James Governor's Monkchips

Addressing the lack of diversity in tech, one smart young person at a time. Let’s send Isaiah Lynn to Harvard

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Trying to psychologically cope with all the inequality in the world can be overwhelming. One way to deal with feelings of powerlessness is by doing something. You definitely can’t fix all the things but you can contribute to fixing one thing. So let me introduce you to Isaiah Lynn.

He’s pretty awesome. He studies at University College London, has an internship at JP Morgan this summer, and just got accepted into a course that will see him spend the third year of his undergraduate studies at Harvard and MIT. That’s the good news. The bad news – the funding he expected to get for the program from a charity just fell through, so he’s crowd-funding to raise the £64k (around $82k) he needs to pay for tuition. He recently hit the 10k mark, so there is plenty to do but things are looking good.

I first met Isaiah at Thingmonk, our IoT conference. He was one of our Diversity Scholars, in a program sponsored by the Eclipse Foundation, which involved crispy new business cards from Moo, free tickets and mentoring from great people like Thomas Otter of SuccessFactors SAP. We wanted to do more than just give out some free tickets, but to build a program of engagement before, during and after the event. Christie Fidura laid down the framework.

The scholarship intake at Thingmonk 2016 was stellar – bright, enthusiastic and personable. So many talented people joining us from underrepresented groups in tech. Sometimes in our industry though diversity is shorthand for gender diversity, but Thingmonk really opened my eyes. Having a significant number of black people at your event makes it way better.

And our scholars were all fired up- here’s Ivan Beckley’s great write up – A BLACK medical student at an internet of things (IoT) conference — WTF?

One thing that really struck me was that many of the young people that attended were already high achievers: Internships at JP Morgan, fast track management programs at Colgate-Palmolive, “clinical entrepreneurs” at the NHS. What could we do for them, when they were going to crush it anyway?

It turns out that the simple thing we did was include them. I talked to Isaiah earlier today and he said that attending ThingMonk had led him to radically reconsider the options open to him. Why shouldn’t an anthropology student, raised in Stratford, become a tech VC?

“Sometimes we are told that we cannot achieve an aspiration or that our aspirations are too high. We are told that due to our ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, or disability, our dream is unachievable. No. What is important, as far as I am concerned, is not how our background can limit us, but rather how our background can propel us to our destination. Coming from a humble income, lone parent family, growing up in inner-city London could have stopped me reaching some of my aspirations. But, it has not. Instead, it has motivated me to explore just how far I can go with limited resources. I have come this far, and I still have a way to go.”

So why do I care? I care about creating opportunities for people because it’s who I am. I was raised that way. But I am not going to lie – my wife is black and having mixed race kids does make the lack of diversity in tech more personal. I want my sons and daughter to be as welcome in tech as I have been, if they choose that route.

So back to Isaiah and crowd-funded education. One thing I learned in running our successful campaign to open the Village Hall was that people don’t fund things if they don’t get something back. It’s very hard to just say hey please fund my education. But Isaiah is the talent, the pipeline, the future of business success. You don’t want to support him because he needs the money, but because he’s going to bring value to your business in future. So, I thought, why not reach out to VCs and see if they’d be willing to contribute, on the basis that he could join as a research assistant after graduation. Isaiah has already reached out the the Harvard Ventures group, and he’s all in. At UCL he’s been involved in it’s VC program too, and has already helped fund 4 companies with support from VCs including Accel Partners and Balderton Capital. Why not have a chat with him?

Obviously if you happen to have enough funds you can contribute to his campaign please do so – his crowd funding page is here, please read it. But I figured going after some VCs i know was one way I might be able to help. Bottom line – there are not enough black people in tech, and definitely not enough in the VC world. We need to redress the balance. Isaiah Lynn in super smart and he will work himself to the bone to succeed. You don’t get a place to Harvard without doing the work, especially if you’re a black man from Stratford.

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