Khalia Braswell and the Digital Divide

What will it take to create equity for Black women and students in the technology industry?

Khalia Braswell is an award-winning technologist and the founder of INTech, an organization dedicated to building “a world where girls are creators of technology and leaders in the technology industry.” INTech was one of the first recipients of Slalom’s Social Equality pledge.

Khalia recently sat down with me, in the debut of Slalom’s Equity Journey podcast series, for a fast-moving and inspiring conversation about the bumpy road Black women travel in the tech world and the effects of the persistent digital divide on young Black students. Here are some of the highlights of that conversation.

Thank you so much for kicking it with me! If you don’t mind, let’s get right to something real. With INTech Camp for Girls, you work with young Black scholars to train and prepare them for a possible career in tech. And that could entail eventually sending them into a corporate environment that hasn’t always been supportive of women of color. How do you approach that with them?

We try to walk the line of informing them and knowing that there aren’t a lot of folks that look like us in these spaces, but also have to consider, how heavy do you want to make it? Because…