Recognizing a large gap in technological training at many historically Black colleges and universities, representatives of the HBCU community launched an effort to stream a tech-based entrepreneurship initiative at Black institutions.
The United Negro College Fund (UNCF), in partnership with the White House Initiative on HBCUs, led the effort organizing the “HBCU Startup and Innovation Initiative.”
Created mainly to expose Black students to the leading practices within STEM education, this project will be used to enable tech-based commercialization on Black campuses.
In response to President Obama’s call to increase minorities in STEM fields amid the lacking amount of tech-transfer programs at HBCUs, the initiative will train both students and faculty on how to build a successful tech venture. Dr. Chad Womack, project lead and UNCF director of STEM education initiatives, raised his hands to “grandfather” the proposed goal.
“In part of a longer conversation that I’d been having with my Morehouse [College] colleagues, we’ve been talking for years about the lack of competitiveness and innovation among our HBCU institutions,” Womack says.
Womack, a 1988 graduate of Morehouse College, was invited to attend a White House Technology Inclusion summit in August. Womack joined education leaders, investors and technological entrepreneurs to promote solutions around diversity inclusion, STEM education and entrepreneurship. The initiative will be separated into three primary goals: exposing, educating and empowering HBCU students and faculty.
Thus far, members of this project are focused on exposing the HBCU community to tech-based entrepreneurship by reviewing models, such as capitalist ventures like Facebook and Google. After exposure, project members created “boot camps” in order to train students to build profitable business ventures, which will transfer into capital or “empowerment,” according to Womack.
