The Color of Success: Blacks in Tech on Twitter

I’ve wanted to write this post for a while, but I wanted to come at it the right way. This isn’t an article about blacks in technology from an exclusionary standpoint, but from a positive empowerment one. I hope the day comes when it’s not a rare thing for non-asian minority males to be found in technology, but we’re not there yet. Call it curating a cadre of role-models for my son, that I’ve admired myself.

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1) Paul Judge, PhD @pauljudge
If there’s any king in the black digerati (with a respectful nod to Omar Wasow) these days it’s Paul Quantas Judge, PhD. Just with the name it sounds like this guy makes more than you do. Chances are highly likely. Judge was on the founding team of CipherTrust which got acquired by Secure Computing for $273 million, and now works for Barracuda Networks after they acquired his startup Purewire. On my short list of possibles for first black owner of an NFL franchise.

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2) Rey Flemings @reyflemings
Rey is a serial entrepreneur, starting with Particle - a “product foundry which makes useful and inventive tools that marry technology and community riding the wave of the new media revolution.” He followed this up as founder and CEO of Tenman Digital and Tenman Records, ventures backed by Justin Timberlake’s early stage tech investment arm. His newest project, Stipple aims to revolutionize the syndication of data within digital images.

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3) Amos Winbush III @techceo
Amos Winbush III was someone I came across in Inc. magazine and caught my attention both because of his company Cybersynchs and his sartorial streak. It’s nice to see a lot of the NYC startups are flipping the script on the Zuckerberg/West Coast relaxed style. Cybersynchs is a company that was founded when Winbush lost the data on his phone one too many times, and now provides data backup to over half a million consumers.

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4) Kingsley Harris @kingsleyharris
Kingsley is a partner and creative at NYC based FreshThrills, where he’s involved in designing and branding startups. Previously he was a co-founder at Pistash.io the innovative “actionable social bookmarking” service.

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5) Sean Gardner @2morrowknight
I won’t try to say more than this excerpt of the bio from HuffPost: “2morrowknight is a social media adviser and correspondent who blogs for Social Media Week, Smedio, and The Huffington Post, and has appeared on CNN, PBS, and FOX. His work has also appeared in Fast Company, Buzzfeed, The Stimulist, Mission Hot Mama, Womentality Magazine and Essence.com.” I heard about Sean from the always connected Terri Nakamura♡, and particularly enjoyed his piece with Paul Steele “Rise of the Female Geek.”

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6) Kevin McFall @redclaydigital
Kevin McFall has been around the technology game for a while, with experience founding Red Clay Digital and co-founding RushmoreDrive.com. Most recently he developed and co-launched Zap2it.com, a top TV, Movie, and Celebrity destination.

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7) Ron J Williams @ronjdub
Ron currently is working on Knod.es, a new deep data analysis tool for social media. He also still manages his previous startup SnapGoods, a way to connect with locals to rent or borrow the things you need.

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8) Jeremy K. Smith @jeremyksmith
Jeremy is the holder of my go to Tumblr for all things social media. He currently is the voice of the Common Ground Twitter feed @DiscoverCG, where they’re doing great things, like the commercial below.

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9) Tristan Walker @tristanwalker
Tristan holds a B.A. degree in Economics from Stony Brook University, where he graduated as valedictorian and he also holds a MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Until recently, he was the VP of Business Development at FourSquare, but recently left to become an Entrepreneur in Residence at Andreesen Horowitz.

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10) Mark Essien @markessien
Last but not least, Mark Essien is a programmer/developer for mobile and web that I’ve been following for a long time. I really enjoy his most recent launch, linkalert.io - it is crucial for tracking anytime someone links to your website. He also is behind Hotels.com.ng, a highly regarded web provider of hotel booking and amenities information. He is based in Abuja, Nigeria.

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I have since written a follow-up to this: “The Color of Success II, the #BlackDigerati” if you enjoyed this post.

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