Jewel Burks Solomon is an advocate for representation and access throughout the technology industry and was a speaker at AfroTech 2018. Jewel Burks Solomon is also the co-founder of Partpic, a board member at Goodie Nation as well as the Harvard Debate Council Diversity Project.
It’s not just Burks’ talent that impresses me—it’s how she has emerged as a champion for representation and access in the tech industry. The stats are alarming: While black women’s business ownership is growing fast, less than 1 percent of VC funding goes to women of color. Women hold only 11 percent of executive positions at Silicon Valley companies. Burks fights to change this by mentoring female founders and other women of color in tech and is a board member of Goodie Nation, a community using tech to solve civic problems like access to education and health care.
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
