Tech Forward

Hello, listeners! Welcome back to the Tech Forward podcast. This week, I’m sharing my conversation with Dr. Herman Pryor, Jr. He currently serves as a District Lead within the Career Services Division for Coding Dojo's Washington, DC campus. There, he enjoys the process of developing others through solution-focused coaching methods. Having personally attended Coding Dojo over the summer, I was struck by the diversity within my cohort. Of the 12 students, 6 were women, and 7 (including myself) were students of color. Was this unique to the DC campus, I wondered, or is that level of diversity present on all the Coding Dojo campuses across the country? What is it about the bootcamp model in general — and Coding Dojo in particular — that succeeds in attracting and retaining a diverse student population? At Coding Dojo, Herman explains, you have diversity at the team and employee level, as well as the student level. In that way, the success of Coding Dojo has been a word-of-mouth phenomenon. When students from div

Welcome back once more, listeners! Finishing out launch week of the Tech Forward podcast, I spoke with Lisa Cuesta, a Principal at NextGen Venture Partners. An early-stage venture capital firm, NextGen’s goal is to bring a service mentality to venture. NextGen is made up of a core group of seasoned VCs along with a network of hundreds of part-time Venture Partners that drive the growth of portfolio companies. Prior to her work with NextGen, Lisa worked in strategy and product roles at Google as well as the ecommerce team at Pepsico. Our conversation focused on the barriers that female and minority founders face when fundraising, as well as different methods to make VC funding more widely accessible. Lisa had a lot of great insights to share about how to open the doors to more diverse groups of founders. So how does NextGen differ from other venture funds? Typical venture funds usually meet companies and entrepreneurs through the general partners network. This means they’re exposed to a relatively small pool o

Hello listeners! On this episode of the Tech Forward podcast, I spoke with madeBOS founder and CEO, Martha Hernandez. Martha has served in several Talent Acquisition and Talent Management and Sales leadership roles for organizations such as Coro, Give Something Back, Mi Pueblo Food Centers, and Inner City Advisors' Talent Management Initiative. Most recently, she was Save Mart Supermarkets' Director of Talent Acquisition. Martha has a successful track record of  strategizing and delivering critical human capital initiatives, technical implementations and integrations. She’s passionate about adding transparency in the talent selection and promotion process, access to opportunity, diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. MadeBOS grew from Martha’s passion for shaping people’s professional growth and development, no matter their starting point or current trajectory. “Seeing people develop, starting in one place and seeing their growth into more influential roles, [...] gave me a personal satisfaction. I

Hello listeners, and welcome to the inaugural episode of the Tech Forward podcast! For my first episode, I spoke with Courtney Bass, a HR Business Partner at Google, who coaches and advises leaders on team management and motivation. As an advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, Courtney has spent her career developing and implementing strategies that both individuals and teams can leverage for meaningful collaboration and growth. Courtney and I covered a lot of ground during our conversation, beginning with examining why diversity progress has been so slow at many of the larger tech companies. At Google, diversity numbers are still well below representative, though they have improved over the years. Why has it been challenging for Google and other tech giants to establish a more diverse employee base? In recent years, Google has made a sincere effort to broaden their recruitment efforts to be better able to get in front of great talent of color, and make a compelling case for what Googl

I'm excited to announce my upcoming podcast, Tech Forward. The discussion about diversity and unequal opportunity in the tech world has been going on for a long time now. But, clearly, this conversation needs to continue. That’s why I decided to start the Tech Forward podcast. Every week, I’m going to interview entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, media and tech leaders, and diversity advocates. What can you expect from the Tech Forward podcast? You’ll hear honest conversation about difficult topics. You won’t hear attacks on anyone’s point of view. All guests deserve to have their voices heard, and not diminished. Full stop. You’ll hear diverse perspectives as well, from people with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, and professions. I hope you’ll save the date and subscribe to the podcast when we launch on March 14th. For more, visit: goodbyteventures.com