hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr1663.txt

Episode: 1663
Title: HPR1663: Interview with Greg Greenlee Founder of Blacks In Technology
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1663/hpr1663.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 06:37:23

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It's Wednesday 17th of December 2014, this is HPR Episode 1663 entitled Interview with Greg
Greenley founder of Blacks in Technology and is part of the series interviews.
It is hosted by Ken Fallon and is about 62 minutes long.
Feedback can be sent to KenatFellon.i or by leaving a comment on this episode.
The summary is, Blacks in Technology is a tech focused community focused on increasing
diversity in technology.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by Ananasthost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15 that's HPR15.
Better web hosting that's honest and fair at Ananasthost.com.
Hi everybody, my name is Ken Fallon and you are listening to another episode of Hacker
Public Radio.
Now some of you may have known that we've been represented in that hug camp over the last few years and I've always wondered a really cool place to go.
It's a great festival.
Lots of very interesting people there and what always struck me was the amount of diversity both in the
past and in the past various different world of boundaries.
But there was a little bit of controversy I think this year in that one person started not one person
but it was brought to the attention of people via Twitter stream and it maybe wasn't as diverse as it could have been.
So I was thinking about that and it came to my attention that maybe we could do a little bit more to encourage
more hackers to come out of the woodwork.
And with that in mind, I was doing some googling and stuff across Greg's podcast.
So Greg, thank you for joining me today.
Thank you for having me, Ken.
Appreciate it.
Not a problem, not a problem.
Can you tell me about yourself who you are, where you live, how you got into tech, that sort of thing?
Excellent.
Yeah.
Some of the name is Greg Greenley.
I'm located in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America.
I'm a systems engineer.
I work for a local data center here in Cincinnati where we do a variant of things from cloud computing, building out private clouds for customers.
We do email hosting, web hosting.
So I'm one of a few on the team.
So I pretty much pretty much get to touch everything from firewalls to switches to
Linux, to you know, cloud and everything.
And I got into actually a funny story.
I kind of had a longer journey to get into tech than most people.
I got my first computer probably when I was around 11 or 11 or 12 years old.
Commodore 16, not a 64.
It was a Commodore 16 from way back.
Yeah, way back in the days, I had it hooked up to a an old 13 inch black and white TV.
And I somehow stumbled across a book on basic programming that my mother had, which I have no idea why she had it because she wasn't into computers back then.
And she wasn't a programmer, but she somehow had this book in her library for some reason.
And I kind of picked that up and learned a few things.
And so I had my computer for maybe about a year.
And I was doing some, you know, silly 11, 12 year old things like creating.
Me and my brother, we were heavily into GI Joe, the character GI Joe and the cartoon series here.
So I was like creating this really rudimentary database of GI Joe characters.
And doing silly stuff like that and, you know, programmed the computer to be like an alarm clock for me.
It was just something that, you know, the same cool to do at the time.
You know, what I would do is I would really just calculate the number of seconds.
And, you know, before I had to wake up in the morning and then like at the end of the countdown, I would turn my, my, my TV all the way up.
So at the end of it, end of the countdown, there was a, I can't remember exactly, but there was some.
Some module that allowed you to do something else.
Yeah, people make exactly and it just, you know, and.
And so I was like, okay, that's pretty cool. So I did that.
And so I was, you know, small, small little things like that.
So, so anyhow, at one time, my computer didn't, didn't start up one day.
And if anybody remembers the, the, the Commodore's back then, it was really, unless you had the audit peripherals like the, you know, floppy drive to attach and our modem or anything like that.
All it really was was just the keyboard and everything was contained within that keyboard.
And you, you, you hooked that up and had some, some outputs on the back where you hooked that up to.
I think it was, it allowed me to hook it up to like a dongle to attach it to the back of a television.
So, yeah, so.
So it went on a Fritz didn't work.
And me being, you know, the inquisitive 11 year old, 12 year old, wanted to take everything apart.
I took it apart. And inside of it was this kind of cylindrical fuse.
And I was like, oh, you know, maybe, maybe it's the fuse.
So I didn't have a fuse laying, laying around.
So I actually took the fuse and wrapped it up in aluminum.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it wasn't, probably wasn't, it worked for a little while.
Probably wasn't the best thing to do a long time, but it worked.
I had my computer back up and running it all of a sudden.
It went out completely and my, and we couldn't take it back because, you know, I voided the warranty by.
I was screwing in and opening it up and, you know, my father was pretty upset about that.
And so after that, you know, I really, I kind of dabbled in computers a little bit, you know, you know, back then this was around.
This was in the early 80s.
So, you know, high schools and elementary schools and things like that, they didn't have computers in the classroom.
And so it, I wasn't able to, to continue, you know, my computer, my computer endeavors.
I wasn't able to continue that in high school or anything like that.
We had one computer class and, and what we call junior high school.
And that's seventh eighth grade or eighth or ninth grade or something like that.
And that was it.
And then after that, you know, I didn't, I really didn't touch computers for a very, very long time.
I did a lot of other jobs and got into a bunch of other stuff, but came back probably 10 or no longer than about 13, 14 years ago.
When I really got back into it and, you know, started out doing just tech support and, you know, I could tell even when I was away from it, I could tell that I still loved it.
And had that passion for it and wanted to return to it.
I just didn't know when and how and actually started working at a computer retail store.
And, you know, just selling, you know, peripherals and selling cables and things like that.
And we had a big book section.
So, you know, that really brought my interest back to the forefront of four computers.
And Scott, a few books started reading, started, you know, taking computers apart and started learning.
And I'll start it with, you know, simple stuff with the A-plus certification.
And read all about that, start learning about operating systems, a hardware.
And then started learning about networking, started hanging around a bunch of cool people at Hacker.
The local 2600 chapter here in Cincinnati is started hanging out there with a good friend of mine who introduced me to Linux.
What he's actually, I don't know if you ever heard of the hip hop, nerd core group, dual core.
The needs are, have indeed.
Yeah, it's one of my best friends.
And so, if you ever heard any of the music or anything like that, I'm Remy Forbes on the albums.
So, if you've heard any of that stuff, you know, like here to help, cypherpunks, you know, there's a song on his latest album called Running.
That's me because I was into music back then and did some musical on my own.
But he got me into insolentics, started hanging around with him at the local 2600 chapter and started attending conferences, the Ohio Linux Fest, things like that and really just worked my way into into the scene and stayed in it once I got in it.
And I saw how I'm here now.
So, you're kind of into the, the tech scene around Ohio Linux.
You've been to the Ohio Linux Fest, I presume.
Yep. Quite a few times.
We've had a few tables there from time to time.
So, well, what can you tell us a little bit about your project now, you know, Blacks and Technology.
Yeah, so Blacks and Technology started out, we've been in existence, Blacks and Technology.net, been in existence for close to five years.
And it's, it's funny, it actually started from actually attending Ohio Linux Fest a number of years ago, probably back in 2000, yeah, 2008.
And, and I've been to a few Ohio Linux Fest, a couple of them before that, I went to, there was, you know, some other conferences and, you know, regionally not a con and really enjoyed the scene, really enjoyed the people, really enjoyed the talks and it just, you know, being there.
Talking, I love the culture, I love the atmosphere, the community atmosphere that was being presented or being displayed at these conferences.
But one thing was I just didn't, I couldn't understand why there wasn't more people of color, why there wasn't, weren't more minorities at these conferences and it wasn't a thing where I was.
It wasn't a blank thing, it wasn't, you know, why aren't you guys doing more, it was, you know, these are great places to be.
If you want to really learn tech, you know, if you are really passionate, why aren't we at these conferences soaking up the knowledge and making the connections, networking with people, learning.
So it was really almost a call to action for community, right, other people of color and tech and it was sure.
So, but looking at a lot of hyalinics fest, for instance, that you were at, would you have a head looking around there that the mix of people there would be representative of the mix of people in your average every day, one of the male tech company.
Yes, and no, yes, and the fact that, again, I'm not saying this is a good thing, I'm just asking a, you know, yeah, yeah, so, you know, but let's put it like this.
I went to the hyalinics fest this year as well, and it was a totally different feel than what it was in the past.
In the past, you would, there were, you know, there were a lot of people there that were, how can I put this.
That weren't, that didn't have the corporate look, let's put it like that, right.
And I was used to being in more of a corporate environment at that time, so the people that I run into, no, it didn't reflect what I was used to.
But once I got more and more into tech, yeah, it seemed to reflect, you know, what, what I was used to say and which is, you know, largely, largely our majority white male.
And population, and it, and it wasn't, I don't want to make this seem like this, I was never made.
I think we need to approach this like, there's a bug out there, yeah, and we need to file the bug and say what it is, what is the issue, how we're going to fix it.
Exactly. So, but what I guess what I'm trying to say is I was, it was never a hostile environment. I was never treated in any way with any hostility.
It was always inviting, but it did bother me that there wasn't more people of color in these environments, right.
So, yeah, and I think as you say, forgive me for both words and your mouth, you want to go and get more people from, you know, from your own culture in there to experience this, you know, cool place.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Go ahead.
Yeah. So, I mean, you hit the nail on the head. That's exactly how I felt is I want people to be able to have this opportunity and to experience what I'm experiencing right now.
And that's what led me, you know, I had a conversation with another gentleman there, another black gentleman.
And, you know, I was just like, you know, these are cool places. These are cool people, you know, what can we do to raise awareness for, you know, conferences like this, you know, this type of tech, this type of technology speak.
I should say within our own community, within our culture, and so I had the idea of, you know, at first it was it blacks and technology.
Was this going to be a block, you know, I wanted to showcase and and be a representation of a black person and technology, writing about tech, you know, showing my stuff, so to speak.
And and and being a role model, really, you know, having, having a representation of, you know, people who, who, who might,
who might look into tech as a career choice or who might just want to see, you know, what other, what another black person in tech is, is writing about our doing.
And so that's what I, I want it. And then we, we took that idea and we said, well, hey, let's create this community.
And the word community really, really stuck out for me because, you know, when you, when you talk about community, you talk about, you know, the people inside the community, the services, the, the infrastructure and, you know, all of that is what makes up a community.
If you can, if you can kind of harness all that and and and, you know, I was thinking, you know, putting that online, that would be a great thing to bring more awareness.
So, you know, people, people who are interested in tech, and who might not, some people, you know, it's natural that, you know, people flock with people who look, talk, walk,
like them. That's, it's just a natural thing. It's not a racial thing. It's just how people have already have all, you know, over the years, that's, that's how people, exactly.
Exactly.
So, I want to bring that ask, but I wanted to bring that community feel online so that people of color, you know, other minorities could come and we could congregate and we could talk about tech.
And, you know, if there's some, you know, some social issues that we can tackle or some experiences or some advice that we can help other fellow techies out there, you know, then that's great too.
So, you know, that's, that's pretty much what I did. I put together some, you know, took some open source online tools and put together this, this community where it started out.
You know, just being a numbering in the maybe 10, 20, 30 people, but it has grown close to 1500 people.
Wow.
So, what have you got on over there? You've got a podcast without an RSS feed.
Yeah.
Exactly. So, link to the RSS up on the website too.
Yeah. Okay.
I'll make note of that. I thought I did. I mean, I'll check on it.
So, yeah. So, there's a few things that we, that we've done.
We've, you know, we have it, you know, the homepage, which is, you know, pretty much our blogs and our articles.
And what I tried to do is, you know, one of our, one of our things or one of our, our, our triads that we like to say is, you know, visibility, participation, perception.
Right. So, we want to increase visibility.
And that's for the people that are part of the community.
We want, we want to showcase the talents of people that are already working in the field or doing something great in the field that you might not normally see. Right.
So, you know, you have all these representations out there. And if you go to any, any tech website out there, you're going to see what people think that, you know, the representation is, which is largely white.
Or Asian males who are doing tech and you don't really see, you know, a lot of people are color out there. So, I wanted to, I wanted to bring that representation.
I wanted, I wanted people to be able to, visibly, you know, see other people who look like them, walk like them, talk like them, doing, you know, some cool things in tech.
So, having a blog and saying, hey, you know, let's put your picture on a site and let's, you know, let's, let's put your background.
And so, when you write these articles at the end of it, they'll see a person of color and they can, you know, say, hey, I can do this then. Maybe I can start my own blog.
You know, that's, that's the whole reason behind a visibility.
So, the participation is just that, you know, if you increase visibility, likely, you know, increase participation.
You know, when people see people they can relate to, it's more likely that they'll be able to, you know, they'll participate as well.
Or if they think they'll be able to participate, right? And then the perception, the whole perception thing is, is, works kind of both ways.
It's, you know, perception within our community and perception outside of our community. And I want blacks and technology to be a catalyst in changing that perception.
So, inside the community, it's, you know, it's not a thing of where people within our community think that only white males or only Asians can be in tech.
It, it, it, it, it, it should be something that should be attainable by, by anyone.
And if you, if you change that perception and if you have that visibility aspect and you can change the perception of people out there.
And they're not, you know, just thinking that, you know, all they can do is, is this one thing. Here's another option. Tech is an option for you, you know, it can't be because, you know, we have close to 1500 members that say it can.
And then from the outside, you know, it's, it's change of perception as well and saying, hey, you know, there's, there's this entire community out there of people of color who are in tech.
You know, now, now maybe, now my perception changes. Now it's not just me, you know, reaching out with just within my community. Now I can reach outside and I can, you know, I understand that there are people out there.
People are color that are doing great things. And, you know, when I think about what, who, who I should, you know, try to get for a conference or who I should get to try to speak, you know, now my, my horizons are broadened and, and, and, you know, and bit is hopefully a catalyst for that.
But the argument against that, of course, is that, you know, you're going to have more caliber.
I'm just quoting here. You're going to have more caliber of speakers just because you need to fulfill a, you know, a quota. What do you say to that?
This is, yeah, so this is not about filling a quota. That's not what it's about. It, for me, anyhow, this, it's, it's, it's broadening your scope.
That's all it's about. It's broadening the scope and within of talent that you, you try to obtain for, for, so if, if you don't, if you don't ever step outside your circle,
you're going to continue to pick the same people for everything. And that's what I mean about change of perceptions.
If, if people pick these people, you know, not that they're, you know, people are great speakers. I give them that.
But if, if you don't broaden your, your reach and, and go out, if you don't even know about a person over here, who could be an expert at this, at this topic.
I know quite a few people within our community are experts at topics and, you know, because other people don't know about them, right?
They don't, they don't reach out to try to get them to speak. You're going to, you're going to continue to, it's not lowering the caliber.
It's just, it's broadening your scope. Just, just looking at, you know, just, just taking that chance to step outside, just outside your comfort zone and, and saying, hey, you know,
who else is, who else is out there?
Absolutely. To be honest, the, the argument completely falls down because anybody who has even listened to one or two of your shows from the caliber of the people on there.
I mean, black, white, whatever, the stories are excellent.
I don't say that the topics are interesting, the journeys, the brilliant and the goals are fantastic and that these are any of these people would be more, I would be more than happy to go in and say, are indeed unhappy,
more than happy to get them on board. So how do I do that?
If you look at it, you said that you came from Ohio Linux Fest that that has lost. How do we now go and pull you back into these fest?
How do you go about and do what again?
You're getting, you're, you're making the connections. You've got all these nice connections here.
There's this whole pool of people that they, you know, traditional Linux scenes or traditional blossoms of traditional texting are not being exposed to, how do we, how do we get that?
Get the floor going to raise here?
Yeah, so I mean, it's, it's as simple as, that's what I, I was talking with a friend of mine.
And, you know, with, with blacks and technology, I, you know, I'm, I'm an engineer at heart, right?
So a lot of the stuff that comes with running blacks and technology, organizational stuff, sometimes it, you know, it's, it's hard for me because I'm not a super business, a super business savvy person.
And, you know, a lot of the stuff is, it's, it's me learning and tripping over myself and finding out what I'm doing wrong and things like that.
But a guy, he, he, a good friend of mine, he can, and he said, look, you're a connector. That's, that's your biggest attribute is that you're a connector.
And whenever you go places and whenever you meet people, you connect, but it's, it's amazing amount of connections that I actually have and the people that I've connected.
So, I mean, if anybody wants to get in contact with anybody, I try to really make sure that I include contact information in any of the shows or any of the show notes that I have.
But if anybody wants to contact any of the people that have been presented on, on, on the podcast or who, who was blogged for blacks and technology, I mean, just shoot me an email. I'm more than happy to make these connections and, you know, and can.
In order to continue dialogue, I mean, that's what's needed.
Because it's not a thing of, for me, it was never a thing of being exclusive, right? I didn't create blacks and technology in order to be in this corner by ourselves, talking tech, right?
This was more of a thing to include our, you know, our community and include more people of color and tech. So I just wanted, you know, I can't remember exactly who, who the gentleman was, but there was a, there was a, there's a gentleman out there who's really known for his thoughts on communities.
I want to say it's the guy who found it info cube, but I can't, I can't recall. So anyhow, his, his thing was, you know, communities are, you know, they, and I'm kind of prayer, I'm prayer phrasing here. So he's basically saying that the best communities are communities that are inclusive and that allows others to create communities within inside, you know, communities.
And, you know, kind of have their own group, but still interact with the, you know, the larger community. And that's, that's kind of how field blacks and technology is. It's, you know, we do have, you know, our site and our online community to where we operate and we do things, but we don't do, we don't do that with, you know, with saying that, you know, other people can't come and join or they can't join into and a dialogue.
We do it, you know, with open arms. And, you know, this is, yeah, this is, this is a way for us to bring more awareness to our community, but we don't, we don't try to shut people out. Right. So that, that, um, cultural.
It's perfectly sensible to me. I mean, if you go to an event like Boston or whatever, you're going to have.
Pearl people sit next to Python people, you're going to have Katie, Katie people sitting next to know people you're going to have.
Yeah, but order people sitting next to Debbie and people. This is just bringing more hackers into the community. Well,
it could not be a bad thing. Yeah, that's how I feel.
Excellent. Fantastic. Because I mean, there was a, you know, the first time you hear about black technology, you're going to think to yourself,
well, you know, is that a, is that a demonos thing? But if you approach the point of view of, you know, the cold is out there,
sort of open source ethos yet, we're going to get more people in. This is a friendly place where, you know,
young kids can get involved. So how, how do you do? Like, okay, I think you're on the line problem that I'm trying to get at here.
A bigger issue here. There's not a women in technology. There's not enough ethnic minorities in technology.
You know, technology does not reflect normal society out there. Whatever normal society is, I guess. How do we fix that?
So, I mean, you know, that's a shit question. Sorry.
No, no, no. I mean, yeah, that's tough.
I mean, step one is you're already doing it. You're making an inaccessible place for other people to look at.
Yeah, that's one way. I mean, there's, you know, early education, right? Early exposure and, you know, and people's lives.
It's really.
There's a lot of people, I guess, mentoring.
You were talking about that on your last episode. It was exactly.
There's a lot of ways that we can start to help, you know, and start to make change.
I always go back to, you know, kind of our core with blocks and technology.
And I think one of the biggest things that's going to affect change is to be visible.
No matter what, you know, to me, like none of this, unless there's visibility for the people that are in tech, for instance.
If I go and I go and speak at a high school, where there's a lot of underrepresented people there, you know, urban setting or anything like that.
That speaks more. That's actually a bigger impact than it is just to have a computer class at, at that high school.
I know exactly where you're coming from now.
And I'll give you a short story about my wife's cousin went to one of actually one of the top high schools in the United States of America, right?
That's located here in Cincinnati.
And he at first wanted to get into computers.
And we had this conversation some years ago, but he told me he walked into the class and, you know, everybody in the class was white.
And the teacher was white.
And they turned around and looked at him and everything like that.
And he just got this weird feeling that he didn't belong.
Now, I'm not saying that that's the correct attitude to have.
What I'm saying is that that's a real attitude, right?
That's that's, you know, I don't, I don't deal with, you know, with how it should be.
I deal with how it is and how it is that person goes into that classroom and he instantly feels uncomfortable or like he's not wanted there.
And he turned around and walked out.
And I just thought that that was quite telling, you know, as far as how a lot of people might feel going into tech, women included.
I talk with quite a few women online, you know, black women who are in tech.
And, you know, they, it's the same recurring story, you know, as far as how they feel being in an all male environment and being the only female, it's intimidating.
And that's just, you know, that's just how people feel.
And so I think visibility goes a lot further than just having a computer class or a computer course in your high school.
What does that mean that you that can still lead to the same problems that we have that the white kids in the high school attend that class and nobody else does.
Right. So I think visibility, you know, goes a lot goes a far goes a long way.
And I think that that's one of the biggest things that we have to tackle exposure in the media as far as when it comes to tech, you know, speaking at conferences.
Yeah, if you look at any of the movies, like your stereotypical hacker, let's say, is the white fist guy in those mom's basements is veryably a white guy.
Yeah. I mean, in that, that perception, you know, that perception has to change.
So, so I, like I said, it's, it's a, it's, you know, that's, that's one of the things that I feel that could help if we could just get more exposure if we can just become more visible.
But it's almost like a catch 22. It's, it's, you know, you go to these conferences and you might go once and you might not see any people of color. It might discourage you.
You might not go back. And what does that do for the next person? Right. They, you know, is this endless, kind of this endless cycle.
Beyond that, you know, there, I think that there is an honest on, on some of the conference organizers to, to step outside of this circle and, and reach out and, and, and, and say, hey, you know, who else is out there that we can get.
They can, they can speak intelligently about these, about these topics that we have, you know, you know, it's, it's, it's crazy. You know, there's, but we have to be accessible as well.
There's, there's a responsibility that lies on us as well as black people in tech. We, we have to understand that we're needed out there too and that we, we, you know, we, we can't hold ourselves back and not participate.
Right. So there's, there's, there's also responsibility on us as well. You know, so when it would, when these people are having these call for papers, call for proposals or whatever, we have to be willing to step up to the plate too and, and, and submit papers and, and, and not feel intimidated or not feel, you know, I think there's a, there is a type of inferiority complex for some people and it might keep them from submitting a paper.
And, and some of that is just education. Some of that is just saying, you know, everybody feels like that at first, you know, before you have to use their first show, you know what I mean?
Yeah. If I can, if I can go, go in here with a massive big plug for HPR. If you have anybody who thinks that they are, you know, they would like to present to that as one of these things.
HPR is a great way to do that. Talk to my own, talking to my own participants. There's no barrier to entry. Nobody knows, you know, on the internet, nobody knows your dog. I have no clue as to the ethnic, racial, religious or whatever views of anybody behind the microphone.
And if, if you're in any way concerned about you, you know, you're speaking voice or whatever, we have people who do scripts for you.
So, nice. All you need to do is, I'll send you on the FTP details, pass that on to whoever, and you can do a show on any topic that's of interest hackers.
Nice. And then you get your first show out of the way. And after that, it's all plain sailing to be speaking to the most foods that Ted tells.
Yeah, so, I mean, it's, it's, it's a very, very huge problem of tackle. I, you know, I just hope that, you know,
plaques and technology is doing this part. That's, you know, and trying to tackle this huge issue.
But what do you say to those who are those guys out there who think, okay, well, we're going to have all these women taking our jobs, and we're going to have all these ethnic minorities coming in taking our jobs.
Yeah. So, I mean, if, if that's the way some people think, that's just, that's kind of how they think. But if you really need to look at it as,
um, so once you, once you start including more people, right, new ideas are going to come out of that.
Yeah, new ways of doing things are going to come out of that. It shouldn't, it shouldn't cut jobs at all. It should create jobs. Right.
And, you know, if, and if you're scared of that.
Exactly. You know, to be honest with you, innovation.
It was, it was, it was a crappy question because we're desperately trying to get engineers all the time.
Yeah.
You know, one cool thing that I saw that you guys do is you post, you post job advertisements on your network. And I think that's brilliant, brilliant way to go, brilliant way to go.
And I've worked in, I've been very fortunate in working in companies that have had, you know, been diverse.
Being quite diverse at the company I'm in now is quite diverse.
And it just makes a much more interesting environment, even from the choice of music that people play and they're, that you get exposed to even, you know, the stories and the humor that people have.
And the different approaches people have to solving problems. It's, yeah, it's just, it's better all around, you know.
So I think it's pretty cool.
Yeah.
I think what you're doing is really, really cool.
Thank you.
Yeah. Good friend of mine.
Her name is are Yuri Salassi. She's at us. She's based out in Silicon Valley.
She's so, she's huge or what she calls these cross cultural, you know, experiences.
And sharing knowledge, you know, across boundaries and being, you know, being exposed to other people's culture and, you know, how that, how that affects and how that improves the overall environment, period, you know, that knowledge wise, that improves it, you know, innovation wise, that improves it.
And so, you know, I think having a diverse workforce is, it's not going to, I think that can only help.
It can only help to increase jobs in the long run.
Absolutely.
I mean, some of the, you have this, the founder series.
Yeah.
Tell us a little bit about what you're trying to do there.
So it's just, you know, we've done the podcast really ever since, you know, blacks and technology was founded.
And it's just really a push to try to give some exposure to minority tech founders and let them tell their story.
And like I said, give them some visibility so that, you know, so that people, the whole, you know, the whole perception thing that young people who are listening to these stories can envision themselves as being founders.
And I like it because it, it, it, it gives it, you know, let's them tell their story from their point of view and some of the pitfalls that they've had and some of the things that they had to deal with and some of their experiences.
And we started it because one of our, one of our, the person, one of the people on the bit team, her name is Joel Sparks.
She deals with a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of founders and you will hear this thing, you know, in Silicon Valley, you know, we can't find, you know, any black entrepreneurs or we can't find any, you know, black people who founded tech startups.
And so we wanted that to be a thing where like here's, you know, where we're doing interviews with tech.
And that's what I, you know, if that's what I mean by, you know, broadening, broadening your scope, you know, there are minority tech founders out there.
You just kind of have to open, open your ears and your eyes to it and really reach out there and to find it because there's, there's people out there who want to tell their stories.
There's people out there who want to, you know, want that exposure, they want to be seen, they want to be heard.
And so we just offer them a platform to be able to do that.
And some of the shows that I've seen, you know, they've been one or two, sorry, one of some of the shows that have heard.
And there have been one or two that have been specifically, you know, catered to, you know, hairdressing needs of, of, yeah.
And you listen to a lot of them.
Well, you know, I listened a lot, I have a big lung commuter and I have to fill up with something.
But, but others are, you know, it could be just somebody that you picked off off the, the alma mater.
So when you picked off a list from Harvard and it's like, I didn't want to do any chemistry and I did this and I went on to work there and the fortunate company, you know, like, just diverse range.
But this is, this is a cool thing. It's bringing hackers onto exposing us to more hackers, which is always a good thing.
Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I mean, and, and I like that, you know, the blacks and technology is giving them that platform that they might not have had before.
And that's what I mean, as far as like the, you know, what you would, what you see in the media and across all media platforms, you know, whether or not it's the internet or whether or not it's, you know, a television, you know, there's, there was a show that was on television.
I think called Silicon Valley and all the participants in that, on that show were, they were all white. And so, you know, this is, I just, I love that, you know, black technology has that platform to give people.
And, you know, they're not from traditional, I guess, the traditional backs, backgrounds that you're, that you're normally accustomed to, you know, they didn't, some of them, you know, didn't go to Harvard.
They didn't go to Stanford or MIT or anything like that. They might have just, you know, come from a community college or they might have just, you know, come from a historically black college or university.
But they're, they have a brilliant idea or a really good idea and a really innovative idea and they're out there pursuing it. And those are the types of stories that, you know, that we love to cover.
Yeah, and I think my point is, you know, they're not, they're just interesting stories from the point of view, they're interesting stories that could be really anybody telling this story.
How did, you can say, for example, if there was shows or stuff going on, do you like arrange meetups or anything that's at best or birds of the feather sessions with people at best.
Oh, so there's, there's a, we've had a few events, not a ton and there's something that I'm looking towards doing more of this upcoming year is doing more meetups, getting more, I guess, you know, feet on the ground, because a lot of the stuff that we do is online with, there's been a few events here and there.
But not as many as I would really like to, you know, in the upcoming year, really like to get out there more in the schools and the colleges and really bring blacks of technology to people on the ground and, you know, do a lot of, you know, meetups and, you know, a lot of, you know, different talks or things like that in the future.
And hopefully I'll be able to, I'll be able to do that is, it's kind of, it's kind of hard, you know, being that, you know, I'm based out of Cincinnati, a lot of, which, you know, it's kind of far away from some of them, you know, major, major cities and so, but that's what I, that's what I hope to do is to try to do more in person, more in person events.
Have you, have you gone to Ohio and expressed her places like that locally to give talks?
No, I haven't.
I did, however, I took both of my sons, so I haven't expressed this year and that was pretty cool.
But no, I've given talks locally here.
I haven't given one and that's another thing that, you know, I want to do, it's one of my goals for this year is to do more talks, you know, locally or, you know, wherever I can really, really put myself out there and do more talks and the technology sector, not just diversity talks either.
So I like it.
And I think that the conversation needs to be had all, you know, the conversation about diversity always needs to be had, but I like to do more straight technical talks.
Recently, I, yes, recently I gave a talk about, at a local meetup about monitoring your infrastructure using open source tools.
And you know, I just covered some of the tools out there that, and I use day to day.
Like not give us like I use the Elk stack last the search logs as a cabana for logging and some other tools, cacti, things like that and went through a bunch of those tools with the local meetup group here.
And I, you know, I like that, you know, I like that exposure.
I like that does to perceptions.
And so that's, you know, I'm looking forward to doing more at this year.
Yeah, please send the revenue of those talks.
Are you going to record some of those for shows for HBO please feel free to send them in.
Okay. Thank you.
Yeah, definitely.
Well, it's open to anybody.
The only discrimination we have here is you have to be a hacker and the jet not to find one.
Nice.
So is there anything that I missed?
You have some children.
What ages are they?
And how do you get them into technology?
Yeah, that's, that's, uh, so I have a, uh, so I have a 21 year old daughter.
And I have a two year old.
Yeah, I started all the way over.
I got back to the not piece.
I couldn't do.
Yeah.
Um, and I got, I have a five year old son, a five year old son, a two year old son and a, um, a 20 year, 21 year old daughter.
Um, and actually my daughter is quite the musician.
She's, she went to a local, um,
school for creative and performing arts here in Cincinnati, Ohio.
So she's very, very musically inclined.
But she also coats tumbler pages for people, which I didn't know for a long time.
Until she told me that's what she did.
And, um, so she's actually, um, you know, going to school, uh, for web and graphic design.
So that's pretty cool.
Yeah, I kind of, you know, she was going to school at first for four music and, uh, not that I, you know, she's at it.
It's, it's really hard to, it's really hard to get a job if you quite, quite honestly.
If you're, uh, if, if you're majoring in music, right?
And so, you know, I, you know, I kind of explain to her like, you know, if you want to do something, you know, you, you love,
you love coding tumbler pages for, for your friends and things like that.
And you do real, really well with graphics.
That, that, that's a really good avenue to, to pursue.
Uh, and you can get a job, of course, after you, after you get a scholarship.
Yeah, exactly. And so, um, you know, she, she, she, she went that route.
You know, music will always be a big part of her life and she will always pursue it.
Uh, but, you know, as far as, you know, pain to wishing and everything like that to come out of college with a degree,
you really can't do anything with, you know, I just thought it, it made more sense for her to do something else.
So that's what she's doing. And then my, my two sons, like I said earlier, I actually just took them to their first tech conference,
which was the Howard Linux Fest, um, which is pretty cool.
Uh, because like I told, like I said before, I've been going for quite a few years, quite a number of years.
And, uh, just to be able to, uh, you know, take your sons to an event and, uh, tech event and, um, you know, them, you know,
really like it and, and although I, you know, I wish, it seems, a high Linux Fest seems kind of scaled back now.
It doesn't seem nearly as big as it used to be, which was a little disheartening, but, um, you know, they got exposed nonetheless.
I got a few pictures actually with them messing around with the one laptop, per child device.
And so, um, you know, just saying, you know, daddy on a computer, you know, for big computer monitors in front of them and always, you know, messing with something electronic or,
uh, they, they always, you know, they asked what I do for one.
And I tell them, you know, I'm an engineer and, you know, that they love it.
That's, they actually say that's what they want to do.
I want to be an engineer. I want to be an engineer.
You know, I want to build stuff.
So, you know, that, and that, and that all goes back to again, that visibility and that perception, that changes it right there.
I know, I know it's within my own household, but that's huge. You know, now I've got kids who, um, who dream of being, you know, an engineer and knowing that they can do it because they see, uh, they see their father doing it.
And so that's, that's a huge thing. And so, um, you know, they, you know, they're, it's funny.
The two year old, um, is they can, they can, um, handle electronic devices.
They're always on my mobile phone. They're playing games on it.
My, my five year old just got into Minecraft.
Um, there's this, this game out there called surf or something that subway surf or something like that.
And my two year old is just like, incredible with it. I mean, his hand eye coordination.
I, you know, the first few, I played it a few times and I'm just like, I can't get the hang of this game. And he's just sitting there on my phone just, you know, just swiping his finger, you know, doing the jumps and all that stuff and I'm just like, that is, that's pretty cool.
You know, it's, it's a different age, you know, um, as far as children and everything.
But they see, you know, the motherboards I have laying around, the raspberry pie I have laying around or asking questions.
And that's really what it's about. That, that visibility, that early exposure.
Uh, and, and like I said, that perception that they can envision themselves doing it and saying that I want to be an engineer is, it's great.
So, yeah, I have, uh, two dollars, my phone and whether they end up being an engineer is not really up to them.
But yeah, the point is, I want the avenue to be there for them. And, you know, I think I work with several female engineers in work.
So it's, I'm working with, you know, the name of the engineers and it comes up in conversation. And, you know, they, they're required to take stuff apart just like my son is.
Yeah. If that's the part that they want to go down, good, well, if it's not, it's an also good, well, so, yeah.
Exactly. You know, always like to say it's all about, you know, having that option.
Um, and, you know, hopefully that's, that's what we're exposure them to is, is just, you know, they don't, they don't have to, like you say, they don't have to go in technology.
Or, you know, any of the STEM fields at all, you know, but just them knowing that it's an option for them is, is enough.
Yeah, I'm spreading the word as well, that, you know, to their, you know, boyfriends and whatever your friends at the plane with, no, it's not.
Girls can be engineers too if they want to or, you know, whoever wants.
Why would that stop you being an engineer? Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
What we're pushing an hour here, so we don't have any limited time. So if there's anything you want, you can, you can fire off, but we can continue talking.
Um, no, can I, can I give out our URLs for the site and all that stuff?
So you can use me.
Okay. So it's www.blocksandtechnology.net is the website URL.
You can catch us on Twitter, and that's at Black and Technology and that's BLK, T-E-C-H-N-O-L-O-G-Y.
We also have a LinkedIn group.
So you can, you know, subscribe to us by going to our site or subscribe button on the right hand side there.
Or you can reach out to us, you know, for anything really, you know, if you want to talk or you want to know more about our organization, contact us at boxandtechnology.net.
And is that just limited to persons of the Black persuasion or is it open?
No, you can join no matter what.
It's, it's, you know, I just like to say that, you know, our focus is to help increase diversity in technology, right?
Help bring that awareness to people within our community.
I'm never, ever going to turn anybody away if any persuasion at all.
That's not what we're about.
And so I don't want anybody out there to get that impression that, you know, this is a Black's only organization and that, you know, either, you know, on either side, whether or not you want to be a member or, you know, you want to come to the bit team and offer, you know, Black's Technology something on that end.
We're not going to turn your way.
It's like, like I said, it's all about cross-cultural experiences and this cross-cultural exchange.
If you can bring something to the community is going to inform our community and form our users and our member base, that's great.
And, you know, that's what, you know, that, and if you look at some of our upcoming podcasts, some of our previous podcasts, I had Nigel Kirsten on there.
He's a, from puppet labs.
He's the VP of, I think he's the VP of Technology or the CTO Technology or something like that for puppet labs.
He's a white male.
I had him on the Black's Technology Podcast.
I had Mary Scotten. She's from Salesforce.
We were talking about diversity at tech conferences.
I've had Alex Miller from the Strange Loop Conference on there.
I've got Jordan Sissel, the creator of Lockstash and now he's over at Elasticsearch on coming up on a podcast in a couple of weeks.
This is not about, you know, like I said earlier, this is not about being exclusive.
I want these people to come in also and share their knowledge with our community because our community can benefit from their knowledge.
And if we can benefit, you can help us benefit from that.
And you know, that's, that's great. And that's what we're working for.
Perfect. That's actually what I want to hear.
How about, how would you stand be if people start to file in bugs on conferences or projects that they're working being representative enough?
Say it again. I'm sorry.
Like, you know, the famous Ubuntu Zero bug that there was too much windows in the world, you know, perhaps.
How would you feel about we opening some bugs over on Ubuntu that there wasn't enough diversity in the Ubuntu community?
I think that'd be productive or counterproductive.
Oh, fouling the bugs in it just.
Yeah, I mean, it needs to be, it needs to be, if it needs to be exposed, it needs to be exposed.
You know, so I don't have a problem with that.
Yeah, that would be that was a stir.
Yeah, the tech care press something to talk about.
Okay. Hopefully I'll be hearing some of your future shows.
I will definitely be hearing some of your own shows on the podcast, but hopefully you'll be sending us in some HBR content here.
Okay.
We'd really love to have it.
And again, spread the word if there's any young people or whatever were interested in tech.
Send it over here and nobody on the internet, nobody knows your cast.
So yeah, cool.
Thanks very much for taking the time and post this up.
It should be available.
I can't see the base post.
Okay, folks, tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio.
Thanks a lot, kid.
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