Welcome everyone to the Blacks and Technology Big Tech Talk Podcast, a show where
we talk to black people who are engineers, innovators, educators and venors,
change makers and entrepreneurs doing amazing things in the world of technology. The Big
Tech Talk podcast is where they show her they are stumping the divide by sharing
their stories, experiences, ideas, knowledge and perspective on tech with the big
community. Welcome everybody to the Blacks and Technology Bit Tech Talk Podcast. I'm
your host, Gray Greenley. I'm the founder of the Blacks and Technology Organization.
Today we are continuing our series with highlighting our chapter leaders and today we
have Vara Direki on the show. So Vera is a professional base out of
Chicago. She currently serves as our chapter president from the Blacks and Technology Chicago
area. She's purshorring her bachelor's degree in data science and mathematics and right now
she's working as a contract analyst at CDW where she exceales and lies in and
managing contracts. We'll talk all about that, and we're going to talk about
some of her fun hobbies that that she has as well. Uh So,
I want to welcome back to the show. Hey er, thank you so
much for having me. I really do appreciate this. Yeah, no problem,
excited to have you on. So let's jump right into it. Tell
us a little bit about yourself, kind of you know where you're from,
uh, and and and and you know that fun stuff. Pretty much cool.
So born and raised in Chicago. I live on the South Side in
Soa Shore. Been raised, born and raised here all my entire life,
but I've traveled around. In regards to education, you kind of hit the
nail on the head. I had gotten my associates from Eastern Gateway Community College
just in general studies, but as I wanted to transition into getting a degree
in the tech space. It was originally going to be computer engineering. But
as I've kind of discovered like what interests me and how I want to rewind
myself into tech, I realized that data science and mathematics is just a fantastic
industry for me to just explore myself and be able to use like numbers to
be able to solve problems, which really is just a big thing of what
I like to do is just solve problems, and I like talking about things
in an analytical manner, So that give particularly just about me. I have
a wide variety of hobbies from traveling. I had to go to a lot
of conferences or just a lot of uh locations in general, trying different foods.
I have like a huge funk of pop collection. I do like sometimes
very lightly not so much anymore. And then I have a really big vinyl
collection that I've been working on. So yeah, okay, that's dope.
Yeah, We're going to get into into those hobbies a little bit later on.
But let's talk about so you you went to community college for you say,
for general studies. So what what what made you want to get into
Like what was your earliest involvement with technology? I jokingly said I was I
didn't find tech, I was necessarily forced in. So I'm the oldest child
to Nigerian Nigerian immigrants, so I've always been teaching my parents in regards to
like how to operate their computers, Excel Windows, anything of that matter.
So it just it has been a natural thing for me. I would also
say I was a troublemaker and ended up breaking a lot of things, so
I loved how things are made, so I would just go back and tinker
and like mess around in regards to things, and from there it's just fostrated
and has grown since then. In high school, I would like volunteer at
the Museum of Science and Industry and just learn about different science aspects. I
love physics or engineering in general, so it's always just been very affixated to
me over the years. When it came to education, I needed to go
into community college just because it was a lot easier for me to kind of
break through. Four years was just not something feasible for me at this time.
So I originally was going to do information technology, but it's more the
degree at that time was more heavy intrough like certifications itself, and that's not
necessarily what I needed to transition over once I was done with my degree,
so I had to bounce into general studies so I could look at like different
math classes, some other technical courses in regards like technical writing and everything else
for me to kind of get a gist of what I was wanting to explore.
On the side. From that, I was just dabbling in regards to
statistics a little bit of like linear regression and everything to kind of understand what's
going to look like for just me to be in data science, and once
I graduated with my associates. I'm like, gart cool, I'm just going
to go ahead and finish this and be done with this. So I graduate
next December, and I'm super excited. Nice congratulations. Yeah. I love
when I hear people talk about like different routes to their pathway in tech,
right, especially the community college route. Like a lot of people. I
shouldn't say a lot of people because I don't know, but there are some
people out there that feel like, oh, I automatically have to go and
get a you know, computer science degree to four year college, and it's
like there's there's all these different pathways now that you can that you can follow
to get in the tech. Community college was actually my pathway as well,
So I actually went to a community college and got an associate's degree and computer
network engineering. So that I always like to, you know, kind of
bring that up because that's an option for people, especially with the costs of
four year degree these as well. Like community college is always like a good
option, especially if it's like, you know, in state and you're living
at state and there's always a lower cost for tuition and things like that.
So I'm curious to what what piqued your interests in math. Like I'm I
I used to be like really heavy in the math when I was younger.
Not so much anymore, but I still have a love for like just just
math in general. It's like the universal language. Uh So for me,
I'll always like to hear like withrow the math. Oh honestly, Like I've
always loved math, Like I was always the big nerd, like always just
wanting to like do like math problems the fastest, but just as things kind
of evolved to just like understanding physics and how like math just naturally shows its
way into life, whether it's like the Fibonacci sequence or like how the natural
spiral shows up in like sunflowers or anything like that. I've just always been
really affixiated in regards to math. I ended up watching like a lot of
videos and just in regards to either like different areas of science, whether it's
like aspects of interactions of like astrophysics or anything else in general. So it
just has always been a part of me that I feel my friends joking with
say I was an overachiever because I wanted to do just data science in general,
Like, but let me just learn math and just to see where everything
kind of intertwined. So I'm not sitting here lost. So that's kind of
really like the major reasons of why double major and in regards to math,
but data science specifically, I think with especially how everything is transformed and how
data is so quintessential to everything that we do. It was just kind of
a calling to me of just like, okay, let me actually engage in
regards to this industry and what it looks like. And it's not you know,
just straight up coding or doing like models and everything. Like, there's
a lot more that could be done in regards to it, from stakeholder management
like visual reporting and everything else like that, and ethics, which is eventually
what I'll get into and what I really would like to become as an ethicist
because there needs to be more representation of us in the industry to be able
to tell, you know, computers, scientists or other areas of like how
to look at data. How are we properly like evaluating what data needs to
be looked at, How like our data is being used in regards to either
business decisions, whether by our choice or buy our knowing or even with like
the huge cybersecurity attacks where people's just data has been taken over, Like there
needs to be more conversations of like what that looks like instead of it just
being like, oh, it happens, Like reevaluate this from a cybersecurity standpoint
and move forward, especially because AI is just booming. Like I just went
to Google I out and I just came back from not too long ago,
and they're already talking about like different ways of how they're going to integrate like
AI into like databases and spreadsheets and everything else. That for Google just alone,
that's fantastic and it's amazing to see, but like we need to also
step back as a society to see like, Okay, these innovations are great,
but how is this actually going to impact us as we're going Like is
it going to be job elimination? Is it going to be a culture shift
in regards to like the arts and sciences or music and everything which is already
kind of attacked as is right now? How are we going to be advanced
forward in technology while keeping again integral, integral parts of the culture and society
moving forward as well? Yeah, I've actually I got I got two things
that come out of what you just said. Well, one thing that comes
out of what you just said something else that I wanted to talk to you
about in regards to mathematics, because I've been I've been watching some videos and
I just want to get your opinion. But first I want to ask you
about like I've never heard of ethicis sot fire is? Like? What?
Like what what is an ethicis? So like the aspect of evaluating ethics is
often just beyond just morals. It's just the implications of how things affect society,
and it's usually on more of a philosophical end, which is cool.
But now in regards to data ethics, like that's more of a it's still
philosophical. That's marrying the two of like how again we evaluate and look at
like things like data privacy, what is like when it comes to like the
art, like what is copyright and what is like intellectual property and things like
that. Like there's kind of where ethics kind of go into because once again,
computer scientists can like make the code, make the pseudo code, they
can make some amazing models and do all of that, But who is this
data or like who is this stuff like actually for is it an actual best
fit in regards to like how this could potentially like affect civilizations or areas because
it could be a best fit. But if it's not targeted to like black
and brown people and it doesn't apply, then is it really innovative. That's
kind of like really big of where like ethics come into I can't remember her
name off the full extent of it, but as doctor Joy, she had
made a book in regards of like Unmasking AI and I saw her at Grace
Hopper. That was kind of like the start of where my interest in regards
to ethics came in. I've wanted to always marry like tech and social good
of some aspect just in my life because I just want to be able to
provide that impact and I find more happiness of trying to do it in a
way that tangibly helps like society move forward. And so after that, I
went to Harvard weecode this year and they had an actual data ethics pan where
there was different people who were like graduate students, people who are working in
industry and showing like how they were interacting in the regards to day of privacy
and everything like that. And that was really kind of like my spark of
like, Okay, this is what I want to kind of do as a
career. So yeah, that's very interesting. So a friend of mine,
her name is Alio Ray. She's spent on podcasts before, and she's a
close confidant as far as like an advisor to you know, bitten and things
like that. She I'm pretty sure she mentioned doctor Joy uh and sent me
some videos on her and her some of her talks and so it's been pretty
interesting stuff. I do have a question about on the math sign of So
what do you think about? And this is off script. This is not
a question I opposed to you are provided to you, but I'm just curious,
like, what have you have you heard? Are seen any videos by
by Terrence Howard recently? I have not the actor? Okay, so Sarence
Howard is the actor who played in Hustle and Full Yeah, his videos in
regards to his take on mathematics, as far as we've been looking at math
completely the wrong way, Like his whole take is like we've been looking at
it from this kind of like Euclidean stamp our guest perspective. Uh. And
we've been saying for years at one times one it was one when that's not
that can't be true, and he has like he's essentially created like his whole
this whole branch of mathematics. And I don't know if you've ever seen it
before, delve deep into it. So I haven't seen that particular Okay,
sorry, I didn't mean to cut out. I haven't seen that particular video
before. But that's not the first time of me hearing of like people kind
of questioning how like why math is fundamentally the way it is. It's been
a very weird mindfield to kind of navigate because people ask the questions with not
necessarily like looking back at proofs or like looking back at like, hey,
why why is it like you know, fundamental laws of mathematics operate this way
so that it is, you know, you can't multiply things by itself like
one times twenty equal in one or anything like that. So I haven't heard
I haven't heard anything that matter. But this isn't the first time, and
especially with how math is deaf has been taught differently over the years, it's
going to be a very interesting way of like people to understand what math actually
is, and especially when it comes to tech two, it's kind of going
to be a little bit concerning per se where and it goes to AI as
well, Like there's so much of AI that like you're just doing, like
putting the work and numbers into it that you don't have to necessarily understand.
So for people to sit here and kind of like question without knowing that fundamental
aspect, there's like a smidge concerning. But I'm hoping that even still,
like people will go back into like education or like learning more of like math
to understand fundamentally, like why things are the way they are, so that
it's not necessarily of a confusion. That's that's a layer topic between like is
the school system properly educating you of why math is the way it is?
Do you necessarily understand it? Is it the method of how you need to
learn it? Like so on and so forth. Yeah, I asked you
that, I mean, because you know, you're studying to be a mathematician.
So it's it's interesting to get your your point of view. I'm not
a mathematician. I didn't study to be a mathematician. I you know,
however, I was, you know, studied to be an engineer. So
I took physics. I took math and all that stuff. Now, Terrence
Howard, he's what's the best way to put this. He seems very very
knowledgeable in the areas of mathematics in physics. I don't think he's your run
of the mill, like I'm just an actor. Like. It sounds like
he's actually studied and he seems very very very smart. However, my whole
thing about his take, and maybe I don't fully understand it, is how
would anything right now function if we had math totally wrong? Like buildings like,
everything relies on the principles of mathematics in physics. In order for you
to be able to build anything, roads, buildings, bridges like, you
have to have a basic fundamental the basic fundamentals of mathematics in order for it
to work. Otherwise it would completely not work. Right. That's how I
you know, from studying physics in college and math and things like that.
That's how I see it. However, he's saying, no, that's that's
there. I guess what he's saying is, yeah, there are some fundamental
laws of math. But I guess the overall general consensus as he wants,
as he puts it, is that it's it's it's wrong one times one does
not equal one, it equals two. And I'm just like, what,
I don't see how anyhow I'd have to look at that video. If it's
what I think it is, that he is not necessarily like he may be
taking multiplication in a different man than what it actually means, and that might
be where like his confusion lines. Well, we'll definitely have a base in
regards to that. I'll definitely give you a better feedback right now, right
right, So, I'm curious more about about your your journey in getting your
your bachelors to day science and maths, Like what are some of you always
kind of hear like a different information about like beating a mathematician and what it
takes, uh, and whether or not like you know how that correlates to
you know, you being and catch with things like that. BIT is always
focused on forming new partnerships and opportunities to assist the community and our members with
their continued professional growth and development. If you'd like to partner with us,
send an email in queries at blacks and Technology dot net, like what are
some of the misconceptions I guess that have been proven wrong? As you've you
know, for your journey, your educational journey and pursuing your your degree in
mathematics. So when it comes to data science and mathematics, a lot of
times it tends to be I also hyper focus more in regards to data science,
and that it has to be very like hyper specific of it being technical
that you kind of need to know like Python and R and everything, when
there's so much more behind it. There's you know, the communication of like
what the models mean or if you're doing like data data analysis, like what
the reporting and everything means. Like those soft skills are actually very key and
like consistential in regards to understanding what data looks like as a whole. Like
of course it's all crucial, like the mathematical aspects to understand what the data
is is crucial, but there's so there's so much more in regards to be
able to converse what these numbers mean things, because how would you be able
to even interpret and understand what problems you're looking at to solve or like what
you know a business or person might need to understand of what the data is
necessarily interpreting. The other thing I definitely see that's coming up is like a
lot of like machine learning and AI tends to be like the big hot topics,
especially even as I'm getting close to finishing, they're like, oh,
you're gonna go into machine like or you're gonna be an AI, and I'm
like, that is a small subset of it. There's so much more behind
it. Like there's database management. If you're doing like wrangling in regards to
data, you have that, there's big data, there's like quantum data.
There's so many wide broad topics of application of data science or just data in
general that it's not necessarily just those those areas. I think also too when
it comes to data science. So it's often viewed in a technical aspect that
you have to be in tech. But I'm seeing tech I'm saying, excuse
me, data science from anesthesiology. I'm seeing it in government, I'm seeing
in finance, healthcare, marketing, Like there's so many versatile ways to be
able to use data. Again, because it's just it's going for not even
just in tech. It's like from aspects of students. If we're looking at
like how you know government funding will go in regards to the amount of students
being with it, Like that's data that's numbers that are being wrangled and to
be able to explain you know, how certain schools get funding or how you
know, places make shut down and everything like that. Those areas are again
quintisential to where the data is needed. I know. Another big thing is
again watch why I'm going for a math major, is that a lot of
people don't necessarily hyper focus in regards to math. Like anytime I talk with
people, I'm like, oh, you have to be familiar with statistics,
and they're like, A, I don't want to be good with math,
but I'm like, you have to be good with math to understand it,
just because quantitatively you can't get the data without knowing what it means. So
I think that would be pretty much like give or take the big ones.
I think the last thing would definitely be that it's I guess, a trendy
topic. Like I wouldn't say like sebate securities trendy, but like data science
is trendy, AI and m A. It's trendy at the moment just because
of how much is coming out research and innovation for it. But it's definitely
going to be something term to stay, and it should definitely be something to
be considered as people are like moving forward and wanting to like pivot in a
manner that like will be palatable for them for security's sake. So what would
you what would you say to someone who is thinking about going into data science
mathematics, Like what are some of some things that you would tell people as
far as like preparation, like you know, so before you go on with
yeah, go ahead first and foremost, before I even hyper focus the data,
I often ask them like where they want to be in regard to are
they more of like a social person or if they wanted to be more on
the technical end, because again that that broadened and stretches your skills of where
you wanted to go to. If you're wanting to be more on the public
facing end where you're dealing and interacting with businesses stakeholders, doing more of like
reporting, then you have like your data data analytics, where you're doing again
transforming number numbers and data to be able to visualize and showcase numbers of like
what they mean and how it could impact. Then if you're going too like
data science where you're looking at models and everything to be able to do significant
work, then like I would be like, Okay, are you really wanted
to be a little bit more technical, or if you're even wanting to go
on the farther end, you have like database management or data engineering, which
is like a software between software engineering and data science or just data in general.
So it really kind of just varies on where people are interested in regards
to if anyone's like, hey, I'm like really open to it, like
where I start? I often like, okay, start with your math,
like even if people hate math or whatever, like, you have to get
a basics of general statistics. You need to know at least like cortal aspects,
median mode and everything. While it may not be you know, stretched
along the way in the data industry, those areas will be just very basic
for you to just start and move somewhere, you will need to understand at
least Python or anything else or at least some visualization software. So you do
need to get comfortable in regards to that. But I would say at least
like knowing Python and starting with a math foundation will get you in a good
spot to kind of see if you know data is just going to be for
you, or where that can look like to you in the industry, that's
very very very good by I always like to, you know, kind of
touch on like what you know, what people need to get, you know,
to get started. It's always important because I get I get a lot
of questions from people. They hit me up on LinkedIn or they email me
and say, hey, like I'm interested in this, like how do I
get started? And so it's always nice to kind of like have a knowledge
base of like, oh, yeah, you want to get started in data,
these are the things that you might want to look at before you start
your journey. So thanks for that one. Well, two things I would
definitely count on in regards to your resources. Sorry, I didn't mean to
cut off. One for sure, if people were like wanting to gauge data.
Camp is an amazing platform for just learning data in general, whether it
affestsats, Python are, if you're doing data like data analytics, data engineering,
anywhere in between. Like it gives you such a wide repertoire of places
to learn at. And then I also know that it does have a business
analytics and in a degree, I know it's stopped for this cohort, but
I know I a little lightly in regards to it. If the people are
just wanting to kind of get a light area of like where they can see
themselves in regards like business or marketing. That's a great place to also learn
and get those fundamental skills to ramp up and hopefully go into the industry.
It's very good plug by the way too. Problem. So you're currently a
contract analyst at CDW, and I'm interested to know, like how are you
using tech uh in your current position. So for right now, we do
a lot of like procurement stuff in regards to like Salesforce and Agiloft. But
even for CDW, like they're also trying to integrate AI to be able to
move things forward in regards to just the state of the business to where it
interacts of my department that's not necessarily known of us yet. But like I
do also help out in regards to more or less like data wrangling of like
what contracts look like if things are correct. A lot of data validation on
that end, whether it's like visual through like excelor something else or through other
aspects. But it's a little bit lighter than what I'm wanting to actually get
into. Like I do a lot of other nonf I mean nonprofit work as
well as just like side projects where I'm using AWS or Tableau or power bi
to be able to still interpret data to showcase things. But for my work
right now is just very lighter and on that validation and in correction or just
data wrangling in general. But I'm hoping I'm get to expand a bit more.
I know I have a program that I'm going to be doing to learn
more about machine learning and AI, so hopefully I'll be able to do touch
more in regards to different areas, Like I know, I really want to
learn the patchy spark spark. That's really one of the places I want to
learn and touch. And I don't know if I'm gonna do engineering, but
I at least want to learn enough of what I can to get where I
can need to go to. Right, let's touch on that a little bit.
I find that interesting. So tell us a little bit about like kind
of like what your process is, uh for learning a new technology within the
data analysts the realm, and like what what tools are you like do you
use? I know you mentioned you know AWS and uh, just you just
mentioned a Patrick Spark, Like, tell us a little bit more about like
kind of what your process is Oh, my learning system is chaotic. I'm
more of a tactile learner, like I do take a lot of notes in
regards to just understanding fundamental basis. But if I can't practice and do the
work, it's not going to get to me, which is why I really
do love data camp where they can sit here, like go over videos and
go over explanations of you know, general topics, but then they'll also help
you practice in regards to it. Whether I'm using just like general like VS
code for some of my classes, I'm using like pie Spark, I mean
PI chron excuse me, which is kind of similar to VS code to be
able to practice and do work like that, I've done stuff in regards to
AWS. I know there are other learning platforms as well that I've touched based
in regards to outside of my classes. I think it's d X is the
one that's coming off at the top of my head. So yeah, I
do my best to like I have like several not books. If I stay
here and turn my camera like you wonder what's going on. But I have
several notebooks that just go over high fundamental stuff. But then I'll also take
screenshots in regards of like what you know certain libraries mean, or like certain
aspects, because even in Python, you you and I can do the same
thing in two different ways and it's still all interpreted the same way. It's
the beautiful thing about just how inadvertently math is quintessential to comprehend certain functions.
But that's give or take, like how I've gone from it now when it
comes to like a Spark and everything, and like other places that I'm not
familiar with, a lot of times I'll jump into like their help section just
to kind of understand of like how I'm interacting or how I'm gonna be using
things. One of the things I know I'm gonna be working on is a
model, hopefully that'll be connected to a database using Apache Spark to use a
model to identify extraplanets, And so I'm still in the wings of figuring out
how that all looks like. So don't hold me to any like particular aspects,
but I'm going at least through how of how to just understand Spark,
and then as I'm kind of delving and going into the database in US,
then I'm going to kind of like touch and feel and see how it goes
from there and if it doesn't, if nothing breaks, then I at least
I know I'm doing a good job. Nice. Yeah, I'm always curious
as to what people's methods are. They're learning methods. I noticed that you
said, you know, you have a lot of notebooks, and I still
use notebooks. I still write stuff down in notebooks and things like that.
I don't know if I'm just old school like that or if it's just like
you said, kind of like the tactile aspect of it. But I tell
you one thing that I do, I do utilize. I don't really have
one, like one set way, so I'll use every note because ever note
it allows me to search on things really well, like after I take notes,
and I can categorize it in notebooks and things like that. I do
utilize that for taking notes. I do use my iPad and I have our
an app on there called Notability. So what's cool about notability is is that
it allows you to use the Apple pencil to write and then you can like
categorize things as well. But you can take screenshot, well not necessarily,
you can use the camera to take pictures of like so if I'm you know,
watching something like a video, or something and they show a diagram,
I'll take a picture with that, and then I can embed it in my
note, I can resize it, I can crop it, I can write
on top of it. Yeah, so it's like so you can really start
having and then like of course, it allows you to change the color of
the font or the color of the pencil that you're writing with, and you
can do like highlighting and a lot of things like that, so you can
like have like you know, not animated notes, but like notes that like
a full of color that you can it's really cool. And then you can,
like I said, you can bat these images, you can crop them,
you can do all types of stuff you can right on top of them,
and it really really helps, especially like if you're a very visual person
and you need to see like those those images of that might be graphs or
diagrams or whatever. You can bat those write into your notes. It's and
then and then you can also back those up to I think like Google Drive.
You can import stuff from Google Drive as well, so it allows for
you to import things and it's a really really cool too. Okay, I
definitely need to learn that. Like I normally I'm just a very like I
just write things down like I have when I tell you have colored pens and
everything else, switch over and do stuff. So if there's a way to
do that in the digital aspect and still be able to connect it to like
Google Drive or anything, I'm perfectly fine. I'm tired of buying all these
notes. I just had to buy a new set of notebooks for my summer
classes. So anyway I can lessen my load, that'd be fantastic. Yeah,
check out notability there. I think you're like, what's up everyone?
We hope that you're enjoying this episode of the Blacks and Technology Big Tech Talk
podcast. Do you or someone you know have a dope story that they want
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our form. We're looking to hear from you. Excellent. Let's Start's talk
about your your your tenure as as a bit Chicago chapter leader. I'm curious,
like, you know, first, how did you first hear about bit
and then kind of what led you to become the chapter president of Chicago.
So I will jokingly sit here and say, like I like to learn in
regards to different organizations, and so I've been a member of that. I
want to say for about from now. I think that's probably going to be
like maybe four or five years. So I had been a long time member.
I've like you know, used resources and have seen like emails in regards
to events. But I had lost my job and I had kind of made
it upon myself that I wanted to be more involved, and so I would
reach out to the former Chicago president. I didn't hear anything about it.
I was like, okay, I got to figure out a way of like
you know, finding a way to be more involved. Took a very very
you know, bad financial risk to go to bitcom when it was a Disney
and my eyes were widened in regards to just the opportunity of like what you
guys offered. And I remember the networking lunch. I had approached Dennis and
I was just introduced myself. I'm like, hey, my name is Vera,
I'm from Chicago, Like, I want to know who's the Chicago chapter
president. There's too many people in Chicago, and there's so many like untapped
potential that we could definitely do in regards to having a chapter there. And
he'd me like, do you want to be president? At the time,
I was like, I don't know if this is going to be it for
me. It was my first like leadership role. Like I was just at
a certain space right now where I just did not know what to do,
and I kind of simmered and thought about it, and I was like,
you know what, forget it. Like the most I could do is just
learn and see what it looks like. And obviously it's it's something that's calling
me, so I might as well just fall into it. If it doesn't
work out, it doesn't work out, or I just see what that looks
like. That's inadvertently how I got into the role. I was a little
bit drunk, but you know that has nothing to do with it. That
liquid courage helps a long way, but really it was personal motivation that helped
a little bit of the alcohol later. Yeah, yeah, and Diney,
it was a fun time. It was expensive, It was really time amazing,
right, Yeah, Yeah, it's funny you saying that was Dennis push
your noose drinks to you? Why he was convincing you to be there.
No, I was so nervous, like I at the time to when I
started, like again pushing myself out in networking, Like I did not know
how what that looked like in regards to me for networking. So I was
like, you know what, let me just take a couple of drinks to
go around and start meeting people, getting into conversations. And that was really
what opened my eyes to just the joy of being in the community with other
people and seeing just so many black tech professionals that that nervousness kind of went
away by the time I had Donnis, though I may I'm positive I had
too many drinks at that time, but we were already there, so I
wanted to get the question out as soon as possible if anyone's to meet me.
Now, I'm not that bad, I promised you was just that was
a very nervous person at that time. But it was again, as you
said, becom was just an amazing experience and I really really hope even for
this year that people are just able to take away from some of the amazing
just panels and experiences that happened, or even just even with like networking that
people want to get into, like you'll meet so many walks of life.
It's oh, it's gonna be worth your while. Yeah, I appreciate you
saying that, and I'm happy that you can on board as chapter president.
Your efforts are are recognized and we are grateful for your efforts as well.
And so I just want to say thank you for for stepping up. And
yeah, it's it's it's not it's it's not as easy as some people may
think. They may think that you know, you just it's entitled only,
but there is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes to effectively
run a chapter. So I thank you for all your all your work that
you're doing up there. Thank you. Do you have a product or service
that you would like to share with a big audience, or maybe you'd like
to support the big community and do your part in helping us with stomping the
divide. Start by sponsoring one of our podcasts. Please email us at contact
us at blacks and Technology dot net. So tell me about some of the
initiatives, the chapter initiatives that you have going on this year, and I
do want to recognize that you are I don't know the exact title. Are
you the Midwest Regional director? Is that? Yes? I am? The
title for who you remembering that? Yes? Sam? So for the Chicago
chapter, our big thing right now is honestly collaboration. I don't know for
a lot of other chapters, but for Chicago, what happened tends to happen
in the tech space is that there's so much untapped potential that happens, whether
it's you know, talent or entrepreneurs or startups and everything. But we don't
necessarily have like the means of access to be able to get like funding or
like work in the same way that I feel like a lot of other areas,
if it's like La Atlanta, New York or anything else like that,
like we don't have or Texas sometimes too, like we don't have that means
of access. So a lot of times is a very very driven, but
very hungry type of environment. So a lot of times what I'm trying to
do is partner with a lot of organizations just to get exposure out. I
think another issue it tends to happen, and maybe for a lot of other
just black and drow people, is that there's a lot of things that aren't
necessarily told to us, and we have to necessarily like search and dig that
out. And I really hate that entire aspect of having to do that because
it should be again as accessible as possible to everybody, no matter what area
you're at, if you're in school, if you're not, if you're transitioning
or whatever. So whether it's you know, like black product managers or other
smaller stratups, or we've done stuff in regards to like the Data Institute over
with the University of Chicago, like we try to online ourselves as much as
possible to give our members and just give people at large a variety of what
they can see from the organization. I know, I want to transform it
a little bit more to be able to touch more on like students, doing
like either Hakathon, or doing more in regards to like startups and entrepreneurs,
whether it's like more of pitch competitions or anything else like that. But that's
still work in progress, just to get a feel of what our members need
and what it looks like. But as much exposure as much opportunities for people
to be able to see and latch on, even if it's just like social
events too. I try to provide as much as collaboration as possible, and
then as we're kind of building things on and structuring things, then we'll kind
of have more tactile ways of attaching to our members. Yeah. Nice's nice.
I always feel that. I mean, this is that's that is part
of the foundation that was founded on is being collaborative amongst the community, right
like we are so there's we're so often on an island by ourselves, like
within our job or and within this industry as a whole, that uh,
it's we don't find ourselves collaborating all the time like like we should. And
usually it's because like we're we're the only ones, and sometimes we're just trying
to you know, we're just trying to make it. We're just trying to
survive. And so, you know, when bit was founded, it was
it was along the lines. It was of course, it was a community
at first, it wasn't the order that you see right now is just an
online community where I was like, hey, let's just get together, let's
collaborate, let's share, let's support one another, Let's build it as a
community first, uh, and then you know, we go from there and
if it grows, it grows. If it doesn't, you know, we're
having But I wanted it to have that community, that collaborative feel. But
I also think it's important from the standpoint of black organizations collaborating a lot more.
I would love to see that happen a lot more often. And I'm
glad that there are that we're actually doing that as an organization, and we
just partner with render at L and there are a couple of other organizations that
we've we've partnered with as well. And I think it's it's important, especially
now there's this like there's an attack, I might as well just call it
what it is. There's an attack on efforts like ours, right DEI efforts.
Although I don't I always say, like, I don't see BIT as
being like a direct DEI organization. We're an organization indirectly, we are DEI
like directly, we're really just trying to build ourselves up and progress. Uh,
black people in this technology space. Uh, we're not really here to
what I like to say, We're not here to solve your de I problems
like you have to solve that, like it's because of you all, so
you need to solve it. We will, we will help you out and
what you need, uh, when it comes to that. But we're not
here to solve it. And I guess that's what I mean when I said
we're not a DEI organization. But there is an attack that's going on right
now across the country and where they're shutting down you know de I uh departments.
Uh, they're totally defunding DEI initiatives. Uh. So in that aspect,
I think it's really important that our works stick together, even more so
than than ever before, because we need to we need to be, you
know, more collaborative. We need to join together to have a stronger presence
and and and to make the impact that we really want to make. So
absolutely I agree, especially for accessibilities essential. Yes, The BIT Foundation has
established featured partnerships and programs with companies such as Amazon, at and t comp,
TIA, tech Stars, and more to provide our members with the resources
we want and need to thrive and succeed in this tech ecosystem. To learn
more, visit Foundation dot blacks and Technology dot net. Join now and remember
membership is free, so speaking, I would love to hear like maybe one
success story from from Chicago, like what's you know, do you have any
success stories like of Chicago chapter people get job or I know I need to
touch base. In regards to one of our Southside Innovates sessions that we had,
there was a moment in regards to people like understanding what the entrepreneurs space
looks like in Chicago with that could attach to I remember correctly, there were
a couple of people who were kind of working towards starting up an idea while
I was there. I have to double check to see if that still had
kind of fostered through. It's been a while from that event. Outside of
that, I know there was someone else who did get a job. In
regards to customer success from I want to say it's the Sauna and it was
from either like a resume session or anything else. I have to get still
double check. I'm so used to just doing events and just getting out there
that I need to also do from a data perspective, come back and see
like what tangible works that we're doing that could actually make sense, Like hey,
Bit's actually doing you know this amount of percentage of success in regards to
getting jobs and stuff like that. But for right now, I'm just in
such an exposure phase that i haven't even like properly looked at that. But
I'll look back and double back for you for sure that makes sense. And
I'm not trying to put you on this spowder any thing like that. I'll
just wondering if there was on the top of your hand that you that you
can talk about. I think it's important to know for people to know anyone
watching that there are opportunities for success in joining one of our local chapters,
right like you know the networking opportunities that are there as well as like just
opportunities of learning and taking those learnings and applying it to you know, your
business or you know, your your idea or even your career. So I
think that's important. What's the future of the chapter look like? Like,
what do you what do you all have in the works. We do have
a number of events that are in the working. We have Chicago Tech Week
that's coming up the week of July twenty fifth, which is kind of like
kind of like Black Tech Week or like New York or LA Tech Week,
where it's just a huge shake showcase of like what tech's looking like in the
Chicagoland area. I know we're going to do something from either like a light
picnic of the social just for people to kind of engage themselves and just have
fun, just because there's gonna be a lot of technical talks. But I
know we're also planning in regards of doing a panel as well, just so
that with a one on our partners, so that again members can kind of
see what it looks like to engage themselves with a tech organization and what that
could be. I know we're also going to be partnering and doing events for
the National Democratic Convention because it will also be in Chicago, So we're kind
of wanting to see what civic tech will also be able online and look like.
Whether it's you know, people wanting to start up their businesses and see
what government contracting looks like, or again just what civic tech might look like,
or just that social good. There's a variety of options that can look
in regards to that. The last thing I know that we have, which
is going to be our big roundout, is there is a partner organization that
we work with. They have a Black Computer Science Summit. It was hosted
at the Chicago Google office and it was a fantastic time. When I attended.
I attended more of a volunteer and just to help facilitate and help.
But we're planning on finding ways to make things more tangible to where we can
attach and either bring kids in or bring more exposure in regards to it,
whether it's you know, our chapter sponsors coming in as well to kind of
like talk with students and see what it looks like for internships or jobs or
anything like that, just so that it's again driving the impact that inadvertently,
hopefully someone could get an internship, someone could get a job, or someone
could be able to at least know something in regards to what's available in the
Chicago area. If I can at least do that, my job as president
is done. Nice. Nice. Yeah, it sounds like some some some
cool events. So if you know, if anyone's watching in the Chicago area,
definitely check out uh the Boxing Technology dot org site and look into uh
UH if you want to reach out, there's a link on there for chapters
and then of course that will take you to does it. It goes to
the LinkedIn page right the Chicago Lincoln. Yes, it does go to LinkedIn.
It also does have the the chapter email as well. So if anyone
who wants to, you know, collaborate any ideas that, we're very open
in regards to being again as accessible and as immediate as possible. So if
it's anything from just like a light meetup, or if it's just a social
thing in between, you want to run and do a virtual plant panel,
let us know. We will see what we can do and how to make
that work excellent. And speaking of that, like, how can someone like,
what are what are some needs that you have right now? As far
as like maybe some volunteer positions, Like I mean, let's let's let's put
it out there. If you know there's an opportunity for some people that possibly
help out, let's definitely yeah, speak to that there there. If I
sit here and say the laundry list, we will be here past time,
I will be here all night, as you had said already, like the
role is such I will The role is such an in daunting role, whether
it is event coordination, and we definitely need help in regards to that.
Communications I've right now handled you know, posting for our LinkedIn our newsletters.
I think I do okay, but I'm not like visually I would say I'm
the best in design sake, So like, if anyone's super talented and wants
to take their talents in regards to that, that would also be super helpful.
I know we're also trying to do more in regards to like entrepreneurial spaces
too, because I may not know too much in regards to how to support
an entrepreneur. But if someone who's more integrated to that network and has more
capabilities or even further connections, like that be a couple of places of where
we can help out or just again light volunteering, if they people want to
just come in and help out for an event, by all means, that'd
be great. Take a load off my shoulders. Fleet Nice, Nice,
I want to I want to get into a little bit about like the non
technical things that you're involved in. I always feel like it's important for our
audience to see you as a leader at a tech space and also a leader
within bit to see the other kind of you know, quote unquote the other
side, right, Like, what are some of the things that you like
to do that are not tech related and we'll be here all day. I
have a lot of hobbies, so I have my three D printing. I
have a number of three D printers. I love making small figurines or functional
things in my house. I've been a huge fan of three D printers honestly
since I was a kid, Like I've loved maker spaces and everything and three
D printers like twenty five thousand dollars. Told my mom I wanted one,
and she's like, you're out of your mind. But it's okay now because
I could try to afford it myself. So I have that again. I
have my final collection. I love just I would not say I say I'm
an audio file, but I just love the sound that comes up from vinyls.
That's just been something that's been embedded for me as a kid, and
it's just carried on. I jokingly say I'm an old soul for it.
But like I'll go in and look at some old records and pick out whatever
I'm at. I think one hundred now my goal is right for now like
two hundred. But I got to reorganize what my collection is looking like.
It's a lot more contemporary than old school, which is more or less where
I was wanting to lean into. I have a plant collection. I've always
been a fan of plants. I just love how plants look and how do
they just so it's like a mathing. But it's also just the uniqueness of
like geogy genealogy of plants. But I just love how plants are, how
they interact and everything. May have killed a couple within my time of having
them, yes, but I've still been able to hold on to a good
twenty Very happy that I'm able to contain that. Traveling I've already mentioned I
love traveling places, like as much as I love Chicago. I get really
bored, or I'll sit here and like, Okay, let me see other
places and just enjoying myself. And it's just very amazing to see how different
cities are just structured, or sometimes it's even just the architecture. I just
love seeing those little intricacies of what makes cities unique. And then when I
get my film, I'm like, Okay, cool, I'm gonna come back
home. And then I think my biggest one right now, the two biggest
ones would definitely be I've been in a really huge, like food craze,
like I really want to just try different cuisines. Chicago has a really great
food Meca. But again, with me traveling so much, I'm trying just
different places from other other areas. I know I had a really great it
was a Fusion Mixed when I was in California. I can't even remember the
name of it so much, just because it's been a blur from when I
flew back in. But it's been that or I've been trying like camboiding food
or anything else in between. It's been a very interesting time. And then
on top of also that I do game You can't like Lucy it's in the
back, but I have like a wide variety of games, like the PS
five all the way down to I'm trying to get a game cube. I'm
a PSP right now, but I'm trying to go a little bit more retroactively.
But same thing in regards to just like storytelling, art and everything.
Like I love video games and just what the creative process can bring in tech
for video games, whether it's like molcapit anything else. I could not be
in the industry. I respect everyone that does what they can. I've tried
video game design. It's not for me. It's not my wheelhouse, but
I love just even again, the analytical aspect of understanding like why they made
certain features working games, or why certain characters like go through their journeys and
evolutions. So it's very very beautiful to me. But I have a really
big video game collection. It's very nice. There are a few videos out
there. I know there was one on Netflix. Man, what was the
name of that. I can't think of it. There was, it was
it was about I think it was called Indie Game or something like that.
I don't know if you've seen that, but it's a it's a I'm familiar
with that title. I haven't watched it yet though. Yeah. It's essentially
goes through the story of a couple of guys who are trying to make an
independent like video game and they're like they're hardcore, like you know, programmers
and things like that, and their video game ends up being like really really
really popular. I'm always interested in seeing like like how how things come to,
like you know, to fruition and technology. So I like seeing like
watching like videos of like origin stories about like oh, you know, this
is how IBM supercomputer was gread or this is so that that's a really interesting
one. What is another one that I like? H Another interesting one is
it's more about like the the the I can't think of the name of the
gaming consoles they call them. It's it's a big arcade games from like back
in the eighties. Okay, I'm trying to say the name too, and
is escaping me as well as it's probably gonna come to me and I'm gonna
remind you and be like, hey, you're probably talking about this. But
there's there's a there's a video you're probably found on on YouTube called King of
Kong. I think that's the name of it. Uh, And it's essentially
about about uh. Is it king of Kong? Yeah, it's about Donkey
Kong, the video game Donkey Kong. I don't know if you've ever played
Donkey Kong video game, but there's there was this huge movement of gamers that
played Donkey Kong to see like who's the best Donkey Kong player in the world,
and like there's and so it was almost like a villain like kind of
like a protagonist antagonist type of uh video because there's this guy that's like always
dressed in black and he goes and he you know, he's like one of
the top Donkey Kong players in the world. Near this other guy's kind of
like I would say, he's a protagonist and he's like, you know,
trying to reach this high score. It's really really interesting, like how deep
it gets. Well, it's just another like video game. Oh the one
about about the et video game. I don't it's an Atari game, like
an old Atari twenty six hundred, and they talk about they talk about how
that how that video game came to be, and how terrible of a video
game it was, and it was so bad that they essentially took all the
video all the ET video games that they had in inventory and and like put
it like in this like this, they dug a hole and like dumped out
of this hole and they buried. Yeah, it's really it's really interesting to
kind of hear the story about all that. Yeah, so if you're interesting
to go check go check those out. I think it's keen cong. I
don't know. I don't know what the etam one is called. I think
the out on is called like indie game or something like that. So yeah,
pretty cool, pretty cool. How How did you get into collecting vinyl
again? Systematic. Not necessarily I found it. It found me my dad
growing up. He had a huge vinyl collection thirty threes forty five. He
would play Soul Train and everything on Saturday mornings. I just grew up loving
just the sound of, you know, a record hitting sometimes, you know,
if we would run around too fast, we would you know, jostle
up the tone arm and he would yell at us and everything. I had
just grown to love the sound of how vinyls were just pressed and everything,
or just have me sorry, excuse me, how vinyls played through the needle
and everything. I would also just then as music had evolved, like do
MP three's download through my Lime, where I'm probably telling all myself the things
I've done, but the sound just never was the same. And I still
like engage in regards to like Spotify, andalists to stuff through Spotify. But
I also I just always want to retroactively go back, so I want to
do vinyls. I'm trying to get cassette tapes, and I'm even trying to
go back to CDs. It's actually a really great time for CDs now.
I don't know if it's there's a weird I have to find the article.
There's a recession link to if we I guess at a point of recession,
there's often times of like a nostalgia comeback, whether it's like roller skating or
just like a particular like sound in music. I have to find the article.
But when times are hard, people just retroactively go back because it brings
a sense of euphoria. I'm not sitting here saying that that's my reason.
It's just something that I just it's attached to me and aphyxiated to me where
even just growing up, I'm like, I have to have a turntable,
I have to have vinyls. I'll play sometimes just my random Saturdays as just
a callback to those times and just play the same albums over and over again.
And it's just it's so cathartic to me. I love it so much.
That's pretty cool. I actually have like bags and bags of cassette tapes
like in my basement, and so I looked on Amazon. Yeah, I
looked on Amazon because I'm huge in the like hip hop, like you know,
eighties, nineties, two thousands hip hop, Like I love that era.
So I have like all types of like you know, cassette tapes with
that music hip hop music on it. And so I was looking on Amazon
and they're because I was looking up, like, you know, I need
a cassette player. I don't have one anymore, like the last one broke
years ago, and so I was trying to look up, you know,
like or do they still make boomboxes? It ay do, and but they
actually have like these cassette players that will convert your audio directly to like MP
three's. So I'm like, I think I'm gonna purchase one of those off
of Amazon. I'm going to methodically and very slowly go through each of my
taps and it's hundreds, I know, there's hundreds of them and put everything
in digital format. Yeah, so I can have it because I you know,
I love that sound. I mean I want to hear like what's on
some of the tapes that don't have like, uh covers to them, Like
I have a ton of those like stuff that I might have taken off the
radio or what have you, Like you know, that's what I used to
do back in the day, like just record from off for radio. We
me and my brother we actually used to like and this is when like bet
you know, first came out and they were playing like videos and things like
that. We would actually put the cassette recorder up to the TV and press
record record and record songs from off of it as well. So there's probably
tapes like that in there. So I just like you're right, like it
does bring it is nostalgic, and it brings back that kind of like you
for it, you know, feeling from your from your youth, and so
I kind of want to I want to relive some of that. So I'm
gonna go ahead and purchase that on for Amazon. See my friends have been
telling me to do that as well and go into a digital format. I
don't I don't want to sit here and say, like I'm old in that
sense that I don't want to do it, Like I can keep it separate,
like I'll engage in some songs that I want to, but there if
it's recorded at a particular time, like you just hear it differently, Like,
I don't want to sit here and have to like have a digital format
and it doesn't sound the same. So I'm okay with like, even though
it's gonna look like, you know, possibly hoarding. I'll have my set
of you know, cassette tape, CDs and everything from those times, just
because I know how it was recorded or whatever, or sometimes even just hearing
the stories behind the recordings. It's just something so quintessential that digital doesn't necessarily
touch it the same way. Maybe I'll get over it after a while.
I'm like, Okay, I have a lot of stuff and they need to
compress this all, but for now I can live. So let me clarify.
I'm not getting rid of the tapes at all. I just yeah,
I just want to be able to archive it in case. I mean,
because tapes are taped like they break and like I you know, if if
that ever happens, like I want to at least have a copy somewhere.
So I'm keeping the tapes for sure, but I'm gonna I'm going to digitize
just so I can have them an archive. So okay, that makes it.
What's what's next for you? What are your plans for the future other
than graduating. I do want to go into grad school. I'm probably going
to get my masters in data science. I don't know about PhD. I've
had a very weird resurgence of people coming up to me thinking that I should
pursue a doctorates, and I'm like, I don't know if it's my face.
I don't know if it's my deommeter. But right now I'm tired of
school. Right now, I just want to take a break. So again,
once I graduate Decemmer, I'm gonna take a small little break, travel
a little bit and enjoy myself. Then go and pursue my masters in data
science and see what it kind of looks like for me. Outside of that,
I know I'm going to a number of conferences. I'll be a reunder
ETL for sure. I'll be at bitcoan, maybe Afrochech. I'm still trying
to figure out in regards to it, what else do I have upon me?
I have so much going on. I have an internship myself. In
June, I'll be in Dallas working for Bank of America doing database management,
which I'm super excited to do. Outside of that, I'm just coasting.
Nice. Nice congratulations by the way, Q. So, how can folks
reach out to you? If, if, if they want to reach out?
LinkedIn will definitely be the best vera directing. There's no other way to
find me. Hopefully there's no one else with the same name on LinkedIn.
They can also find me through the bit the Bitch Chicago email where Chicago Blacks
and Technology dot Com. Those are pretty much my main two places that I'm
on Excuse me, I want to say, done that and I get confused
every time that'll work. Thank you. Those are pretty much my main like
places that I tend to be found at. I'm trying to say, think
if there's anything else, honestly other than that, catching me up a conference
will probably be the only other time you'll see me, and I'll probably still
be ripping and running from there. Nice nice where vera I want to.
I want to say thank you for joining us tonight. Uh. Really really
glad we got to hear your story. Uh. And here's some of the
wonderful things that you you are doing with the bit Chicago chapter. Uh.
And I definitely look forward to to catching up with you at bitcom this year,
and good luck with everything. Can graduates on your upcoming graduation and let's
you know, definitely keep in touch on and let us know how you're doing.
Of course, thank you so much for having me. I really do
appreciate it. And again, this is just an honor just to have the
ability to be a leader. I'm one of the younger leaders I can probably
say, so that has been just so transformative to me to have the space
to understand what leadership looks like to me and how I can be able to
again get back to my community. So thank you for allowing me to be
in your organization. Oh thank you. I'll say this like the honor is
all ours, Like none of this is possible without servant leadership, without you
know, people being selfless and really wanting to make an impact. So I
don't I appreciate you know you're saying that is but I always tell people it's
not about me. It's all about our leaders. It's all about our community
and what they're what they're doing and make an impact. So I want to
say thank you, no problem, thank you so much. Take care you too.