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Event Schedule

Event Schedule is now LIVE. Subject to Changes. All Event times are in Central Standard Time.

Day 1
September 20, 2021
11:00 - 11:30
Welcome to Black Is Tech 2021 - House Keeping, Intro Networking & DJ Mix!
11:30 - 12:00
This Generation's Social Movement: Why Equity is the Driver of Business Growth
By Tanya Van Court Founder & CEO @ GoalSetter , Greg Cunningham Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Diversity Officer @ U.S Bank

Where
Main Stage
12:00 - 12:45
Workshop: Intro to Augmented and Virtual Reality
By Deigratia Daniels CTO @Cxmmunity

Where
Breakout Room 1
12:00 - 12:40
Career Conversations: Authenticity in the Black Tech Community
By Natalia Harris Vice President, People Operations @ Eko , Greg Bantham VP, Head of North America Pre-Sales @ CapGemini , Shari Whitaker Director of Cloud & Software Governance @ LexisNexis

Where
Career Stage
12:30 - 13:30
Expo Booth Officially Opens/Lunch Break
13:30 - 14:00
Afternoon Keynote
13:30 - 14:30
PepsiCo Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
13:30 - 14:00
Infrastructure as Code: How code becomes communication
By Dennis Dominguez Infrastructure Automation Engineer @ BlackLine

Where
Breakout Room 2
13:30 - 14:10
Afternoon Keynote + Fireside: Why Taking a Risk is a Privilege
By Arquay Harris VP of Engineering @ Webflow , Mariah Driver Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion @ Webflow

Where
Main Stage
14:00 - 14:30
3 Ways to Supercharge Your Tech Startup’s Growth
By Anthony Hill Founder & CEO @ Adapdix , Chad Harris Early Stage Investor @ SoftBank Opportunity Fund

Where
Founders Stage
14:30 - 15:30
MongoDB Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
15:00 - 15:30
Into the Spider Verse: How Miles Morales & George Floyd changed Design
By Ashten Fizer Senior Project Manager - Employer Brand, Social & Creative @ GoDaddy

Where
Breakout Room 1
15:00 - 15:30
DevOps: How the Avengers Would have worn the First time against Thanos
15:00 - 15:30
Is Data Really the New Wealth?
By Tiffany Perkins-Munn Managing Director, Head of Research, Analytics & Data @ BlackRock , Germar Reed Senior Advisor to the Head of Global Data and Analytics @ General Motors

Where
Main Stage
15:30 - 16:30
Bloomberg Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
15:30 - 16:00
Coding the CrossFade
By Michael Winslow Senior Director of Engineering @ Comcast

Where
Breakout Room 2
16:00 - 16:30
Get that Check, Get that Address and Key (Sponsored by Blend)
By Ulysses Smith Head of Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging @ Blend , Nicole Elam President and CEO @ National Bankers Association

Where
Main Stage
16:00 - 16:30
Meditation at the BIT Lounge
16:30 - 17:00
Family Feud at the BIT Lounge
16:30 - 17:00
AWARE - Accenture Workplace Accountability Resource Experience (Sponsored by Accenture)
By Trent Johnson Augmented Insights Manager @ Accenture

Where
Breakout Room 1
16:30 - 17:00
Introduction to Android Kotlin
16:30 - 17:30
Headspace Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
17:00 - 18:00
Tip off Game at the BIT Lounge
17:00 - 17:40
Specialties: Diversity In CyberSecurity
By Dr. Marlon Atherton President & Founder @ ATEAM Solution Services , Marylyn Harris President & CEO @ Harrland Healthcare Consulting , Dr. William Butler CyberSecurity Professor @ Capitol Technology University

Where
Main Stage
17:30 - 18:00
The New World of Work. How to Adapt & Thrive (Sponsored by Salesforce)
By Martie Burris Director, Product Management @ Slack (a Salesforce Company) , Kirk Law Sr. Vice President of Development @ Tableau Software (a Salesforce Company) , Syreeta Gordon-Traitt Manager, Enterprise Business Reps @ Salesforce

Where
Breakout Room 2
17:30 - 18:30
General Motors Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
18:00 - 18:30
BIT Happy Hour: R & B: Who Got Next? (Music Performance)
18:30 - 19:00
BIT Happy Hour: Day 1 DJ Wrap Up

Day 2
September 21, 2021
11:00 - 11:15
Day 2: House Keeping and DJ Mix
11:15 - 12:00
Build Your Brand by Dating Jobs
By Kanika Tolver Senior Project Manager, US Department of the Treasury

Where
Career Stage
11:15 - 11:55
Tech and Diversity: Creating an Equitable Creator Economy for Black Creators
11:30 - 12:30
How Non-Techies Can Launch Successful Tech Startups
By Nelly Yusupova Founder @ Tech Speak For Entrepreneurs

Where
Founders Stage
11:30 - 12:30
How Non-Techies can launch Successful Tech Companies
12:00 - 12:30
The Life of a (Good Guy) Hacker
By Gilles Biagomba Senior Security Engineer @ Comcast

Where
Main Stage
12:00 - 12:30
Gaming While Black: Perspectives of Design, Mechanics, and Engagement. (Sponsored by DoorDash)
12:15 - 13:15
WarnerMedia Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
12:30 - 13:30
Lunch Break/Expo Hour
13:00 - 14:00
Blend Partnered Event: Intergenerational Wealth Starts at Home
13:30 - 14:00
The Grand Challenge of Re-skilling America
13:30 - 14:30
Capital One Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
13:30 - 14:15
Digital Adoption & The Future of Tech Careers
By Terri Crymes Principal Instructor, Digital Adoption Institute @ WalkMe

Where
Breakout Room 1
14:00 - 15:00
The Pitch Competition: Elimination Round 1
14:00 - 14:30
Blockchain Basics
By Patrick Polynice Oracle Technology Lead @ Accenture

Where
Breakout Room 1
14:00 - 14:30
What next for AI/ML and Robotics?: Determining our Future
By Kevin Harrilal Director of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence @ UBS , Kofi Boakye Applied Scientist @ Pinterest , Haile Owusu SVP, Analytics, Decision & Data Sciences @ WarnerMedia

Where
Main Stage
14:30 - 15:30
AWS Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
14:30 - 15:10
Product Data Science & Experiment at Scale
By Justin Norman Vice President, Data Science @ Yelp

Where
Breakout Room 1
15:30 - 16:30
Salesforce Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
15:30 - 16:00
Leveraging Customer Success to Grow Careers
By Mike Lee Director of Customer Success @ Spreedly

Where
Breakout Room 1
15:30 - 16:00
Drone Technology: A Critical Component to Workforce Development
By Grace Cantwell Co-founder @ Drone Cadets

Where
Breakout Room 2
15:30 - 16:00
Leveraging Customer Success to Grow Careers
15:30 - 16:00
Drone Technology: A Critical Component to Workforce Development
16:00 - 16:30
Ask a VC (Q &A with Ryan Nece)
By Ryan Nece Managing Partner @ NextPlay Capital

Where
Founders Stage
16:00 - 16:30
Inclusive & Responsible Machine Learning
16:00 - 16:30
Working on the Growth Design Team
By Alphonso Morris Lead Product Designer @ Netflix

Where
Breakout Room 1
16:30 - 17:00
Intro to Tech the Culture: A Tech Talk Show (BIT Lounge)
16:30 - 17:30
Webflow Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
17:00 - 17:30
The Cocktail Class at the BIT Lounge (Thandi Pours)
17:30 - 18:30
BIT Happy Hour: The School Daze/Old School Vibes (DJ Kyndal Marie)
9:00 - 9:30
The Workout!! It's Gym time.

Day 3
September 22, 2021
11:00 - 11:15
Day 3: Housekeeping and DJ Mix
11:15 - 12:00
Black Woman X Tech Part 3: The Next Generation of Black Women in STEM begins NOW.
By Louvere Walker-Hannon Applications Engineering Team Leader @ MathWorks , Wendy Alexis-Janvier Senior Marketing Specialist @ MathWorks , Crystal Pugh Senior DevOps Engineer , Founder @ CP Consulting Services , Enanga Daisy Fale Systems Engineering Manager @ Northrop Grumman

Where
Main Stage
11:15 - 12:15
Accenture Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
11:15 - 11:45
5G and IOTs: Connecting a new World
12:00 - 13:00
Blend Recruitment Hour
12:00 - 12:40
Passion in Tech: Leveraging your passion to improve your coding and career advancement
By Aaron Young Team Lead of Bloomberg Equity Automation Services

Where
Breakout Room 1
12:00 - 12:30
Who Owns the Internet?
12:30 - 13:30
Lunch Break/Expo Hours
13:00 - 14:00
Comcast Partnered Event: Title TBA
13:30 - 14:00
Visual & Audio Storytelling
By Raymond Roker Global Head of Editorial @ Amazon Music

Where
Main Stage
13:30 - 14:30
Hudson River Trading Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
13:30 - 14:00
Content Design as a tool for Advocacy
By Jasmine Clark Director of Content Design/UX Research @ Red Ventures

Where
Breakout Room 1
13:30 - 14:00
Good vs Great Product Management
By Garaudy Etienne Senior Product Manager @ MongoDB

Where
Breakout Room 2
13:30 - 14:00
Good vs Great Product Management
14:00 - 14:30
Building on the Next Web Frontier Web 3
By Banjo Obayomi Senior Developer Advocate @ Amazon

Where
Breakout Room 1
14:00 - 14:30
Collaboration in a digital world
By krithika Swaminathan CTO @ Headspace

Where
Breakout Room 2
14:00 - 14:30
Building on the Next Web Frontier Web 3
15:00 - 15:30
Building a Better Baltimore Together, A Fireside chat with couple, Dr. Letitia Dzirasa and Delali Dzirasa
By Dr. Letitia Dzirasa Health Commissioner @ City of Baltimore , Delali Dzirasa Founder & CEO @ Fearless

Where
Founders Stage
15:00 - 16:00
Comcast Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
15:30 - 16:00
The Convergence of Biometrics, Data Science, and Branching Narratives (Sponsored by WarnerMedia)
By Noah Moss Product/Project Manager @ Warner Bros. Neuro Labs , Brian Wellner Director of Digital Platforms - Warner Bros. Neuro Labs , Arvel Chapell III Head of Advanced Narratives & Neurotechnology @ Warner Bros. , Steve Espinoza Sr UX Designer - Warner Bros. Neuro Labs

Where
Main Stage
15:30 - 16:00
The Imposter: Lessons from the Cloud. A professional and Technical Journey
By Mikela Wright Software Engineering Manager @ Capital One

Where
Breakout Room 1
15:30 - 16:00
Making Tech Inclusive IRL
By Malcolm Glenn Director of Public Affairs @ Better

Where
Breakout Room 2
16:00 - 17:00
Pinterest Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
16:00 - 16:30
Meditation at the BIT Lounge
16:00 - 17:00
Pitch Competition: Elimination Round 2
16:15 - 16:45
Tech Diversity: Is Diversity a Buzz Word?
By Amber Guild DEI Program Coordinator at Hudson River Trading

Where
Main Stage
16:30 - 17:00
Tech The Culture - Gaming/The Black Dollar Index
17:00 - 17:40
How Tech is redefining the Music Business
By Craig King Co-Founder @ RapPlug , Kelsey Davis Founder & CEO @ CLLCTVE , Reggie Shareef Site Operations Executive @ Microsoft , Leron Rogers President @ Black Entertainment & Sports Lawyers Association/Partner @ Fox Rothschild LLP , Branden Criss Co-Founder @ RapPlug , Audrey Irvine Senior Director, Newssource NewsGathering @ CNN , Brandon Tory Staff Engineer @ Google

Where
Main Stage
17:00 - 18:00
TipOff Game at the BIT Lounge
18:00 - 19:00
BIT Happy Hour Mix: Afrobeats, Dancehall & More (DJ Buka)
9:00 - 9:30
Afro-Yoga

Day 4
September 23, 2021
11:00 - 11:15
Day 4: HouseKeeping and DJ Mix
11:15 - 12:00
Where Marketing Works: How Marketing Impacts Product and Company Success
By Sharon Harris Global Chief Marketing Officer @ Jellyfish , Stephanie Geno Chief Marketing Officer @ Innovid , Kerel Cooper Chief Marketing Officer @ LiveIntent

Where
Main Stage
12:00 - 13:00
Yelp Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
12:00 - 16:00
AWS Partnered Event: Title TBA
12:30 - 13:30
Lunch Break/Expo Hour
13:30 - 14:00
Increasing Equity in Government through Hiring & Contracting
By Stephanie Baggage Sr. Manager, People Development @ Fearless , Eliot Pearson Chief Strategy Officer @ Catalyte , Nicole Weems Health and Sciences Portfolio Director @ Fearless , Yemi Oshinnaiye Deputy Chief Information Officer @ US Department of Homeland Security

Where
Main Stage
14:00 - 15:00
Pitch Competition Elimination Round 3
14:00 - 15:00
BlackLine Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
14:00 - 14:30
Integrating Data Science and Design for Better AI
By Ovetta Sampson Vice President, Machine Learning Experience Design @ Capital One

Where
Breakout Room 1
15:00 - 16:00
CapGemini Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
15:00 - 16:00
Capgemini Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
15:00 - 15:30
What is Fashion Tech?
By Coy Griffin Fashion Technologist and Analyst

Where
Breakout Room 1
15:00 - 15:30
A Junior Engineer's Perspective: My Unexpected Journey through The (Almost) Unknown
By Toni Darden Software Engineer 1 @ Comcast

Where
Breakout Room 2
15:30 - 16:00
Increasing Transparency in the Hiring Process: Unlocking Opportunities for Black Engineers
By Dr. Legand Burge Professor of Computer Science @ Howard University, Innovator & Entrepreneur , Ryan Williams Cofounder & President @ Jopwell , Portia Kibble-Smith Executive Recruiter & Diversity and Inclusion Lead @ Karat

Where
Main Stage
16:00 - 17:00
Cisco Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
16:00 - 17:00
Tech The Culture: A Tech Talk Show
16:30 - 17:00
Making Tech Human: How we can use Technology for Equality
17:00 - 18:00
US Digital Service Recruitment Hour
17:00 - 18:00
The BIT Comedy Show
17:30 - 18:30
Oscar Health Recruitment Hour
17:30 - 18:30
Oscar Recruitment Hour
18:30 - 19:00
BIT Happy Hour Mix: R & B Vibes (DJ TBA)
9:00 - 9:30
The Workout!! Part 2

Day 5
September 24, 2021
11:00 - 11:15
Final Day: House Keeping/DJ Mix
11:15 - 11:45
Building a Diverse Startup Space: Stories from Bevy and Valence.
By Derek Andersen Co-founder @ CEO @ Bevy , Kobie Fuller General Partner @ Upfront Ventures

Where
Main Stage
11:15 - 12:15
DoorDash Recruitment Hour
12:00 - 13:00
LexisNexis Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
12:30 - 13:30
Lunch Break/Expo Hours
13:30 - 14:00
Pathway to Pro in Esports
14:00 - 14:30
Building an Investor Pipeline
14:00 - 15:00
Microsoft Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
14:30 - 15:00
Meditation
15:00 - 16:00
Citi Recruitment Hour (Job Fair)
15:30 - 16:30
Pitch Competition Finale on the Main Stage
17:00 - 17:30
Family Feud at the BIT Lounge
17:00 - 17:30
Closing Keynote
18:00 - 19:00
The Final Showdown (AfterParty at the BIT)
18:00 - 18:30
BIT Happy Hour: Music Performance (Artist TBA)
9:00 - 9:30
Afro-Yoga Part 2

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