Digital Pond: EP#7 Dr. Elizabeth Shaw — Tackling Diversity in Digital, Business and Innovation
We’re starting the year off with a fantastic pod featuring a brilliant advocate and change maker for diversity and Inclusion Dr. Elizabeth Shaw. She is both the founder of Moxie as well as 1000 Black voices, a fantastic organisation that supports black founders and CEOs with industry leading product, business design and technology mentoring and provides a catalyst of funding and tech support. Microsoft the one of her key supporters.
During the webinar, we discussed the barriers that black entrepreneurs often face, why representation and recognition matters and how organisations can be more proactive in improving diversity and inclusion within their workforce.
You can listen to the webinar in full on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
You can find the full transcript for the podcast below.
Transcript
Danny Bluestone
Yes, it’s great to have Dr. Elizabeth Shaw here today from Moxie global, So Elizabeth it’s been three years since we first met in face to face events way before the pandemic. So that obviously seems like a decade ago. How have you been?
Dr. Elizabeth Shaw
Gosh! Yeah you say three years since we met and it is such a whirlwind since then and it’s just great to be here. Thank you for inviting me to speak on the Digital pond podcast and I’m just excited to have this chance to chat with you. But yeah, I’m fine, thank you.
Danny Bluestone
Yeah. So happy 2022. So, there’s loads of great things that have been happening and it’s not as if that we haven’t been talking for the last three years, right?
Dr. Elizabeth Shaw
That’s a good one.
Danny Bluestone
So, we’ve been talking quite regularly. So, this year, we’ve had a couple of conversations, but certainly we’ve been working a lot together last year, So I just wanted to also thank you for giving me the opportunity to do great work with 1000 Black voices. But before we go into what you’re doing, it would be great to hear a bit more about your backgrounds and why you are where you are.
Dr. Elizabeth Shaw
Yeah, that’s cool, thank you. Well, first off, all the thanks come from me to you because you’ve been supporting the work, we do all through the past few years and it’s just been tremendous to work with you, so thank you, and just talking about what’s been driving me, what we’ve been doing, what I’ve been doing as well is…
Giving you a little bit of background, I have been dedicating my life to empowering the potential in people and really regardless of where they’re from, what they look like, social status, and I’ve been lucky to have wonderful people supporting, which is why I’m really thankful that you’ve invited me on to this podcast because you and Cyber-Duck have been this solid rock of support in what we’re doing and I want to take the chance to really say thank you to other people as well that I’ve been supporting and giving their energy, expertise and voice, that this podcast if I was going to make sure is that many people that would be supporting us, so I’d like to say thank you, that you’re appreciated.
And with some of the reflections on what we’ve been doing over the past few years, my own journey, first of all, being a people 100, champion for change, within the first year of operation of 1000 black voices and being the first AI and blockchain accelerator in the UK focused solely on black founders. These are some of the things that we’ve been doing and have achieved but we have only achieved this by the support that we have from the wonderful network that we’ve been building.
So, it’s important to note that these achievements are achievements of a broader network of individuals of people, and so, moving on from there is really this interesting, I’m going to mention a bit of interesting technology because we do quite a bit in the technology space and I think working as a system’s analyst some years ago, early on in my career and then technology remain the key interest since then but developing understanding of information systems, some coding as well, though Danny, please don’t ask me to code.
Danny Bluestone: (00:05:34)
[Laugh: 00:05:34–00:05:40]
Dr. Elizabeth Shaw:(00:05:43)
Because my experience is limited and it’s a quite a few years ago now. But technology is a key ingredient in my current role and in my partnerships with technologists and people that are working with us to deliver results, so just wanted to mention that we are supportive of a wider society and broader industry as well. But technology is an area that we understand some of the challenges that are going on within that particular space and obviously, the space that you’re in as well.
So, further than that, I suppose just thinking about some of what I’ve been learning. It’s been quite a journey, I suppose, being a black person and thinking about the challenges that I face and that black people today and throughout history have faced, racism, classism, I suppose also being a black woman, sexism.
But not withstanding those barriers, black people and those that have faced persecution, they’ve shown great resilience and I’m hoping that today and throughout the rest of the time, my life as well that I inspire others to have confidence, resilience, enterprise dexterity, I call it “that’s my cred” that I think it’s important to think about how you use your cred to face the challenges that life throws at you and that’s something that I try to do every day, and in saying that, when I’m talking about my background, I just like to pay personal tribute to my parents and their commitments in making me who I am today because I come from a background of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial family, my dad ran a driver school.
So, I learned a lot from him on how to manage clients, but really more about engaging with clients, I’d say it that way and doing that with empathy, and demonstrating a shared understanding of their experiences and what he did and I understand from all the work he’s done, in the talks he has given me, it’s just been priceless, and my mum, she helped people with their health problems, supporting, treating and healing eye problems, and people came from quite a distance to see her so that she could help them and that commitment and compassion and helping people is something that I hope that I share and do well.
I’ve got a lot of learning still but she developed even before they called it social enterprise. She was a social enterprise, it’s coined a term, but I take so much from my parents. So, I hope that gives you a bit of what I value and where I’m coming from and why I’m doing what I’m doing.
Danny Bluestone
It’s always fascinating when there is somebody, let’s say a young child that grows up surrounded by entrepreneurs, potentially not even in their family but potentially friends or other relatives, I think it does have a huge influence and almost an inspiration on them for the rest of their lives.
So absolutely and no doubt you’ve taken these kind of virtues and if applied them to your growth and to your ultimately career, and the fact that you’re an entrepreneur who’s providing a platform for entrepreneurs is incredible, and obviously, when we first met you were talking a lot about… that there’s a relatively low amount of black entrepreneurs compared to let’s say white entrepreneurs, and is that part of the problem that you’re trying to solve? And why do you think this problem exists in the first place? And I guess also, is it sort of unique in the UK is my question as well here.
Dr. Elizabeth Shaw
You’re right. Okay, well, if I just provide some background on to some of the things that I’m doing and lead towards that.
So, things that we are doing is to increase diversity in tech, build awareness of opportunities, help people develop their confidence, their skills and supporting this agenda. We help founders around the world, women in the UK, Africa, Caribbean and young people in schools in the UK. So, we’ve got quite a broad agenda, which I work through with Moxie global as a leadership development company.
Where we offer school booster programs but also leadership development from entry level through to exact level. Female tech guys, which provides programs to build technology fluency and economic resilience through tech again and entrepreneurship, really, and then I founded 1000 black voices to tackle the disadvantages that people face, black people facing industry and broader society and our mission is to act as the change maker, helping people, organisations, communities to achieve a critical inclusion and economic resilience.
So, it’s really key that I mentioned, equitable inclusion and it’s got to be authentic inclusion. And so that brings me to the problem you asked about, and that’s what I’d say, brings me to the table, striving for change, where we live in this equitable society, no racism, where racism is no more that some dream is that it’s in the past, you read about it in the history books. So, being proactive in this agenda is important for us and the problems are huge, deeply entrenched.
I believe that the worlds never needed anti-racism and racial equity more than it does now with the times that we’re in and what needs to happen now and so, we have a main goal in raising awareness and action, and I refer to this as our fault ours, these are the problems that we’re trying to address racism, representation, recognition and reward, and that’s how I see the problem of lack of black inclusion and racism and so, I suppose take racism giving you a few stats, 75% of workers in the US are subjected to racial discrimination 75%, three out of four people. I mean, it’s horrific and then if we’re looking at the likelihood of abuse, racial abuse, it’s really high in that sense and that’s a US statistic. Let’s just give you a UK stat then.
In the UK, six top and searches for every 1000 white people, but compared to 54 of every 1000 black person and this is a disproportionate treatment, is being recognised by the constable and fire and rescue services Her Majesty’s Inspectorate, and they have recommended that there needs to be more emphasis on reasonable grounds for stop and search. So, it’s recognised, hate crime is up 131% Over the last nine years in England and Wales and the majority of this is racially motivated. Well, actually, I’d say 75% in fact, the figures are showing and if we just think about the times, we’re in. According to the home office, the increase in these hate crimes is really from, first of all 2020, there was a backlash from racist individuals and groups against Black Lives Matter, matters and the racial awakening that happened that sparked with the murder of George Floyd in the US.
So, hate crime was much more apparent then and it’s really shocking to see just the level of racism in the workplace in the UK, discrimination costs the UK billions of pounds where lost out every year, when it comes to lack of belonging to the workplace and I’m just still talking about racism.
All of this is something that we’re trying to tackle. It’s going to take time, take cultural change, it’s a journey, it’s a process and I talked about the four hours, representation is one, boards still lack diversity. In the there’s only 8.7% black representation at board level at the Fortune 500 and that’s if you’re looking at, say, a community, a black community at 13.4% when it got the last census, then it just shows the disparities and little progress has been made because first of all, there was a lot of five seats. Five seats from the fortune 500, we lost five seats that were occupied by black people, so it seems as if we’re going backwards, I mean why is that happening in such a time of awareness, supposed to be open to change, and in the UK, it’s even worse, no black leaders’ insight when we’re talking about the C suite of our top 100 UK companies and there’s this feeling still in the community that you’re the only black person in the workplace, feeling that you’re possibly the token black person in the office.
So, these are challenges that we’re seeking to address and recognition… Let’s look at possibly, academia, higher education for example, black female academics are not recognised for the work that they do and actually, some of the work that they’re asked to do doesn’t support their progression, it doesn’t provide the evidence for certain progression routes for the criteria that’s required. So why is that? So, in 2020, there were only 35 Black women professors in the UK, 35 Okay, let’s give you a comparison. 12,860 white male professors, they have 35 black female professors. Okay, let’s look at white female professors, 4,900. So, demonstrating those gender disparities there, yes. But worse still you’re still talking about 35 Black women professors, so gosh! It’s just seems like there is an uphill battle, isn’t it?
Because if we look at black founders, the challenges that they face, are their many barriers? Despite showing an increase of 30% higher return on investment than white founders, there’s still not access funding, and I think it was just about 0.14% of our female led businesses gained VC funding, so it’s just an odd situation to be in, and if we’re not looking for VC funding, we want some sort of funding, say alone 0.17% it’s just awful and yet, if we just demonstrate, 36% of black businesses are owned by women. So, I’m just giving you some stats, annulments, just thought I’d mention, but what’s really awful problems here and if I just quickly pick up on the board, at that level black women are least likely to be among the UK top earners, and then also, female entrepreneurs are struggling to make ends meet 37% of black female business owners made no profit last year. No profit. So again…
Danny Bluestone
Sorry, what was the percentage?
Dr. Elizabeth Shaw
37% of black female business owners and that’s in a 2020 report published by the British business bank.
Danny Bluestone
Wow, that’s obviously high.
Dr. Elizabeth Shaw
Yeah, I know that we’ve been going through a terrible time with the pandemic. This is stark, the situation that we’re in, so just wanted to demonstrate the problem through some statistics to highlight that there is evidence to demonstrate racism discrimination challenges that we’re all facing here in the black community.
Danny Bluestone
Yeah, obviously, these are deeply rooted in society, it starts potentially even with schools, right? It starts in communities. It’s not something that starts in the workplace, so, a complete mind shift is required. Obviously, in each particular country that there’s multiple nationalities that listen to our podcast, so everyone will be thinking, okay yes, US, UK but obviously there’s other territories where probably this problem is as prevailing and potentially even worse, so absolutely and if you think about entrepreneurs, they essentially power the economy so a lot of businesses, some of the greatest businesses, organisations, charities, wouldn’t be here today without entrepreneur. So, entrepreneurs have a massive role to play. You mentioned academics, which again their contribution into society is also invaluable, but with our focus on entrepreneurs, that’s obviously what you’re doing, you’re providing a framework and a platform for these black entrepreneurs to climb, to succeed, to obtain funding and to get the practical advice and support that they need.
So, reflecting on my own journey as an entrepreneur, when I first started, I had to figure things out I wouldn’t say that I personally had a strong network, when I started my entrepreneurial journey, I had obviously, my parents that I would chat to, a couple of friends, but the more support that you get in the early days, the better the networks, the easier it is for an entrepreneur to succeed. So, what level of support besides Moxie global and yourself, what support do the black entrepreneurs receive at the moment, in your view?
Dr. Elizabeth Shaw
Okay, well, from what we do, we run the accelerator program, we’ve got, for example the fact that… first of all, there’s under-representation when it comes to ability to scale your business and in scaling to employ people to support you in that.
So, in the UK, there’s 1%, only that are able to do that of underrepresented groups, so it’s minuscule and so we help support entrepreneurs to scale their business and be able to take on employees to grow their businesses and also get funding, and simply put, we engage the services and support of organisations and community to come together and build a community, I believe that anything that we’re doing has to be done in collaboration to build a community that struck drives the economic resilience of the black community but broader as well.
So, we’re really pushing hard really, for that to happen and we sustain that growth, we help sustain that black LED tech startup growth, and now accelerators really could help stimulate innovation and growth.
You mentioned that your global organisation and our listeners in your community are from around the globe and we are a global organisation, we have an accelerator that brings together businesses from around the world and we’ve had businesses from the States, Africa, Europe, Australia, so far and wide and that’s really important for us to break down silos, that happened because of geographical boundaries.
So, we focus globally so that we’re inclusive, we help our partners and our clients make decisions that are inclusive and develop collaborations, and so that’s really important, we found that that works for founders because then they understand really what’s happening on the ground in those particular location and they’ve got people on the ground that they can partner with, if they should sort of wish and that’s been happening in the ecosystem that we’ve been building, so that’s really great to have, that view that break down geographical borders, so you understand the… not just the business environment but the cultural experiences and perspectives that enable you to develop great products and relevant products for those that are in your locations.
So, last year we partnered with singularity net, it’s the decentralised AI network and we were seeking there to make sure there’s more black birth representation in that space because AI is something that everyone can benefit from at the moment and our black tech accelerator in collaboration with singularity net, providing technical advice and mentorship, as all of our accelerators do.
With our understanding of the challenges that black founders face and that’s key, that’s a benefit that we bring that others don’t bring because we focus very much on black founders and understand the challenges they’re facing. Our accelerator really helps them then to extend them their knowledge and use of dressed technologies. AI is one example, AI and blockchain, and the fact that there’s this demand now for new technologies and the fact that technology is really the use of that, the adoption is increasing.
It’s important that black founders get into this space and do well in this space, so we really think about the fact that we’re tapping into these various really exciting emerging startup economies, as well as more mature markets to help them on their ladder into the next step of the journey, we have accelerators that run from eight weeks to 12 months to a year actually, we have run quite a number in the last year, we ran three accelerators, we’re on one at the moment. And we believe in providing relevant and practical support that our founders can implement now in their business and think about for the future of their business.
So, it’s very relevant. We provide expert advice on business transformation technologies through workshops, through our leadership series, our founders gain understanding of how to manage challenges in leading through uncertainty, of course, uncertainty, we’re going through a lot of uncertainty at the moment, aren’t we? With everything that’s going on. Innovation, transformation and growth.
So, these are some of the things we do, we also have a collaborative forum, which is based really on Q&A’s, and that’s really to again provide some deep dives into the challenges they’re facing the tools, the technologies, the solutions, really important for our founders and a lot of feedback, as great feedback around this is that they are gaining access to networks, that they wouldn’t necessarily have been able to previously… networks of leaders, investors, corporates, government, as they’re providing valuable insight and support and that happens also through the mentoring that we offer for them to achieve their business goals.
So, there’s a lot that we bring into our accelerators as well as hackathons, which help them to develop problem solving for the community and develop new services that they can add on to their products. So, there’s a whole range of various different aspects to the accelerator programs that we offer and as well as that it’s really about finding out what more we can do, what more value we can bring and to do that, we look to the support of our community to engage in understanding further what is happening out in the space, and what else can we can do. Like I said over the past couple of years, we’ve been very lucky to support a founder raised 300,000 euros last year. Precede that was fab, I mean, amazing, we haven’t been running that long,
But, it’s really down to the amazing, amazing work that they do, that was pace seeker. FinTech focused very much on the African continent and we also have our founders raising grants. We’ve got an award-winning Techy Health, Health tech company that provides innovative telemedicine solutions, actually. So, we’ve got a number of fabulous startups in the ecosystem. We’ve been able to partner with other organisations as well, Microsoft is one of those, helping founders to gain access to technology and founders are able to go on to that as well.
So it’s great because we understand that again it’s back to collaboration, we have a sort of lattice approach actually, we engage with other accelerators, the continents, as well as other places of wealth to then feed into our accelerator, we then provide access of our diverse founders, our black founders, to other accelerator programs where they can then access funding, that other accelerators out there so we’d really recommend to founders, our black founders to consider the ecosystem or where best they can gain access to funding, gain access to the supply chain, but like you mentioned, Danny, the need to develop networks is key and core to growth.
Danny Bluestone
No, absolutely, I think networks is the key word and obviously, if I look back at my own entrepreneurial journey, it can be extremely lonely because obviously as an entrepreneur, quite often you don’t have someone to talk to when there’s… for example, challenging times that you can’t exactly go to your investor and tell them all your problems because they’ll essentially lose confidence or even beat you up for it and you can’t talk to your bank manager and sometimes your accountant doesn’t understand things because they haven’t run a business before, and equally, the same applies to a lawyer, right?
They’re not business people, they’re service professionals. So, having a network of other entrepreneurs, they’ve been there, they’ve done it before, it’s obviously invaluable and I think from what I’m hearing, and from what I’ve seen as well is black entrepreneurs or want to be entrepreneurs don’t necessarily have a comparable network to let’s say, a white entrepreneur. I mean, is that correct? Or is that just me making an assumption there?
Dr. Elizabeth Shaw
No, that’s not an assumption, Danny, actually that is what we’re hearing and what we see and what we know that the networks are really challenging to get into, to broaden that sphere and that is a real benefit of joining an accelerator like a 1000 Black voices because we open up the doors to networks, like they say that they wouldn’t necessarily have access to or would have had to pay thousands and thousands of pounds on a different kind of relationship and the founders mentioned that as well, some feedback that “hey, they’re coming on to these programs”. They don’t necessarily have the funding, but they’re still being able to access top experts, leaders in their field that are giving them advice and are really providing… really invested in helping them make it work.
Danny Bluestone
No, absolutely and I think on the flip side, like if you think about bringing more… or if businesses obviously, you mentioned that there aren’t enough black leaders or black board members in the top 100, let’s say 40 businesses, Is it because people just haven’t read the Harvard Business Review and McKinsey were diversity as a superpower, what is going on? Because there’s been so much academic research into how diverse teams triple your ROI and make you more profitable because ultimately if you have a diverse team, the products and services you manufacture or create as an organisation will be more inclusive because you’ve already considered that a big percentage of the population of black for example, what is going on in the world?
Why haven’t all of these smart people been able to do one plus one? That’s my question to you.
Dr. Elizabeth Shaw
I don’t know why they haven’t been able to do one plus one, but what I will say is that very simply, I want to make a strong point that a business case to justify putting resources towards say anti-racism initiatives, diversity inclusion, is we make time and time again, like you just mentioned, it’s made time and time again.
So, the focus now needs to be much more about talking about “how” and not “why”. We a lot of talk about why So let’s move on there is that balance there, but there’s still this… The fact that if an organisation is still looking for the business case, to prove why inclusion is valuable to the bottom line, then what is going on? That organisation isn’t taking racial discrimination seriously. So, the focus needs to be on really how we align our business objectives to diversity and inclusion objectives and so we do that at 1000 black voices to support organisations to build an impactful racial equity strategy and this requires alignment with the business goals.
We work closely with leadership teams to frame what we call the North Star diversity and inclusion ambition and that will guide intention not to be intentional and thoughtful inclusion protocols policies systems behaviours.
So, when you’re talking about the business case, this is where it needs to lead to the how the purposeful action because there’s been a lot of talk about diversity inclusion, black squares. How I put it is this wonderful technicolor coats that you’re wearing, it’s fabulous, it’s looks like you’re doing great things, once you open up the coat and inside, it’s not the same. It’s not actually what you’re saying that’s happening inside the organisation when you take the coat off.
It’s really challenging when it comes to diversity inclusion, let’s just put it this way, many of us want to know, what we’re doing the right thing, so we help organisations to be collaborative, to develop a trust based approach to authentic equity and inclusion, so we do that in a number of ways; group sessions, one to one coaching, as a vehicle to move organisations towards aligning business goals with operationalising their racial equity and justice. So yeah, we also asked challenging questions, Danny, we ask those, that these have got to be considered but they’ve also got to be acted on to hold these businesses or for them to hold their business to a higher standard.
Danny Bluestone
Yeah, absolutely, it has to be authentic because quite often it could be a tick boxing exercise, right? And that’s what we want to avoid. We want to, as a society see diversity as a superpower rather than something that we need to do because of corporate governance policy, right? So that’s obviously 110%. In terms of like the entrepreneurs themselves because clearly you want to support as many as you can. I guess there’s a few questions I have about entrepreneurs. Like, when is somebody ready to be an entrepreneur?
That’s my first question because sometimes, like when I first started Cyber-Duck, which is the business… the digital agency that I run, I was contemplating for about five years before I actually was ready to start it. So that’s a point that I want to discuss with you, and two is, there’s different types of entrepreneurs in a sense, where you could be working within a corporate organisation, like a large conglomerate and they, for example could turn around to somebody and say ‘Look, we want you to start one of our startups within the organisation’.
So, would you consider someone like that an entrepreneur?
And do you support them on the program as well?
Dr. Elizabeth Shaw
Yeah, but first off, when is someone ready to be an entrepreneur?
Well, first of all, like you said there are many different types of entrepreneurs and some entrepreneur startup started out due to the necessity, that this is going to be my living, I have nowhere else to turn, I can’t get a job, I was laid off and which many people were during the last over the last year, and I need to do something to feed my family so I start up a business.
So, there’s that side of things, of course, there’s also the viewpoint that developing the confidence to bring your innovation to light but really having to understand that there needs to be some research behind this to make sure it’s successful and that the market wants it, needs it, there’s market fit, product market fit in this case, so there’s lots of different things to consider that out of necessity someone we’ll just start up their business because you have an idea you need to earn some money on going out there, but still having to understand, you need to think about research, you’re not going to be able to raise any money if you don’t have a business plan, if you haven’t got clear roadmap on how this is going to be developed and move forward.
So, these are some of the things to consider. But also, if I just think about having imposter syndrome in some cases, that you’ve done this work in your company, you want to now think about doing it for yourself because actually you’ve been very innovative in your organisation, you drive the projects, you take them to market, they are successful, but thinking about them having developing the confidence to go out there and put yourself out there and actually be willing to fail also, you don’t just go into the market, and it’s first time but it might happen but there’s also that ability to start thinking about, well, I could fail here and what am I going to learn from that to actually then put into the next business that I’m developing.
There are lots of different things because if you’re suffering from impostor syndrome, you reach out to have those conversations to develop the confidence and your networks can help you do that, we can help you do that. There are coaching, the workshops we deliver but also the mentors that would be speaking with you and supporting your move through and the last question, I suppose, with regards to people already working in an organisation and developing products, yes, they’re entrepreneurs.
They bring innovative solutions to life in their organisations and they’re actually driving the innovation, building the innovation, driving the innovation internally and yes, we support those types of entrepreneurs as well.
We have accelerated programs for businesses to drive through the innovation to take to market, but also thinking about who they can collaborate with to bring a different kind of thinking, different perspective into that development, a startup external perspective to support their progression
Talking about who they’re actually marketing who they’re building these products for an engaging in the conversations in say for example, the black community and bringing that perspective to it, that there’s so many brilliant minds out in the world, why limit yourself to a certain subset of a sub sector of those brilliant minds? Bring all the brilliant minds together to actually put forward their understanding, their insights, their perspective and that drives innovation.
Danny Bluestone
It’s been it’s been really fascinating hearing your story as well as some of the societal issues that have existed and sadly continue to exist, but also hear about the hope and not necessarily the ‘Why’ but let’s be pragmatic, the ‘How’, what are we going to do to solve these issues. In terms of talking to the digital bond audience so besides black entrepreneurs, so if you are listening reach out to Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, just reached out to her, she can actually support you and help you grow. What other types of organisations are you looking for to get support from who can potentially get involved with Moxie global or 1000 Black voices?
Are there additional mentors that you need in particular areas?
Now’s the opportunity to just broadcast to the district bond community and ask for some support.
Dr. Elizabeth Shaw
Wow, thanks Danny.
That sounds so overwhelming actually.
Well, let’s just say that, talking directly to your audience Danny, well there’s so much that 1000 black voices can do with their support, your support and talking directly to… Connections needs to be made.
Could your 2022 and onwards be a resolution to provide more active support for black owned, I’d say infrastructure businesses, like 1000 black voices, that’s addressing barriers that are causing ethnicity disparities for black owned businesses that are still underrepresented and underserved within the UK and globally. So, connections need to be made, Danny had mentioned mentoring, yes, please get in touch.
By working with us, an organisation that understands the experiences of the black community, you can provide the business levers, the sponsorship and engagement required for the development of our black businesses and the black business ecosystem but the broader ecosystem it’s an ecosystem of brilliant minds all coming together to solve the solutions that we’re facing at the moment in the world, also supporting us in improving data, recording of gender and ethnicity within the space, within the ecosystem and also accelerating the positive actions that we’re taking but also those that are supporting us are taking in developing.
What I call culturally competent tools, is shaping the pathway to success for diverse entrepreneurs for all of us and likewise, a collaboration of enterprise government startup, driving innovation from these diverse perspectives can support development products and services that take into consideration the black experience and cultural experience, awareness, from the UK, US, Caribbean, European, African markets, so enabling us as black voices to provide that enabling environment, for enterprise and startups to build awareness of these various different numerous of black culture and business ecosystem, different countries.
So, what I’m asking is that you share how you feel, how you work and how you want to progress with us and drive that collaboration and trust-based approach to what we do, developing and supporting startups, supporting and driving diversity inclusion practice, and we look forward to supporting you too on your journey because we’re all learning in this whole process of the collaboration that I’m seeking from you. So please get in touch.
Danny Bluestone
Perfect, Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, thank you so much, that’s been so illuminating and I think I’ve personally got so much out of this particular show and thanks again, and no doubt we’ll see each other soon and talk soon in our work together, so, have a great rest of the day.
Dr. Elizabeth Shaw
Well, thank you for having me. It’s just always amazing speaking with you, Danny and I’m looking forward to catching up with you again soon, and thanks again to your audience for listening. I hope there’s something that they’ll be able to take away and find this valuable for them.
Danny Bluestone
Thanks so much for listening. If you’re interested in learning more about the great work that Elizabeth does with 1000 Black voices or want to get involved you can visit her website 1000blackvoices.com Or follow her on Instagram and Twitter. They are @1000Blackvoices, as well as LinkedIn where the company handle is 1000-black-voices. You can also find Cyber-Duck on all the major social media channels including Twitter, with @ cyberduck_uk and Instagram which is @ cyber-duckuk and of course our website cyber-duck.co.uk.
Hope to see you soon on our next podcast
