“I think overall the greatest opportunity that we have to change generational wealth and generational inequality is through the startup scene,” Harold Hughes, the founder of online sports ticket sales site Bandwagon, said at an event for the Black Angel Tech Fund in Atlanta.
A report from Black Tech Mecca in Chicago found that median black salaries in the tech sector, at $64,000, were close to the overall median of $70,000.
“Technology [is] not a silver bullet [but] when properly leveraged, it has proven to be an amazing catalyst for transformation,” the report states.
More work is needed to get blacks into Chicago’s tech and tech startup scenes: the black employment rate is growing at a slower rate to other demographics, and blacks still represent the smallest share (9%) of the sector.
In Atlanta, the Black Tech Angel fund doesn’t claim to be an impact fund beyond trying to support more black entrepreneurs.
It has invested $1 million in six black-owned startups, including Bandwagon, based in Greenville, S.C.
