Tech Archives - Tony Loyd

The Many Side-Hustles of Sherrell Dorsey, ThePLUG and BLKTECHCLT

April 9, 2018

ThePLUG is the first daily tech newsletter covering founders and innovators of color. What do these people have in common: Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Larry Page, Tim Cook, and Larry Ellison? Yes, these are all icons of the tech industry. They also happen to be white men. Sherrell Dorsey of ThePLUG says, “Part of my personal and professional growth was staying abreast of what was happening in the news.” However, she noticed a gap in tech news. “The daily business and tech news cycle is filled with the stories and work of white men building the future,” she says. “Rarely are we recognizing the work of…

Mobile Gaming for Social Good, with Elizabeth Sarquis, Global Gaming Initiative and Jukko

February 12, 2018

Global Gaming Initiative provides a suite of tools and services to make it easier for game developers and publishers to produce and monetize games for social good. Elizabeth Sarquis was born in a small town along the Magdalena River in Colombia. When Elizabeth was five years old, her family moved to the US. Growing up, she went to school in the US and spent time her summers in Colombia. Elizabeth says “It struck me when I would see children on the streets begging. Then I would go back home, and I would have everything. It didn’t make sense to me.” As an adult, Elizabeth worked in nonprofits focused on children’s…

Making Technology Fun, Relevant, and Accessible for Girls, with Betty Gronneberg, uCodeGirl

October 2, 2017

uCodeGirl offers pathways to technology careers for teen girls by tapping into their curiosity, skills, and potential. Betty Gronneberg grew up in Ethiopia. She attended Addis Ababa University where she majored in statistics. Betty recalls a day in college when she saw her name on a list of students who had been accepted into the new Computer Science track. She was one of two female students on the list. This was 1991. The “world wide web” had not yet been invented. Betty learned to write simple programs in BASIC, an early computer language. Betty’s experience grew rapidly as the internet began to spread. She became a country-wide email administrator for…

Connecting Buyers and Suppliers of Aid Supplies, with Stephanie Cox, The Level Market

October 2, 2017

The Level Market is the premier marketplace for aid and relief supplies. Stephanie Cox grew up looking at National Geographic with her grandfather. “I knew I wanted to travel the world when I was 6, 7, 8 years old,” she explains. After graduating from college, she traveled the world as a freelance journalist. In 2004, she had a near death experience during the Boxing Day Tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people. She worked in Nepal and in Eastern Europe during times of conflict. But, she found it difficult to make a living. Her family encouraged her to return to the United States to find her way forward. Stephanie moved…

Improving the Effectiveness and Efficiency of Humanitarian Missions, with Lori Most, BinaryBridge

July 24, 2017

BinaryBridge creates software that helps humanitarians do their work effectively and efficiently. Lori Most grew up seeing television commercials of humanitarian crises, especially in Africa. Lori recounted, “I always wanted to go to Africa and help…I thought ‘I’m going to grow up and go over there.” In college, she started as a pre-med student. Partway through she switched to engineering. “I changed directions a lot,” she laughed. When she graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in mathematics, she was left with this sense that she still wanted to help. After graduating, Lori quickly found work in the booming field of software development. She worked as a software…

Improving the Health of People and Companies, with Zach McGill, Perk Health

July 24, 2017

Perk Health helps you pick up healthier habits in a way that is sustainable. Zach McGill and Doug DeBold grew up playing sports. Games taught them so much: achievement, competition, leader boards, point scoring, rewards, rules of play, self-expression, socializing, mastery, and status. When it was time for college, Doug went off to college in Vermont while Zach attended the University of Minnesota. Initially, Zach studied engineering. He wanted to invent things. But, he says, “I realized, with engineering, there would be less inventing and lot more equations.” So, he started studying entrepreneurship. “It became clear to me that my path was going to be to start and build companies.”…

Social Entrepreneur review on Mechanical Turk

What I Learned about Social Entrepreneur from Mechanical Turk

February 28, 2016

As Social Entrepreneur passes it’s 50th episode, I want to know what people really think about it. The podcast, Social Entrepreneur has received its fair share of praise. It has been simultaneously ranked the #1 podcast in four iTunes New & Noteworthy categories. That’s an amazing accomplishment. We have well over 100 reviews on iTunes, 99.9% of which are 5-star. Even the person who left a 4-star review made positive comments. But I wanted to know what people really think of Social Entrepreneur. No, I mean really, really think. I have been asking people I know for feedback, but let’s be honest. These people are my friends. When your friend asks you for feedback, isn’t there…

Pedro Domingos, Author of “Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Society”

November 20, 2015

If you want to talk about machine learning, Pedro Domigos is a good person to start with. When Pedro was growing up in Lisbon, he loved to read and to learn. In fact, when he was 13 years old, he decided that he wanted to learn everything that there is to know. It did not take him long to decide that it might be a little more useful to, instead of knowing everything, to become deeply knowledgeable about a few topics. His university studies led him to computer science in the 1980s, just as personal computers were beginning to catch on. Today, Pedro is a professor at the University of…

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What I Learned about Social Entrepreneur from Mechanical Turk

Pedro Domingos, Author of “Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Society”

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