In this conversation, Ben speaks to Charlene Hunter, CEO & Founder of Coding Black Females. Coding Black Females is a nonprofit organisation who support Black female developers by providing networking events and learning opportunities.

Charlene talks Ben through the incredible story of how she founded CBF. She talks about the fact that opportunities that seem to just “fall into our lap” are often the result of years of dreaming and painstaking planning; and that big, “risky” decisions can be made in a risk-averse way.

Charlene talks about the barriers to entry for black women into technology, both in terms of how lots of companies sometimes think about recruiting, and how would-be engineers pigeon-hole themselves.

And fascinatingly, Charlene describes herself, and perceives her work at CBF, as an exact mix of the careers of both her parents. They talk about the influence that parents, and grandparents, have on us as individuals, as well as the way in which inspiring figures are often people who stood for something bigger than themselves.