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2019 Kapor Center Impact Awardees!

On behalf of my Kapor Center colleagues, it gives me great pleasure to announce the recipients of the 2019 Kapor Center Impact Awards!

For the past two years, Kapor Center Impact Awards recognize worthy individuals, organizations, or companies that are notably diversifying tech by advancing access to the tech sector, challenging or changing inclusion practices, or effectively using tech tools or platforms to close gaps. Past award winners include: (2018) Monica Ann Arrambide (Maven Youth), Idalin Bobé (TechActivist.org), Clare Shorall (Neo & OUSD), Justin Steele (Google.org), and Jesse Williams. The 2017 award winners were Ana Roca Castro (Genius Plaza), Therese Lawless, Esq., Regan Patterson, and Shaun Tai (Oakland Digital).

The 2019 recipients are:

Makinde Adeagbo, an engineer by training who created /dev/color as a community for other Black engineers to build their top-level skills, share insight and knowledge, and reduce isolation in the industry. Since its founding in 2015, /dev/color has grown to support over 200 members as the largest professional development network of Black software engineers in the nation.

Davida Herzl, co-founder and CEO of Aclima, a fast-growing startup that maps air quality and greenhouse gas emissions at block-by-block resolution. Poor air quality disproportionately affects the health of low income communities. In 2017, California passed an air-quality law requiring municipalities to monitor and mitigate local air pollution, with Aclima data cited as a proof point for hyperlocal measurement. Today, Aclima is on track to be deployed across more than 100 communities by 2020 to help diagnose and improve air quality.

Lyle “Butch” Wing, a longtime colleague of Rev. Jesse Jackson and the co-director of PUSHTech2020, an initiative of RainbowPUSH. Often collaborating behind the scenes, Butch has coordinated public interventions and private conversations to move tech companies to release their diversity data and to work assertively on incorporating inclusion strategies. The annual PUSHTech 2020 conference, which draws hundreds of participants each year and has moved the industry standard around how diversity and inclusion issues are tackled in the tech sector.

Please join us in celebrating these tech industry movers! We will recognize them in a brief public ceremony at AfroTech’s Community Stage in Old Oakland on Saturday, November 9th, at 4 pm.