Black Entrepreneurship

Hakim Weatherspoon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University. His research interests cover various aspects of fault tolerance, reliability, security, and performance of large internet-scale systems such as cloud computing and distributed systems. Professor Weatherspoon received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in the area of secure and fault-tolerant distributed wide-area storage systems (e.g. Antiquity, OceanStore, etc.) and received his B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Washington. He is the CEO and co-founder of Exotanium, Inc., a company that helps enterprise companies achieve cloud optimizations and cost reductions without service interruptions.

Marquita M. Qualls, Ph.D., serves as Executive Director of Entrepreneurship Programs at The National GEM Consortium. In this role, she is responsible for leading GEM’s Inclusion In Innovation Initiative (i4), a cooperative partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF). This initiative seeks to develop a national diversity and inclusion infrastructure for the NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) Program.

Shila Nieves Burney is an awarding-winning project manager, investor, mentor, and advisor. Over a professional career of more than 20 years, she has worked closely with leading organizations and exceptional talents to create solutions that address disparities through investment in human capital. Ms. Burney founded Zane Venture Fund, a seed fund that would invest in underrepresented founders with the goal of closing the funding gap and generating high returns for investors, as well as Zane Access, which provides early-stage companies led by diverse teams access to cross-functional experts, resources, best practices, and customized content critical to accelerating growth.

Titus Calloway is an aspiring serial entrepreneur based in Tampa, Florida. He is the co-founder of BlackLaunch LLC, a social mission-driven startup platform that’s connecting Black founders to venture capital. He is also launching his second startup, ReLo, the first social relocation app that connects people moving to the same cities.