Black Lives Matter
On June 10, 2020, thousands of researchers and STEM professionals around the country set aside the day to Strike for Black Lives. In solidarity, we spent time with our community, sharing and planning positive actions.
Organized by Black academics and practitioners in the physical sciences, the purpose of the strike was to give Black researchers time to heal, and to give other members of the STEM community time to reflect on their complicity in the system of inequity, inequality, and injustice that Black scientists and engineers face every day.
Our team recognizes that we are part of the problem. We have failed to do enough. Just 2 of the 56 fellows we have supported to date are Black, and the newest cohort we will soon announce includes no Black fellows.
Our mission at Activate is to empower entrepreneurial scientists and engineers to transform their research into world-changing products and businesses. We can’t succeed unless we reckon with the racism and inequity that pervades this country, putting up extra barriers to success for Black American scientists, engineers, and would-be entrepreneurs.
The Activate team believes that Black Lives Matter. Police brutality and racism against Black people must stop‚ finally and definitively. We stand with those battling for reforms in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others. At the same time, Activate commits to work in the spheres in which we have privilege to foster greater support and inclusion of Black people in our program and throughout the science innovation pipeline. Because we also believe that Black scientists matter, Black engineers matter and Black entrepreneurs matter in unlocking a better future with science and technology.
It is important to recognize that Black and Indigenous people are severely underrepresented in the hard sciences. Three percent of U.S. doctoral graduates in the physical sciences identified as Black or African American in 2018. But it is far too easy for an organization like ours to place the blame upstream and shrug our shoulders. By doing so, we are complicit in contributing to the problem. Instead, we must work harder to overcome our biases and those of the system at large.
So today, we are redoubling our commitment to improving the diversity of our team and fellowship community, as well as our efforts to be an anti-racist organization. We call on the science innovation and entrepreneurship community to join us in action, as we commit to improve across the full spectrum of our work:
Recruitment: Develop pipeline partnerships and increase our direct outreach to potential candidates that are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC)
Selection: Audit and improve the racial diversity of all external review pools, and ensure that all internal selection committees receive implicit bias training
Support: Introduce new education modules on racial justice, equity, and inclusion, and other support resources for current and alumni fellows
Network: Cultivate a more diverse network by tracking and boosting the percent of BIPOC visitors, speakers, and event attendees, and codify this as a core responsibility for a member of our partnerships team
Staff: Provide professional training to our staff so they can role model inclusive leadership, mentorship, and facilitation
Governance: Increase the racial diversity of Activate’s board of directors
Influence: Engage our sponsors and partners—a group that includes some of the most influential science innovation organizations in the world—in considering how they can work to cultivate a more just and equitable pipeline
Activate leadership will drive these commitments in partnership with Black members of our community. Our success won’t be measured in these words or actions, but in the degree of change we’re able to affect, both in our culture and impact. We ask you, our network of supporters from academia, government, industry, and the investment community to join us in this sustained effort and to hold us accountable to these commitments.