Michael Berhane is the Co-Founder and CEO of the award-winning peopleofcolorintech.com, a media and careers platform for people of color in the technology industry. He really began in tech when he was 24, which he admits took some time for him to get over. “I thought all engineers started out hacking as 13-year-olds,” he told New America during an interview.
Coming from the UK, where race topics are even more sensitive [they even rebranded Black History Month to Diversity Month???], Michael started POCIT as a fun side project when he wanted to connect with other engineers of color by interviewing them. The response was massive and boom, the platform for people of color in tech was born. The platform touches on topics like how Black developers and engineers are needed to decrease biased coding. “[Black engineers] often bring a much-needed perspective in regards to product development. Often there is a mismatch between the generally white homogenous teams that develop a product and the usually more diverse user base. For example, Black people tend to drive a significant amount of the cultural output from platforms like Twitter/Instagram, hence "Black Twitter," but what's the percentage of Black employees at those companies?”, he told New American during the same interview.
Today, Michael and his team have expanded POCIT to a podcast, “Techish” with topics that range from coding to culture, or as Michael describes it: “part C++, part Cardi B”.
Visit peopleofcolorintech.com and follow them on @pocintech