The Ford Motor Company in conjunction with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, celebrated its commitment to innovation with its 17th Annual Ford Freedom Awards, which celebrated the achievements of past and present technology entrepreneurs.
The theme of the evening was Celebrating Technopreneurs: Builders of the Innovation Economy.
They paid homage to the achievements of three entrepreneurs who used technology to affect change: Ford Freedom Honoree Elijah McCoy, inventor; Ford Freedom Award Scholar, Laura Weidman Powers, founder of CODE2040; and special Legacy Award recipients Mitch Kapor, Lotus 1-2-3 developer, and his wife, Freada Kapor Klein, entrepreneur and social activist.
“At Ford, we recognize the power of innovation and technology and the impact it has on making our lives better,” said Ziad Ojakli, group vice president, government and community relations, Ford Motor Company. “We are proud to honor these diverse individuals for their pioneering work, and we further salute them for sparking the imagination of our youth.”
The Ford Freedom Award honoree is a distinguished African American who dedicated his or her life to improving the African American community and the world at large. The award is presented posthumously.
The Ford Freedom Award scholar is an African American who has excelled on a national or international level in their field. The scholar serves as a living legacy, carrying forth high ideals, and serving as inspiration for a new generation.
Take Laura Weidman Powers, who was a graduate student, studying youth development and the arts when someone suggested to her in 2009 that she apply for an internship at a tech company.
“I did it and fell in love with it,” Powers said.
From there she discovered that technology is an industry that encompasses everything that you do. She also discovered that there were few women and people of color studying or working in the field.
Seeing the need for action, Powers started CODE2040 in 2012, an organization that works in multiple ways to connect college students to high-demand tech jobs.
The organization helps to provide fellowship opportunities in Silicon Valley for Blacks and Latinos in engineering. CODE2040 takes its name from the year when ethnic minorities are expected to represent the majority of the U.S. population. The organization is working to ensure multicultural groups are trained to fill the growing number of STEM-related jobs. She named it 2040 to mark the year that census data project people of color will be in the majority in America.
With hard work and determination, the company has grown from one person, that being her in 2012, to 15 people today, and the number of fellows in a complex career program has grown from five in 2012 to 35 this summer.
Powers’ work at CODE2040 earned her this year’s recognition as the Ford Freedom Award Scholar.
This year, the Ford Freedom Award honoree was Elijah McCoy. The son of fugitive slaves, the Michigan-raised McCoy trained as a mechanical engineer and went on to receive nearly 60 patents, many of them involving lubrication for steam engines.
One invention, an automatic lubricator, distributed oil evenly over an engine’s moving parts, allowing locomotives and other machinery to run continuously for long periods of time without pausing for maintenance. McCoy died in Detroit in 1929.
This year a special Legacy Award was given to Mitch Kapor and his wife, Freada Kapor Klein. The two were honored for their philanthropic efforts toward educational access, diversification in technology to include more Blacks and Latinos and Latinas, and also creating technological social impact in various underrepresented communities.
Currently, only 5% of the tech workforce is Black and only 18% of the people studying computer science in American universities is Black. However, analyst envision that there will be 1.4 million new jobs in technology by 2020.
“One million of those jobs will go unfilled at the rate we’re going,” Powers said. “Our fellows leave with the skills, experience, confidence and connections to succeed. Technology is in every industry. It’s in sports, music, travel. Each of these industries relies on technology to function. They all have apps. Coding is really just a computer-related way to solve a problem.”
Other notables who attended the event and presented include Detroit native Big Sean, multiplatinum-winning musician and founder of the Sean Anderson Foundation; Van Jones, founder of #YesWeCode; and Barrington Irving, founder, Flying Classroom. Lyndsey Scott, technology expert, app developer, actress and Victoria Secret model, also served as a presenter at the Ford Freedom Award VIP reception and champagne red carpet host.
“African Americans have contributed to the technological advancement of the United States since its inception, so much so that our most recent permanent exhibit, ‘Inspiring Minds: African Americans in Science and Technology,’ is completely dedicated to exploring this fascinating history,” said Juanita Moore, president & CEO of The Wright Museum. “We’re proud to partner with Ford Motor Company in presenting this year’s program in a way that highlights technology and entrepreneurship – two areas very relevant to our society’s present and future.”
Proceeds from the event benefited the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, who is celebrating its 50 year anniversary.
Zack Burgess is an award winning journalist. He is the Director/Owner of OFF WOODWARD MEDIA, LLC, where he works as a writer, editor and communications specialist. His work can be seen at zackburgess.com. Twitter: @zackburgess1
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