In honor of Black Heritage month, I wanted to highlight the Black people who have achieved or are in the process of achieving great things in the tech field. This is in no particular order.

Jasmine Bowers became the first Black person in the history of the University of Florida to earn a Ph.D in Computer Science. She accomplished this last year in July of 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. She credited her mother with being a huge part of what motivated her to accomplish this historical feat. She stated the following: “The seed of motivation was planted at a young age when my mother taught me how to use Excel to record my ‘wish list.’ I grew up in a household where I was encouraged to embrace technology.” 

Another Black person currently making moves in tech is Kai Bond, co-founder and partner of Courtside VC. After working as a program manager at Microsoft in the early 2000s, he went on to found startups in the gaming industry. One startup he founded, Pixie TV, is an app that allows users the opportunity to broadcast their social media feeds on their television. He sold the app to Samsung within 9 months of founding it. 

Kai Bond’s experiences revealed to him how tech can be a great equalizer. In a podcast entitled, “How I Sold My Startup to Samsung within 9 months,” he discussed visiting Botswana, where his mother is from, where he saw people use mobile phones in the 1990s to take pictures and conduct business, before these features were widely available in the US. From then on he wanted to be involved in the tech field, and make it more accessible for others to use and improve their communities.

Evelyn Boyd Granville (1924- ) was the second Black woman to earn a PhD in mathematics from an American University (the first was Euphemia Lofton Haynes) and went on to spend much of her life working in education and programming. After finishing her doctorate degree, Evelyn Boyd Granville spent two years teaching mathematics at Fisk University, a historically Black university in Nashville, Tennessee.  She eventually left teaching to enter into the field of applied mathematics, and ended up working at IBM. 

During her time there, she analyzed orbits and developed computer procedures for the Project Vanguard and Project Mercury space programs. During a 1994 interview with Loretta Hall, Granville recalled her feelings about that time of her career by stating: “That was exciting, as I look back, to be a part of the space programs…at the very beginning of U.S. involvement.”

In a summation of her accomplishments, Granville said that she was, “First of all, showing that women can do mathematics.” She also went on to say, “Being an African American women,” through her accomplishments she was “letting people know that we have brains, too.”

Clarence “Skip” Ellis (1943-2014) was the first Black American in U.S. history to earn his Ph.D in computer science. He earned this degree at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This was in 1969, just some decades ago. 

After receiving a scholarship, Ellis went on to attend Beloit College where he earned his bachelor’s in math and physics. In 1963, he participated in the March on Washington spearheaded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which helped his passion for civil rights grow. He had to stop attending grad school at MIT to continue his civil rights efforts. Ellis returned to his home state of Illinois to enroll in grad school at UIUC. After completing his work there, he became the first Black person to earn a PhD in computer science in the history of the United States. 

Ellis worked at places like Xerox and MCC, where he led the Groupware Research Group. After that he worked in the academic field. He taught at Stanford, University of Texas, MIT, and University of Chicago where he retired in 2010. He always encouraged his students to pursue computer science, reminding them that, “The computer is not just a machine, it can help someone.”

Marsha Rhea Williams (1948 – ) became the first Black American woman to earn a Ph.D. in computer science in 1982 at Vanderbilt University. Born in Memphis, TN, Williams was recognized as a gifted student from an early age. In 1969, she earned a bachelor’s in physics from Beloit College and then went on to the University of Michigan to earn her master’s in Physics. 

Williams worked as a professor at Memphis State College and Fisk University before earning her Ph.D. in Computer Science at Vanderbilt. Other notable accomplishments of hers include working at IBM and becoming a National Science Foundation fellow.

Williams is also passionate about helping women of color pursue higher education and enter into the STEM field. She founded the Association for Excellence in Computer Science, Math, and Physics and she advises the National Society of Black Engineers. She has also made it a point to to go into diverse communities and publicly speak about the opportunities afforded to them in tech.