Internet Week New York take place in the first week of June. It’s actually a festival which creates a “critical mass of web-focused events that raises the profile of NYC’s industry as a whole, as well as the partners who participate.” They are allowing panel submissions for the main AOL stage, which will be streamed live to an audience of 40,000+ (based on last years views).
Cavaughn Noel, Emerging Digital Media Consultant at Icy Visions, LLC, saw this as an opportunity for the black techies out there to “take over Internet Week (in a positive way).” To that end, he’s submitted for a Black Startups Demo event called “Untapped” to get Minority Tech brands represented at these large events.
Only 12 of the current 208+ submitted panels will make the cut, but we can make a difference by voting. Cavaughn says “this is the perfect opportunity for the Black Start-up voice to be heard in the tech community, so let’s make it happen” and I have to agree. It’s pretty standard practice for the black tech voices to be drowned out in general. We recently saw The Root’s list of 30 black bloggers “you should know” and didn’t list a single tech blog.
Visit VoteBlackStartups.com to cast your vote and use the Twitter Hashtag: #VoteBlackStartups to share the “campaign” with your friends.