By Ruth Young

When I think of the world of technology and tech startups, I think about movies like The Social Network or TikTok videos of “tech bros” in puffer vests telling me about their day at Google. Which, unfortunately, makes sense—women only make up 35% of the workforce in the tech sector, and Black women make up only 3%. What’s more, women in tech tend to make less money, both in terms of salary and investment (Black women receive just 0.1% of venture capital funding), and are less likely to hold leadership positions.

But there are organizations working to change things—including Black Women Talk Tech. Founded by Regina Gwynn and Esosa Ighodaro in 2017, the goal was “to create a space where Black women could for once be seen and heard and have their ideas invested in.” The BWTT conference is now the largest convening of Black women tech entrepreneurs and technologists in the world, and it’s coming to Toronto on September 29th and 30th. Ahead of the conference, I got the opportunity to chat with Regina about how organizations like BWTT are working to close these gaps for Black women, what the world of technology looks like now and where it’s going. — Ruth Young

How did you get your start in technology?

I started as a tech entrepreneur. I launched my first startup 10 years ago, which is bananas. We had a company called TresseNoire, which was the first on-demand, on-location beauty booking app for women of colour. It was a wild ride in terms of building different markets. We started off in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, we then expanded to New York City, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Dallas. We did a ton of corporate events as well.

Was there a specific moment or event that inspired you to start Black Women Talk Tech?

My co-founder and I are both tech entrepreneurs. We met at a small, invite-only conference in New York City, and we were the only chocolate drops in the room. As we got to talking, it was so amazing how similar our challenges were, even though we were working on completely different startups in completely different industries in completely different segments. And that was really kind of a light bulb moment. We thought, it we're having these challenges, I wonder if there are other women who are feeling the same way? We essentially created Black Women Talk Tech to be the resource that we didn't have when we were first starting our businesses and wanting to get access to resources in a way that was meaningful, intentional—and that wasn't performative, if you will. In the very beginning we were very focused on designing a safe space for women to be able to come and share their ideas and get the feedback that they needed to move the needle on their business.

Entrepreneurship and technology are so intertwined right now. Why do you think that relationship exists?

I can tell you this in two words: big money. If you think about the top businesses in the world, the multi-trillion-dollar businesses, it's Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Google. The top businesses in the world are technology companies. So, when we think about opportunity to build a business that can generate huge, huge returns for yourself and for your family and build generational wealth, the idea of using technology for that becomes extremely attractive.

We look at technology businesses a little differently than ‘lifestyle’ businesses—restaurants, laundromats, dog-walking companies—because those businesses oftentimes lack the scale that you can achieve when you're building a technology company. These are companies that are international, with offices all over the world and that's always the goal. But even if you get halfway there, or 10% there, you're still making these outsized returns. So, you're going to see more and more people pursue technology businesses in the future, especially because generative AI allows you to create a business overnight. You can leverage different types of AI technologies to build a website in two hours, create an e-commerce platform, create every image or video. All of these things allow you to significantly speed up the business formation process compared to when I first started 10 years ago.

You’ve spoken a lot about mentorship and networking. Why are those things so important for Black women in tech?

It's so critical. Let me take a step back. I grew up with a dad who was an entrepreneur—he ran a recycling manufacturing company in Greensboro, North Carolina for several years. Having seen that growing up, I knew that it was something that I could do: my dad ran a business, I can run a business. When you don't have those examples that you can look to, you find yourself trying, but not necessarily really understanding or being able to see the steps that it took to get to these places.

So, it's so important for us to provide that visual, and that very tangible example of a woman in tech. Because, first of all, they exist. A lot of them exist. One of our keynote speakers is Claudette McGowan. She is the founder of Protexxa, a cybersecurity startup, as well as the founder of The Firehood, which is a multi-million dollar angel fund based in Toronto. To see her on stage is to see that it can be done. And hearing about her journey will help people understand how it was done. So there's a lot of education that's needed, but we also need a reframing of what is truly possible.

From your experience, what kinds of businesses, would you say are getting founded and funded right now?

The startups that are getting founded and funded right now are definitely connected to generative AI. This AI boom is not over. It’s still being invested in heavily by larger tech companies. Acquisitions of AI companies and cybersecurity companies are really trending right now, and I don't see that letting up anytime soon. We're still scratching the surface of what AI can do.

Yet its evolution has been so fast, which is just bananas. It took Netflix 10 years to hit 100 million users. It took Instagram one-and-a half to two years to hit 100 million users. It took TikTok nine months to hit 100 million users. It took OpenAI two months to hit 100 million users. So when we think about how fast technology is allowing adoption to go, that’s the part that is going to continue.

We’re also seeing a lot of green tech—green energy, decarbonization, desalination, anything happening with electric vehicles. Both those areas we find are starting to trend more. And then there's always going to be companies that are getting funded just because they're amazing ideas in untapped markets.

Where do you see the field of tech going over the next five to ten years?

Tech is so expansive, it's hard to say where it will be in five to 10 years. I definitely envision another social network. I think AI will definitely play a role in that. And I think that there will be a lot more education amongst just everyday consumers on how they interact with tech, because AI will definitely influence how we interact with tech in our day-to-day lives. So that'll be interesting to see.

I can't even imagine what another social media channel could look like.

We started off with MySpace and Friendster, then we had Black Planet. We’ve seen a lot of social channels come and go—it's not a given these channels stick around. Who knows how long X will be around, right? Who knows how long TikTok will be available in the US. We have to assume and expect that another platform will come within the next 10 years.

Where would you like to see Black Women Talk Tech in the next five to ten years?

Where I'd like to see Black Woman Talk Tech in the next five years is continuing to expand. We have been building this community in the U.S., and we started hosting our Roadmap to Billions conference in London a couple of years ago. This is our third conference iteration in our second international market. We’ve received requests to come to West Africa and we've had conversations with organizations in Paris. So I definitely see there being an opportunity to really continue to expand globally, but also really doubling down on the market that we're in now. And making sure the level of engagement that we have is meaningful. We’re not here to jump in, host a one-day event and leave; there really needs to be a real investment in the market and in the community in order to actually see the results.

Was there a reason why you chose Toronto as your second international location for the Roadmap to Billions event?

Absolutely. So over the past seven or eight years that we've been running the event in the U.S., we’ve had a lot of attendees and speakers that come to us from Toronto. So we were like, huh, I wonder what's going on in Toronto to necessitate that interest in tech? That's what prompted us to start to come to Toronto. We went to Collision last year, and we've worked with Toronto Metropolitan University and the DMZ on a new project.

Then, after coming and talking to shareholders, founders, investors and community organizations directly, we realized there was some opportunity for us to bring our perspective, learnings and education, because it could be valuable to the audience—particularly the opportunity to talk about U.S. markets, and what U.S. market opportunity could look like for Canadian entrepreneurs and Canadian investors. We’re bringing some investors and speakers from the U.S. to join us in Toronto, which I think will be important. That cross-collaboration and mixing and mingling, will also be very additive in terms of building the resources and expanding capacity for Black tech entrepreneurs in Toronto.

Interested in attending the Toronto BWTT conference? Check out Roadmap to Billionsfor more information and use code RTBPARTNER to get 20% off your ticket.

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