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Y Combinator hires black partner Michael Seibel

Y Combinator has hired its first black partner to aid in the drive to recruit more minority entrepreneurs.  Prominent Silicon Valley entrepreneur Michael Seibel is joining as a  full-time partner to coach high-tech hopefuls, according to a report in USA Today. A key part of his mission will be reaching out to black and Hispanics who are underrepresented in Y Combinator and more broadly in Silicion Valley. Y Combinator is Silicon Valley’s most famous – and most influential – incubator, graduating companies such as Airbnb and Dropbox that have grown into household names. Entrepreneurs who go through the start-up boot camp gain access to money and advice from some of the industry’s most powerful players and get coverage from technology blogs, a major advantage in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

 

 

 

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Report says 12 percent of Africans use phones for non-bank transactions

 

Twelve percent of all adults in sub-Saharan Africa use their phones for non-bank financial transactions, by far the highest rate of any region in the world, according to a report released Wednesday by the World Bank. These figures come from the World Bank’s Global Financial Inclusion database, known as the Findex.  The mobile revolution there is part of a broader trend of democratization of finance around the globe that’s giving far more people a first step into the financial world. The number of adults worldwide with a bank account grew by 700 million between 2011 and 2014, according to the World Bank, an 11 percentage point rise to 62 percent of all adults.

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Trollbusters winner of hackathon


TrollBustersMichelle Ferrier, dean of innovation at Ohio University Scripps College of Communication, and her team won acknowledgement at the Louisa Reynolds International Women’s Media Foundation Hackathon in late January in New York City.  Ferrier’s group won recognition for offering pest control solutions for women online publishers. The team showed that online harassment reaches 40 percent of women online and is growing. Their research showed that women journalist are targeted online. To help deter these problems the groups has a S.O.S. Team which will counter cyberattacks in real-time with online community support and positive messaging.

 

 

 

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Why women are the “secret sauce”

Jack Ma, the founder and executive chairman of the Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba, clearly understands the importance of workplace diversity for technology companies. He describes hiring a large number of women as “the secret sauces” of his company’s success. The reason women are important drivers of technological advances, Jack Ma says, is “Women think about others more than themselves.”  He thinks that has a profound impact on Alibaba and the way it delivers services to users. Coming from a Chinese technology billionaire and leader from the East, the experience the Alibaba chief shared with participants of the 2015 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is very significant.

 

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Intel seeks to diversify workforce

Intel Global Diversity and InclusionForging new ground that many technology companies have been traditionally criticized for, Intel said it plans to pursue steps to make its workforce reflect the talent pool of women and underrepresented minority groups.  Over the next five years the company said it would take steps to increase women, blacks, Hispanics and other groups by at least 14 percent. The company said it would create a  $300 million fund to improve diversity. The money will be used to fund scholarships and support HBCUs.