Blacks in Technology Jacksonville: Building Bridges, Tearing Down Stereotypes (Courtesy of the Florida News Line) — The first BIT (Blacks In Technology) Jacksonville Networking event was held in April.
Those attending included educators, entrepreneurs, business owners, artists, creators, innovators, and others interested in entering into diverse fields of technology or bonding with those already active and engaged in a technology career.
The first meetup of the year for BIT Jacksonville included the discussion of providing technology training, workshops, seminars, and conferences to excite Blacks in fields of technology that were not previously considered.
In attendance was William Jackson, a former educator with Duval County Public Schools, and STEAM+M educator, now a Certified Virtual Reality (VR) educator, with his wife and STEAM+M consultant Aida Jackson. They travel across the nation and internationally teaching about the Metaverse, and its influences in education and business.
According to Jackson, Blacks are the least likely to start, manage and own a technology business across the United States. He said this does not have to be the norm; it can change with the availability of technology areas that can be created, managed, designed by Blacks to have a technology business. For this reason, mentoring is important and networking builds cooperation and collaboration.
“Not every Black child wants to play sports,” Jackson said. “When I was teaching in the computer lab, many wanted to be artists, coders, programmers, web developers, and involved in building on Minecraft and Roblox which are pre-metaverse sites.”
The BIT Jacksonville Chapter held a June networking event at Burrito Gallery in Riverside.
Visit https://linkedin.com/showcase/bitjacksonville for more information.
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