The Black Enterprise Network

William A. Adams is a software engineering and startup trailblazer, philanthropist, and co-founder of Microsoft’s LEAP program. It was a diversity and inclusion apprenticeship that has trained more than 30 cohorts of developers and program managers around the world.

Link to the program here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/leap/

He’s passionate about helping every single Black person interested in the tech industry by means of what he calls tequity: Meaning his mission is to empower Blacks to build wealth and agency through equity ownership of tech companies. 

In this episode I have a conversation with Brian Bristol: founder and CTO of pigeon loans - the platform that makes lending and borrowing money easy between friends and family. We talk about how Pigeon Loans got started in 2020 during the pandemic, what it means to have product market fit, and talk about why rejection is inevitable, but our path doesn’t have to end with those rejections. 

#22: Nikolai Francis - Vice President of Product Management at WePay [00:40]

#23: Why this 23 year old turned down an offer at Google to start his own nonprofit ft. Jehron Petty [01:55]

#24: The dream of becoming a hacker and escaping the traditional 9-5 ft. Samuel Bartels [03:48]

#25: Serial entrepreneur protecting companies from unethical hackers ft. Tiffany Ricks [05:06]

#26: The journey from "Hello World" to major tech executive ft. Nick Caldwell [08:45]

#27: The power of community, leadership & work ethic ft. Gwladys Keubon [12:03]

#28: Talking AI, AI ethics, and microinvesting ft. Chinasa T. Okolo [14:16]

 #29: The founding of Black Valley & the UK tech scene ft. Leke Sholuade [15:30]

 #30: How this vacuum salesman became a web developer ft. Cam Perry [16:55]

Cam started off as a salesman going door to door selling vacuums, but when he discovered coding he realized that he could open up new doors for himself and make more money. He was a student at the Lamdba school coding bootcamp and since then has been a full-time web developer with a podcast that similarly to this one - shares black stories in tech.

In this episode Cam and I talk about how he went from being a salesman to a web developer and his thoughts on doing a coding bootcamp compared to other alternatives. Cam shares a lot of gems so you won’t want to miss out. I hope you enjoy it.

The death of George Floyd in 2020 was a catalyst for Leke, in which he was influenced to start Black Valley: a mentoring program and community that aims to provide tech industry access to the Black community. Black Valley aims to increase representation in tech and social mobility of the black community, in which those new to this space will have all the mentor support and network they need to thrive.

Leke and I talk about how Leke got into this space, the founding of the Black Valley Program, and what the tech scene is like in the UK.

Chinasa is a computer science phd student at Cornell university with various research interests including health, computer vision, and AI ethics. She’s worked on a variety of projects related to AI and healthcare. And in her spare time she is a startup advisor and microinvestor.