Susan Mernit Tag

Hack the Hood Illustrations

Recently, I got the chance to work with Oakland based organization Hack the Hood (HTH) on multiple illustrations for an internal document showcasing how they help young empower, attract, and retain youth of color in tech companies. Who is HTH? A dope tech based organization run by Susan Mernit and Zakiya Harris in Oakland California. I am extremely honored to work with them and so happy to help contribute to their success and the amazing work they do.

With the help of organizers, techies, teachers, activists, and students HTH is bringing young people of color into the tech world where their talent and presence are severely underrepresented. It was just three or four years ago that folks like Tracy Chou helped to get huge tech companies to release their diversity numbers. And when they did the picture that most poc already know became more clear; the world of tech is primarily white and male. News outlets like Wired, NY Times, The Guardian, Time, Fortune, Pbs, NPR, and more have written about the problem which not only ignores poc, but marginalizes women, and privileges white males. The bigger companies have vowed to do better, but their hiring, funding, and employee retention practices are not changing fast enough.

Organizations like Hack the Hood, Black Girls Code, Code 2040, Qeyno Labs, The Hidden Genius Project, Game heads, and a few others stopped waiting and started local and national programs to bring in the young people that these companies claimed did not exist or that they could not find. HTH is making paths to employment, wealth, upward mobility, innovation, and power that I wish I had as a kid. I’m emotionally ecstatic that they exist!

These are just some of the many illustrations I completed for HTH, but what they are essentially doing is demonstrating why tech companies must approach finding, working, with, and keeping youth of color differently. Inherent in this is the fact that youth of color come to the table with different cultural practices, knowledge, challenges, and values. Want to get involved? I thought so! GO HERE.

And please watch videos about their young scholars on youtube!

BIG thank you to Susan, Zakiya for bringing me in.

Who is She? 15- Susan and Zakiya (Hack the Hood)

I met both Zakiya and Susan several years ago here in Oakland. Susan Mernit and Zakiya Harris are the Co-Founders of a ground breaking Oakland based organization called “Hack the Hood”. The organization brings in mostly African American and other students of color to learn about the tech field. From the interview I heard with Zakiya on “Blacks in Technology” it sounds like a stretch for some at first, but they soon realize that everywhere they go they are no only participating in the tech industry but they can be active makers and producers in it as well. The students learn basic and complex coding skills by building websites for local businesses. They are not only learn coding, but they learn people skills, how to work with clients, and what it takes to run a business-therefore bringing more people of color into a extremely white, homogenized, and exclusive field.  Along with other organizations like Code 2040 they are changing the landscape of tech and empowering young people to be creators.
Susan comes from a background in tech, working for corporations such as Yahoo, Aol, and Netscape. She also founded or Co-founded several media and tech savvy businesses here in the Bay Area such as Oakland Local. She is the CEO and Executive director of “Hack the Hood”. 
Zakiya I know from Oakland’s historic arts culture of music. She was one half of the group Fiyawata, is currently working on a solo music project called “ShapeShifter”. Zakiya has a long history of community organizing and youth education through organizations such as Grind for the Green at Ella Baker Center, TED, The Youth Leadership Institute, Global Exhcnage, and countless others. She is also a founding member of Oakland’s Impact Hub which is the only HUb out of many worldwide run by Black women!
Sources: Blacks in Technology (podcast), http://www.hackthehood.org/our-team.html(site)