Emoji Tech Pictionary
👁️🧪✨ — Laser innovation that transformed cataract surgery and saved sight worldwide.
Who is Patricia Bath?
Early social network BlackPlanet co-founder who helped bring Black communities online.
Who is Omar Wasow?
Before “smart homes,” she patented a TV-camera security system with remote door control—basically the ancestor of today’s video doorbells.
Who is Marie Van Brittan Brown?
Three letters, one mindset: bringing Business, eXperience, and Technology into the same room to solve faster.
What is BXT?
💦🔫🌞 — backyard legend invented by a NASA/USAF engineer.
What is the Super Soaker?
🎮📼👾 — Led the first cartridge-based home console.
Who is Jerry Lawson?
A modern newsroom covering the Black innovation economy—built by this data-driven founder.
Who is Sherrell Dorsey (The Plug)?
Voice assistants wouldn’t hear you without the electret microphone he co-invented—now inside phones, sensors, and countless IoT gadgets.
Who is James E. West?
The firmwide movement where solvers build and share automations to kill busywork. (We’ll accept two names.)
What is citizen-led automation / digital upskilling?
🧑🏾💻🧑🏽💻🌉🏢 — Bridges Black and Latinx tech talent into internships & fellowships at top companies.
What is Code2040?
🎥🪞📺 — A NASA scientist whose “illusion transmitter” created 3D-like images.
Who is Valerie Thomas?
The “send-a-link” scheduling tool you probably used this week was founded by this Nigerian-born entrepreneur.
Who is Tope Awotona (Calendly)?
This founder’s company sends encrypted data between devices using ultrasonic sound—handy for pairing and contactless authentication without Wi-Fi.
Who is Rodney Williams (LISNR)?
Two words for the practice of making AI fair, transparent, and accountable—because trust is the deliverable.
What is Responsible AI?
🧑🏾💻📰🎤 — media + community behind AfroTech.
What is Blavity?
🧵🔦🌐 — Fiber + light = faster networks—this engineer helped supercharge fiber-optic manufacturing.
Who is Thomas Mensah?
Champion of ProjectDiane, she grew digitalundivided to fuel Black & Latina women founders with data and programs.
Who is Kathryn Finney?
She built a smart-retail platform that makes kiosks & vending machines “talk”: computer vision + analytics = connected stores in a box.
Who is Dawn Dickson-Akpoghene (PopCom)?
When PwC “goes cloud,” these are the three hyperscalers most clients ask about.
What are AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud?
🎮🏫🏆📡 — Makes high school esports official with leagues, schedules, and stats.
What is PlayVS?
❄️🚛🥬 — Mobile refrigeration that made fresh food long-haul possible.
Who is Frederick McKinley Jones?
Grooming brand Bevel—a tech-enabled DTC play from this founder.
Who is Tristan Walker?
His smartphone-controlled MekaMon robot blended AR with responsive robotics—a consumer IoT icon that inspired STEM learning.
Who is Silas Adekunle?
A hands-on BXT session where cross-functional teams co-create using sticky notes or virtual whiteboards to test ideas fast.
What is a BXT sprint (or BXT workshop)?
🧑🏾💻⌨️🖥️🧩 — Professional network—styled like a command—that levels up Black software engineers with mentorship and jobs.