Shani Dowell has made history as the first African-American woman in Tennessee — and one of fewer than 60 black women in the U.S. — to raise more than $1 million in venture funding. Dowell is the CEO and founder of Possip, a Tennessee-based edtech platform that provides real-time education feedback from parents to schools, using text-messages and weekly emails to parents as a way to gather thoughts, feedback, ideas and praise, in a variety of languages.
Read more about her efforts here.
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The For any app to get traction in the Google Play Store is a feat, but hundreds of thousands of downloads for a financial literacy gaming app -- an app made by a Black American woman no less, is historic. This is the situation in which Angel Rich finds herself. The app, CreditStacker, is also available on the App Store and uses an addictive Candy Crush-style playing approach that keeps people learning. The app has been named the best financial literary product in the US by The White House, Department of Education, and JP Morgan Chase.
Learn more about how Angel did it here. |
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SHEVA iAfter years spent grappling with her own mental health struggles, including multiple suicide attempts, Jasmin Pierre decided to do something about it and put her creativity to use in the form of an app. The Safe Place app is available on Android and iOS and includes educational materials specifically geared towards black women. Given that black people are 20% more likely to experience serious mental health problems due to the chronic stress of systemic racism, this app is right on time.
Learn more about Jasmin and her app here.
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Black Girl Magic and Mobile Innovations
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Perhaps now more than ever, voting in the United States is an important right that millions of Black Americans have been dissuaded and disenfranchised from doing ever since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. Co-Founders of Politicking, Wen-Kuni Ceant and Jordan Wilson want to remove the feeling of being overwhelmed from the voting experience and so created the app for Black Americans and millenials like them who want to rock the vote - armed with the knowledge needed to work in their own best interests.
Read more here.
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While recent (worrying) statistics showed that only 20% of founders in Africa are female, there is some cause for cheer: a recent UN article argued that there are new technologies can offer African women many more possibilities in male-dominated industries, and female founders are actively creating products and services for women, and by women.
For example, An Nisa Taxi in Kenya is run by women, with a female founder, and serves female passengers and children exclusively. Find out more. |
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Blue Lobster, an app supported by the Obama Foundation and created by two women, is changing the way fish is bought and sold. It enabled fishermen to cut out the middlemen and sell directly to restaurants and end-consumers via a digital marketplace. Find out more.
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