For those who hadn’t attended the AFROTECH Conference before, they left with a great impression that has them ready to return to Houston next year.
The event offers registrants many opportunities to connect with like-minded individuals, find potential employees, meet job recruiters and gain insightful information in various areas of technology, investing and more. Following this year’s annual convention, Blavity spoke to a few first-time attendees who shared their takeaways from attending.
Something that stuck out to attendees was the silver lining for Black people in and outside the tech industry during this unpredictable period.
“I really enjoyed how, first of all, how Black the conference was. It really felt like a homecoming for tech. And it just felt really good to be around so many like-minded individuals and not just like-minded individuals, but individuals that look like you as well,” Chigozie “AK” Akpunku told Blavity.
Expanding personal networks was important as the four-day seminar brought more than 35,000 worldwide to one city, making it easy to form intentional bonds.
“A lot of the networking events outside of the expo hall and the panels are for you,” Akpunku said. “And I really think that AFROTECH did a great job of having a plethora of networking events available to those looking to attend this.”
For job seekers, the chance to talk directly with HR professionals at the massive career fair that housed over 60 companies dominated the summit as participants flocked to it, especially due to the current economy.
“AFROTECH in Houston, Texas was pretty amazing. I really enjoyed being able to have one-on-one conversations with representatives from big brands that are household names and Fortune 25 companies, Fortune 50 companies and Fortune 100 companies,” Kariss Gordon, a multimedia professional in Houston, said.
“I think it was cool even just getting to talk to the companies and finding out more information. And some people at the companies were really helpful in terms of just giving their authentic experience at their job and what things are like for them at the company they’re at,” Aundrea Scott, a Well Being Coach at Paycom, stated.
This led to a discussion about the importance of DEI programs in corporate America.
“It was insightful to learn the different career opportunities or even to know how they’re expanding their brands into the technology industry and how trends in technology are also shaping their brand and who they are hiring,” Gordon explained. “I think this is more so the reason why DEI programs are important in big businesses because they allow the company to be exposed to consumers or the next generation of big thinkers or people that can actually help grow and evolve with the brand. And I think that’s the beauty of AFROTECH.”
The educational panels were informative not only for tech experts but also for people looking to get into the tech field or learn what’s next as technology is integrated into everyday life.
“There were some of the sessions that were in empowering like just talking about how you could use AI to help different things or how companies were using that in terms of helping with interviews. That was a really good session,” Scott mentioned.
“I would like to say that as a person who was not in the tech industry but is interested in learning about all of the different facets that are gonna affect our global economy, AFROTECH was an absolute amazing first experience,” Carter explained. “It showed that [Black Americans] are not monolithic when it comes to technology. There was so much from coding to AI to hardware to software development. All of these different types of ways, that me as a media and communications professional, I could see the different layers of technology while attending AFROTECH,” Jasmyn Carter, a Dallas native, explained. “So, big ups to Morgan [DeBaun] for putting something together like this.”
Akpunku, a Salesforce project manager, mentioned he believes that people outside of technology shouldn’t hesitate to come because they have the relevant expertise tech companies also need.
“I don’t think that a lot of us realize how much tech has been inundated into our everyday industries, whether it’s from a software perspective or from a product perspective, or even from an operations perspective,” he said. “So, there may be people who might not necessarily be in a tech role or in a tech capacity at their companies, but that does not mean that they don’t have roles or industries for them to transfer their skills directly over.”
When asked if they would attend the conference again, they didn’t hesitate to say yes.
“I’m looking forward to attending more. The biggest thing that stood out to me the most was the opening conversation where she talked about the importance of us creating our own systems and our own narratives as African Americans,” Carter shared. “And so this is just a prominent time where the culture and intellect meet, and technology is the guiding point.”
The post First-Time AFROTECH Attendees Share Their Experiences: ‘It Really Felt Like A Homecoming For Tech’ appeared first on Blavity.
