guides and mentors minorities and women -- two groups underrepresented in the tech space -- by working to lower industry's barrier to entry.
Why It's Working: NewME's 12-week immersion programs nurture startup founders' ideas, foster discussion, encourage co-working and offer mentorship from some of the industry's most prominent leaders. Each program concludes with a "demo day," during which NewME participants present their ideas and products to influential tech attendees.
[More from Mashable: Students Studying Abroad: Take Advantage of Video Job Interviews]
Today's tech industry is comprised of only 25% women, and a paltry 1.5% African-Americans make up Silicon Valley's tech workforce.
San Francisco-based startup NewME wasn't having it. Before launching its immersive accelerator program, the company successfully fostered a dialogue about minority participation in the tech space with events and conferences. The 2010 NewME Washington D.C. conference brought together experts, venture capitalists and minority entrepreneurs themselves to discuss the industry's high barrier to entry, specifically when it comes to African-Americans, Latinos and women.
As both a woman and an African-American, NewME founder Angela Benton has managed to surpass the overwhelming odds. "Even if I think back to earlier on in my career, when I was a designer or an engineer, I was still the only black woman in meetings, on the teams that I was on and even in the department that I was in," she says.
But why are there so few minorities in the tech workplace to begin with? Many believe the problem originates in the United States' education system -- today's young people don't have access to enough science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) curricula. However, Benton envisions a more "multi-pronged" solution: "We have to factor in other things, like access to mentors and role models, and even very simple things, like explaining to individuals how to even start to enter the field is huge," she says.
And that's precisely what NewME's startup accelerator program aims to accomplish. The company hosts two 12-week workshops per year, during which about eight startups per session "spend 24 hours a day sleeping, eating and drinking our startups," says NewME's website. That's right -- for either the entire spring (Feb - May) or the entire fall (Aug - Nov), participants co-work and co-live in San Francisco, Calif., entirely dedicated to lifting their ideas off the ground.
Accelerator participants have heard from and interacted with a variety of leaders in the tech industry, including Opsware co-founder and venture capitalist Ben Horowitz, Lotus Development Corp. founder Mitch Kapor and the former CTO of Second Life Cory Ondrejka.
In addition to brainstorming and working tirelessly, NewME's select few participants enjoy a supportive community. They share stories of workplace challenges and inspire each other with hopeful solutions. "NewME participants' stories about their experiences in the tech industry are so varied," says Benton. "I get to talk to the founders that we have in the accelerator, and I get to hear what people have experienced nationally, via the nearly 1,000 people we have in NewME community."
That community only continues to grow as the traditional tech industry stereotype crumbles. "People, regardless of your background, think you have to be and look a certain why to be in the technology industry. Most think they have to have a computer science degree, be a white guy or look like a nerd," says Benton. "This is the best way to have an industry that more accurately reflects not just the U.S. ethnic and gender makeup, but the world's ethnic and gender makeup."
NewME
Click here to view this gallery.
Series presented by GE
The World at Work is powered by GE. GE Works focuses on the people who make the things that move, power, build and help to cure the world.
This story originally published on Mashable here.
No comments:
Post a Comment