Blacks In Tech L.A. serves as a community where like-minded individuals can share ideas, experiences, and information. BIT L.A. includes technology professionals, innovators and enthusiasts who are working with or interested in Web-based technologies. Along with including bloggers, digital media specialists, web designers, social media strategists, and software developers, the monthly meet-up also opens its doors to people who interested in learning more about tech.
During a recent Blacks In Tech L.A. meet-up, rolling out spoke with BIT L.A. member Chris Clark who shared his ideas on diversity in tech.
What is your background in tech?
I’m a software engineer at Google LAX and I’ve been at the company for about seven years. I’m heavily active in the community and I work to put on events like this just to share a lot of what Google has to offer with the community.
How did Blacks In Tech L.A. get started?
We’ve been doing it for about 6 years now, basically we wanted to open up the space to the community just as a forum for people to have technical discussions, share knowledge, and just get an opportunity to network with people both within Google and outside of Google.
How has the feedback been thus far?
It’s great. We get anywhere from 30 to 80 people that come, depending on the topic. We have different people speaking every month on whatever topic they choose. People volunteer to share knowledge, share their experiences. We’ve had people who are starting a business, or who work with certain technology. It’s been received great reception in the community.
What advice do you have for people who are seeking to work in the field of tech or start a tech-related business?
I think the biggest thing is just to network with people. It’s really about what you know and who you know. It’s important to understand if you want to get into the computer science field the fundamentals, but that gets you so far. You also have to network and be able to meet people and do these types of exchanges so that you can share information with other people, get a foot in the door wherever you want to go.
