Black in Tech Summit
PRESENTED BY 
Event Schedule (in CST)
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12:00pm |
Opening Remarks with Host Ashley DeWalt |
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12:30pm |
Fireside Chat with Harold Hughes and Janice Omadeke |
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1:00pm |
State of the Union: Back Then, Now & What Remains with Preston James, Anita Roberts, Phillip Yates, and George Ploss |
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1:45pm |
Networking Break |
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2:00pm |
Intro to Fundraising AMA with Dr. Paul Judge and Joshua Baer |
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2:45pm |
Networking Break |
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3:00pm |
Supplier Diversity: Unlocking Innovation & Driving Competitiveness with Joe Beard, Terry Mitchell, Derrick Miles, & Britney Winters |
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3:45pm |
$100,000 Investment Challenge |
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5:00pm |
Black Founder's Happy Hour |
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7:30pm |
End of Event |
Ashley DeWalt (he/him) | Managing Director, Houston at DivInc.
Ashley DeWalt is the Houston Managing Director at DivInc, a nonprofit accelerator focused on generating social and economic equity through entrepreneurship. He also serves as Principal for DivInc Ventures, an early-stage for-profit micro-venture fund.
Prior to joining DivInc, Mr. DeWalt served as a management consultant for over fifteen years, working with premier talent, startups, brands, and properties. Additionally, he serves as an advisor, mentor, and judge for Stadia Ventures, a leading sports tech-focused accelerator, and venture capital firm. Besides being a member of the SXSW Pitch advisory board, he is also a member of the Houston 2026 bid committee and advisor to Sportsmap Tech Acquisition, a sports technology SPAC.
Victoria Thompson (she/her)|Sr. Manager, World Wide Public Sector Partners at AWS
Victoria Thompson, Sr. Manager for AWS World-Wide Public Sector Partners, is a business savvy technology leader with over 21 years of experience helping companies accelerate growth through business and partnership development, go-to-market execution, and technology innovation. She has been married to her husband and business partner, Mark, for 18 years and they have a beautiful 13-year-old daughter, Sara. In 2020, Victoria and Mark launched GenFree LLC, with a mission of restoring generational wealth within the black community through small business investments and grants. As Head of Community Engagement, Victoria leads small business grants and GenFree’s non-profit, Ready for the World. Victoria holds a B.S. in Physics from Bethune-Cookman College and serves as a board member to several non-profit organizations.
Harold Hughes (he/him) | Founder & CEO of BANDWAGON
Harold Hughes is the founder & CEO of Bandwagon – a venture-backed identity infrastructure company that helps its customers transparently manage, aggregate, and store valuable consumer identity data. A rising star in data, identity, and experience space, Harold has had his ideas validated as a graduate (and now mentor) of the Founder Institute Greenville chapter; graduate of Capital Factory – Austin, one of the inaugural companies in Google for Startups Black Founders Exchange Program, and most recently the inaugural cohort of the IBM Blockchain Accelerator in 2019.
A man of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., Harold is actively involved in his community participating on the Board of Directors for Rebuild Upstate and Visit Greenville. He also serves as a board member for Women@Austin, a non-profit that focuses on the advancement of women entrepreneurs as they grow their companies. To that end, Harold is also an active angel investor, investing in women, people of color, and Black founder-led companies. Most notably, he has invested in Partake Foods, the Jay-Z backed CPG company making allergy-friendly, healthy snacks, and HireKanna, a marketplace and training platform for the gig economy in the cannabis industry. As a strong believer in mentorship, he makes time to speak with youth and his peers about his journey to entrepreneurship and how he has found success along the way.
Harold Hughes is a graduate of Clemson University where he received Bachelors degrees in both Economics (B.A.) and Political Science (B.A.). As a “Triple Tiger”, he also completed his MBA at Clemson, before pursuing a graduate certificate in Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Stanford University.
Janice Omadeke (she/her) | CEO & Founder of The Mentor Method
Janice Omadeke is the Founder and CEO of The Mentor Method, an enterprise platform transforming company culture through mentorship. Making history as one of the first 100 Black women in the United States to raise $1M in institutional VC funding, Janice has made her mark on the tech industry. She won Austin Business Journal’s 2021 Best CEO Award. Black Enterprise recognizes her as one of DC’s Top 5 Black Women in Tech. Forbes inducted her into the Forbes Next 1000 Class of 2021 and she’s been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, Business Insider, and is a contributor for Fast Company and Harvard Business Review. Additionally, Janice was a subject matter expert at the 2016 White House Summit on Building the Tech Workforce of Tomorrow. Janice is certified in Entrepreneurship from MIT, and is PMP certified with over 10 years of corporate leadership experience for Fortune 500 companies.
Tamara Fields (she/her)|Office Managing Director, Austin at Accenture
Office Managing Director for Accenture in Austin, is responsible for bringing innovation to clients, recruiting and retaining top talent and strengthening Accenture’s impact in the Austin community. As a business veteran with more than two decades of cross-industry, multilateral project management experience, Tamara helps better serve clients with creative, strategic, and transformative solutions. In addition, she is also the Director of Operations for Accenture’s U.S. South Market Unit, responsible for executing the business strategy and operational excellence to drive growth and efficiency and engaging and developing high performing leaders across the 13-state region business.
Passionate about promoting an inclusive and diverse workplace, Tamara serves as the U.S. co-lead for Accenture’s women’s employee resource group and the inclusion and diversity lead Accenture’s Austin office. In support of the company’s goal to achieve 50/50 gender balance by 2025, she advocates that Accenture’s rich diversity makes teams stronger—more creative, innovative and competitive—helping Accenture to better serve clients and communities. Tamara serves as a coach and mentor in and outside of Accenture, helping people find their voice and preparing them for career advancement.
An Austin native and University of Texas graduate, Tamara serves on the Red McCombs School of Business Advisory and is Accenture’s former executive recruiting sponsor for UT. She is a board member of the Texas Conference for Women, one of the largest women’s conferences in Texas. She is also a board member and on Financial Executive Committee for Paul Quinn College, a historically black college in Dallas. Tamara serves as a board member for Austin Chamber of Commerce and serves on the Executive Committee. Tamara is a recipient of the Austin Chamber of Commerce’s Greater Austin Business Award for Executive Leadership. She was named the Texas Exes Black Alumni Network’s 2019 Legacy Alumnus of the Year and is a winner of Austin Business Journal’s 2019 Profiles in Power and the Central Texas chapter of the Texas Diversity Council’s 2018 DiversityFIRST awards. Tamara was recently selected for Austin Business Journal's "Texas 100" list for 2022 which identifies Texas-based business professionals with the highest potential for growth, disruption, or innovation in the coming year.
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Preston James (he/him) | Cofounder & CEO of DivInc.
Preston is the Co-Founder/CEO of DivInc, which is the first early stage tech startup accelerator in Texas exclusively for people of color and women tech entrepreneurs. Founded in 2016, DivInc’s vision is to DivInc has launched 36 companies within its first 18
months in operation. Preston served a two-year appointment as the Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at the Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship in the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas. A former 20-year veteran at Dell, he served in executive leadership roles in Enterprise IT Sales and Consulting where he oversaw teams responsible for driving $250M+ in revenues. He also served as the Managing Director for the Dell Global Center for Entrepreneurship, where he oversaw the $100M Dell Credit Fund and helped expand the center’s initiatives globally. Preston is a champion for transforming and broadening the tech ecosystem by making it authentically inclusive. Through DivInc, he removes barriers for
founders by providing direct access to the essential resources needed to build high growth innovation businesses. He firmly believes that the future prosperity of our nation is directly tied to our ability to empower women and people of color through entrepreneurship and innovation. Preston earned his Bachelor’s of Science and Engineering degree at Howard University, in Washington, DC. A proud native New Yorker, Preston has lived in
Austin since 1997 with his wonderful wife Kim and their four children, Sydney, Cori, Presli and Preston, III.
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Anita C. Roberts (she/her)|Managing Partner at Silicon Hills Capital
Anita is an ecosystem builder, entrepreneur with an exit. media maven & international speaker. She has a deep human resource, public relations/marketing & leadership background and has successfully exited from multiple companies. Currently she is Founder & Managing Partner of Silicon Hills Capital where she Invests in women & African American founders seeking pre-seed to seed level financing. Their mission is to bridge the gap to venture capital for women, with a focus on Black and Brown founders, building scalable, growth aggressive companies.Educated in Venture Capital at the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business, and Venture Capital and Angel Investing alongside Black Venture Institute, Salesforce Ventures, Operator Collective, and the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business.
Anita is a proud HBCU alum of Prairie View A&M University and holds a Bachelor's from the University of South Alabama.
Phillip Yates|Cofounder and Managing Partner of Diversity Fund Houston
Phillip is a licensed attorney in the State of Texas and the Southern District of the United States. He has extensive experience in criminal law, commercial litigation and bankruptcy related matters. A substantial portion of his practice involves providing legal representation to corporate startups and small businesses. Phillip currently represents twenty-five (25) corporations as outside general counsel, and sits on the board for several non-profit organizations, including the following: Lone Star Justice Alliance, League of Women Voters Houston, 100 Black Men of Metropolitan Houston, and serves as General Counsel for the Business Angel Minority Association (baMa), and Chairman of Impact Hub Houston, which connects and empowers people working to solve social problems in our city and around the world.
Phillip Yates is also a Co-Founder and Managing Director of Diversity Fund Houston. The Diversity Fund Houston is a micro venture fund created to invest in black and brown tech founders during the “friends and family” round. Prior to founding Diversity Fund Houston, Phillip helped establish a pre-venture business incubator for minorities at the Houston Area Urban League, in the Greater Houston Area, one of the largest and most diverse populations in the country. In this role, he focused on identifying key resources to assist startups and early-stage founders with opportunities to scale. Since its inception, this program has helped over 5,000 minority entrepreneurs join the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
In 2019, Phillip launched EQUILIBERTY INC. Equiliberty is a technology company designed to build diversity in property ownership, support minority businesses and neighborhoods, and link people to information, capital, and markets. Recognized by the Houston Business Journal and Innovation Map for its efforts. The Social FinTech platform will work towards closing the wealth gap and the advancement of local economies in key Texas communities.
In February 2021, City of Houston Mayor, Sylvester Turner, appointed Phillip to serve on the City of Houston Firefighters’ & Police Officers’ Civil Service Commission. He now serves as the Chairman of the Commission.
George Ploss|Director, NetSuite at Oracle Netsuite
George Ploss was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, specifically in the neighborhoods of Hyde Park and Chatham. He attended the University of Illinois @ Urbana-Champaign where he received his MBA in finance and strategic leadership along with his bachelors in African American studies and Political Science.
While in undergrad, George enlisted in the Marine Corps, Reserves as an infantryman. Upon graduation, George began working for Wolfram Research as a Web Research and Development Program Coordinator. Soon after, George moved back to Chicago and worked for JP Morgan Securities as a Derivatives and Commodities analyst. After which he became a senior analyst at the CME Group. While there, George was recruited to come to Oracle as a Solution Consultant, as part of a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative specifically for Veterans called Operation Forward March. George spent a total of 9 years in the Marine Corps Reserves. His last duty station was 3Rd Civil Affairs Group, Great Lakes naval Station, where he was the Ground Operations Training Chief. As an SC, George worked as a trusted advisor to help companies acquire ERPs that fit their business model.
Subsequently, George became a Senior Program Manager at Oracle in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for Veterans and helped establish relationships and build more diverse recruiting pipelines. After a few years George moved to Austin to run the Oracle-NetSuite Solution Consulting Academy. While there he hired, enabled, and trained multiple, diverse teams of Solution Consultants to do exactly what he did as an SC, be a trusted advisor to companies.
Now, George runs the newly minted NetSuite Accelerator, where he takes the resources of Oracle-NetSuite and uses them to accelerate the success of Startups in incubators such as the Capital Factory.
Dr. Paul Judge (he/him)|Managing Director at Panoramic Ventures
Dr. Paul Judge is a technology entrepreneur and investor. He has cofounded three companies that were acquired and has invested in over 30 companies. He is Managing Partner of Panoramic Ventures, and Co-Founder & Executive Chairman of Pindrop. Previously Paul was cofounder of TechSquare Labs. Paul was also Co-Founder of Purewire, a web security company, that was acquired by Barracuda in 2008. Paul served as Chief Research Officer at Barracuda through its IPO in 2013. Prior to this, Paul was Chief Technology Officer of CipherTrust, a leader in email security, that was acquired by Secure Computing in 2006.
Paul is the lead inventor of over 30 patents and has received many awards including being named to the Fortune’s Top 40 Under 40 List.
He is a member of the 2016 Class of Henry Crown Fellows and the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute. Paul holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a B.S. in Computer Science from Morehouse College.
Joshua Baer (he/him) | Founder & CEO of Capital Factory
Joshua Baer helps people quit their jobs and become entrepreneurs. He’s the founder of Capital Factory, a coworking community and mentorship-based accelerator designed to help startups find their first investors, customers and employees.
Josh founded his first startup in 1996 in his college dormitory at Carnegie Mellon University and now teaches a class at the University of Texas for student entrepreneurs. He was recently recognized as a Henry Crown Fellow and Braddock Scholar at the Aspen Institute, a member of the National Committee on US-China Relations Young Leaders Forum, and an Eisenhower Fellow.
Joe Beard | CEO of CollateralEdge
Joe Beard is an entrepreneur and experienced financier focused on creating disruptive solutions at the intersection of technology and structured finance. He is currently the Co-Founder and CEO of CollateralEdge, a fintech platform that is re-envisioning debt capital delivery for the middle market. Joe is also a Co-Founder of Venture Dallas, the premier venture capital focused conference in the DFW region.
Prior to launching CollateralEdge, Joe served as a Partner at Perot Jain, an early stage focused venture capital firm, where he led investments in over 45 companies across 4 countries.
Earlier in his career, Joe spent approximately ten years as an investment banker at firms such as Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns and MHT Partners. Most recently, he served as Managing Director and Co-Head of Corporate Investment Banking at Commerce Street Capital. Joe has executed numerous M&A, debt and equity transactions across the Technology, Consumer Retail and Industrial sectors.
As a former Army Captain, Joe spent several years in the military based in Hawaii and Texas. He also spent two years at Applied Materials in Silicon Valley prior to attending business school.
Joe received his BS in Discrete Mathematics from the United Stated Military Academy (West Point) and his MBA from Columbia Business School where he was a Robert A. Toigo Fellowship recipient. Joe is a Dallas Business Journal's Forty Under 40 honoree and was recognized by Pitchbook as one of the 53 Black Founders and Investors to Watch in 2021. He currently serves on the North Texas Advisory Board for UMB Bank.
Joe is married with four children and resides in Rowlett, TX.
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Britney Winters (she/her) | Founder & CEO of Upgrade Boutique
Britney Winters is the Founder and CEO of Upgrade Boutique, which is a managed marketplace for custom wigs, extensions and curated beauty products. Upgrade's mission is to save women time on beauty routines so they can do more of the things they love. Britney started her professional career as an analyst in Credit Suisse's Real Estate Private Fund Group in New York and also worked in the Investment Banking Group at Morgan Stanley. She also served as an advisor for Fortune 500 companies on transformative, strategic initiatives before joining Shell Oil Company, where she held multiple titles and led complex commercial deals for Deepwater oil & gas assets in the Gulf of Mexico. Britney holds a B.S. degree in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Terry P. Mitchell (she/her) | COO at E & Co Tech | Cofounder & Community Leader of Black Leaders Collective
Terry P. Mitchell prides herself in being the steer-head and foundation to E & Co Tech (enterprise software, mobile and web development), Black Leaders Collective (social impact, DEI), The Austin Socialite (events/marketing/media) and Glam Beauty Bar (hair & aesthetics salon). In April 2021, Mitchell was appointed by Council member Gregario Casar as a Commissioner of the MBE/WBE Small Business Procurement Office.
Her faith, quick wit and unwavering determination to succeed has propelled her to levels beyond her imagination. Very early on, Mitchell knew she would be an entrepreneur and community leader, as her family is filled with self-made successors, risk takers, advocates and activists. It only felt natural for Mitchell to slide into this multi-tasked position.
As a native of 'the music capital of the world', Austin TX, and a 1st generation descendant of Trinidad & Tobago, Terry Mitchell has cultivated a sincere adoration for traveling, culture and diversity.
Mitchell graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, with a bachelors degree in Corporate Communications and certification in Business Foundations. Directly after graduation, Mitchell was recruited to help boost several Fortune 500 companies. Now, she is expanding her very own empire, all the while, developing her expertise in the areas of strategic planning, business development, mentorship, marketing, management and public affairs.
Mitchell's goal is to continue to empower and inspire those around her to harness their gifts and talents by becoming entrepreneurs. Mitchell is teaching aspiring and early stage business individuals her best practices through her consulting services and by way of blog at www.TipsWithTerry.com.
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Derrick Miles (he/him) | Founder & CEO of CourMed
Derrick is Founder/Chief Executive Officer at CourMed®
In addition, Mr. Miles is Chairman + Founder of TMB Equity Partners (executive team are former healthcare executives with 15+ years of experience); a boutique firm focused on investing/developing innovative healthcare solutions that achieve a liquidity event within five years.
Derrick is also a multiple patented inventor. Mr. Miles received both an MSHA (#1 Program in the country) and MBA from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He also holds a BS in Medical Technology (minor in Chemistry) from Bethune-Cookman University. Mr. Miles received a certificate in Lean Healthcare from the University of Michigan and is enrolled at Stanford University working towards a professional certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Derrick is married with two sons; his family lives in Collin County, TX and Dade County, FL.
Carron M. Gibbs (she/her) |Managing Director/Technology Delivery Lead at Accenture
Carron Gibbs, an Accenture Managing Director and Technology Delivery Lead, is a 27+ year leader that has continuously served Health & Public Service (H&PS) clients through management consulting, application services, and the technology service areas. Throughout her career at Accenture, Carron focused on developing ground-breaking, customer-centric solutions, implementing new policies/regulations at speed, and transforming business processes for health and human services agencies. Most recently she is concentrating on delivering innovative, reusable software products for cross-industry clients and building out professional services organizations for new software products. Carron is fully immersed in all aspects of product development lifecycle management, technology integration and business transformation. Her focus on quality and timely delivery enables the teams she leads to produce exceptional results. Additionally, Carron is the Lead of the Austin Advanced Technology Center and is a National Co-Lead of the African American Employee Resource Group (AAERG) in North America and the Executive Sponsor for University of Texas recruiting.
Carron is a graduate of the University of Berkeley, with a BA in Social Welfare and from the University of Texas with a Masters in Public Affairs. Carron is involved in multiple non-profits and is the proud wife to Rickey and mother to Kyla and Honey Rose (our precocious 3 year old goldendoodle).
Will Griffin (he/him)| Chief Ethics Officer at Hypergiant
Will Griffin is the recipient of the IEEE 2021 Award for Distinguished Ethical Practices. He is the creator of Hypergiant's Top of Mind Ethics (TOME) framework which won the Communitas Award for Excellence in AI Ethics. His past entrepreneurial work has also earned him the prestigious IAB/Brandweek Silver Medal for Innovation and the culturally significant NAACP Image Award. He is currently a guest lecturer on AI Ethics in the University of Texas Department of Computer Science and at Penn State Law School. He was recently a TedX Speaker on Ethics.
Griffin is an entrepreneur and proven thought leader with a track record of bringing cultural-shifting content and technology to new platforms. He is a member of the IEEE P7000 Model Process for Addressing Ethical Concerns During System Design working group. His previous ventures include launching the first original content slate on the Sony PlayStation Network with Endemol North America. He launched the first original VOD channel, Hip Hop OnDemand, on Comcast Cable Systems. Griffin is a long-time board member of the national oldest multicultural agency, Uniworld (WPP) and was an in-house strategist at News Corporation (Fox Entertainment Group).
He was an Associate at McKinsey & Co. in the Entertainment and Media practice (Los Angeles) where we worked on operations and post-merger integration for the world's largest media companies including Time Warner and Disney. He began his professional career in the Asset-Backed Securities Group at Goldman Sachs in New York.
Griffin is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School. He also completed the Entrepreneurship Curriculum at Harvard Business School.
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