kimberly bryant

On this episode, we go back and meet the housewife with one of the coolest last names... Tammy Knickerbocker! We also do a full highlight reel, connecting the finale episode from Season 1 of The Real Housewives of Orange County to the end of Season 2. 

Noted: I also re-recorded the Introduction to include the air dates of the first SIX years of Housewives, as well as provide a "roster" for the first 20 Housewives we'll cover on the pod. So feel free to re-visit the introduction, get caught up, then visit us back here!

It’s time to meet our 5th and final housewife from Season 1 of the Real Housewives of Orange County: Lauri Peterson! This episode is also unique because it ties in the first four housewives then fills in the gaps before we meet our next housewife in Season 2. This is a BIG task, as all housewives are introduced in Episode 1, yet the season has a total of 7 episodes. 

Between forming new friendships and sending kids off to college, we have broken engagements, run-ins with the law and lots of tennis and golf (sounds about right!) Then we have our first hint of drama when one of the housewives takes the opportunity to snag a man fresh out of a relationship with one of the other gals. Stay tuned for more details on this, as well as the VERY FIRST reunion show, then we’re off to Season 2!

Kimberly Bryant started a movement out of a passion project. Black Girls Code has scaled significantly over the years and now has over 15 chapters across the United States and DREAM partnerships with brands like Google, TikTok, Verizon, the NBA, and Capital One.

This inspiring conversation touches on so many pillars of growing a nonprofit organization from the ground up. You’ll hear Kimberly’s “founder’s story”, her obsession with building their brand and making it pop, and how she scored all of those incredible brand partnerships for the long-haul.

Plus, Kimberly shares the new trailblazing venture she’s creating with Black Innovation Lab, a space to help marginalized founders and entrepreneurs build pathways to financial freedom and ownership.

In This Episode:

• How the power of story, authenticity, and vulnerability helped Kimberly expand Black Girls Code so rapidly in the early days
• Kimberly’s scrappy approach to creating their digital footprint, from leveraging volunteers and stock images, to pro-bono support
• The first role Kimberly hired within marketing and how she remained flexible to move people within the organization, especially if it was a better match for their talents and passions
• How Kimberly secured a multimillion dollar grant from Google to fund their New York headquarters (and how she ensures partnerships aren’t just “one and done”)
• The moment where Kimberly saw an article on Twitter, which inspired her to turn an abandoned, historically Black college, into what will become the Black Innovation Lab

Resources & Links

Learn more about Black Girls Code and follow Kimberly on Twitter and Instagram at @6gems. You can follow ASCEND Ventures Tech on LinkedIn to learn more about the Black Innovation Lab.

What inspires website visitors to invest in your mission? Are you providing donors with a desirable online journey that keeps them coming back? Join my virtual session at the DonorPerfect Community Conference. I’ll see you on June 6th and 7th!

Applications for my Monthly Giving Mastermind program are now open. If you have been wanting to start a monthly giving program but haven’t had the time or the team to make it happen, this is for you. We start in July, so apply

March 2024

Join me on Thursday, March 14th at 10a PT / 1p ET for a FREE virtual event to learn how to supercharge your social fundraising and learn next-level tactics to deliver the right donors. Register here to join live or to get the replay.

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Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha asked: What happens when a Black founder was ousted? Alex was back on the mic after a week away, and we brought on Dominic-Madori Davis (follow her on Twitter and Instagram) to talk us through the topic. After all, the core question was inspired by her latest TC+ column.

Here's what we got into:

• The growing tensions at Black Girls Code, which began last December with Bryant's "indefinite suspension."
• Bryant's eventual ouster, which happened earlier this month, and the outpouring of public support for the leader. That conversation brought us into the reality of who gets to speak up publicly, and who can only do so off the record and without attribution.
• Davis piece about the symbolism of a Black founder being removed from a position of leadership
• Inherent bias and how to navigate that in the stories we hear and tips we receive.

Equity drops every Monday at 7 a.m. PDT and Wednesday and Friday at 6 a.m. PDT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

Credits: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo. We are produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

“We know that there is a tomorrow and we want to be able to prepare our girls and our community for what that tomorrow looks like. Not only prepare them for it, but make sure that they have a hand in building it. ” - Isis Miller

Throughout her biotech engineering career, Kimberly Bryant was often the only black female in the room. Kimberly’s experience wasn’t rare. In fact, it’s the norm. Black women make up less than 0.5% of the leadership roles in tech. 

As Kimberly watched her young daughter Kai grow a budding interest in gaming and coding, but with no spaces to explore or develop those interests alongside people that looked like her, Kimberly decided to take charge. 

Kimberly and her colleagues at Genentech put together a six-week coding curriculum for girls of color in 2011, conducting the first educational series in a basement of a college prep institution in San Francisco. In a few years, the operation transformed from a basement experiment into a global non-profit with 15 chapters supported by volunteers under the name Black Girls CODE. 

Today we interview Isis Miller, who joined the organization earlier this year just before COVID-19 struck. 

We’ll talk to Isis about how Black Girls CODE has gone virtual with online workshops and career panels that reach out to 1,000 students per week and what a meaningful partnership with Black Girls CODE means.

Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:

• Defining a holistic “why.” Learning to code is only part of the Black Girls CODE experience. People engage because it’s a space for girls to be inspired, motivated, and build confidence in addition to coding skills.
• Developing a community ecosystem. Programming engages not only girls who want to learn to code but also guardians, those that support them.
• Going digital. Zoom tricks that have kept Black Girls CODE true to their “why.”
• Honoring the moment. How Isis has created space to honor joy and trauma in grieving.
• Partnerships. Entering into a partnership is about building with–creating value that is not possible in one organization on their own.

👋🏻Say hi to Isis on twitter learn more about Black Girls CODE on their website.

📄See the full transcript

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Kimberly Bryant is an African American electrical engineer. Byant founded Black Girls Code, in 2011. 

Black Girls Code is a training course that teaches basic programming concepts to black girls who are underrepresented in technology careers. Additionally, the organization offers programs in computer programming, coding, as well as website, robot, and mobile application-building. 

African-American women make up less than 3% of the workforce in the tech industry and Black Girls Code fights to change and improve this percentage for the better- BGC has a major goal of teaching 1 million girls of color to code by 2040.

In 2014, Bryant was the recipient of Smithsonian Magazine's American Ingenuity Award for Social Progress.

As of this recording, BGC has reached more than 8,000 young women in 15 chapters around the world! 

Interested? What to learn more? Know a little who is interested in STEM. Check out http://www.blackgirlscode.com/

Kimberly Bryant is a force of nature. As the founder and executive director of Black Girls Code, she has been a tireless advocate for increasing the number of women in STEM fields through mentorship, workshops, and networking opportunities for young and pre-teen girls of color. The mission: introduce programming and technology to a new generation of coders who will become builders of technological innovation and of their own futures.

But I wanted to go a bit beneath the surface and learn more about Kimberly Bryant herself. We did talk a lot about diversity in the tech fields and how Black Girls Code also embraces the STEAM movement, but we also talked about her own path to success (and where she wants to go in the future). It's a really great interview with someone who is a real game-changer in this industry. Enjoy!

• Black Girls Code
• Black Girls Code on Twitter
• Black Girls Code on Facebook