Tastemaker Cleavon Blair: The Programmer Entrepreneur

One of the most memorable scenes in the hit movie The Social Network showed five people furiously programming on laptops in the middle of a dark and crowded room.  They are taking shots of alcohol at regular intervals while trying to hack into a server as the crowd cheers them on.  Two of the programmers raise their hands, and Mark Zuckerberg walks over to inspect their code.  He turns to one and says, “Welcome to Facebook,” ending a rather unique internship application process.

One interesting thing about this scene is that none of the programmers (nor anyone else in the room) are black or Latino.  Cleavon Blair aims to change that in the real world by creating programming conferences to encourage African Americans and Latinos to consider a career writing code.

Known as the co-founder of job hunting website TechPloyr, Blair’s journey to becoming a Tastemaker was a fascinating one.  I had the opportunity to interview Blair and learn about his start as a technologist, the creation of TechPloyr, his plans for nurturing minority programmers, and what technological trends to watch in 2011.

An Indirect Path to Technology

Unlike others who have Blair’s level of technical skill, he was not fascinated by technology as a child.  In fact, the opposite was true.

“I didn’t have the typical “first experience” with technology,” Blair explains.  “As a child, we had a computer in the home, but I didn’t want to have anything to do with it.  I just had no interest in computers, technology, etc. “

However, after entering college with a goal to become a psychiatrist by studying psychology and biology, Blair was uninterested in his classes.

“After my first two Psychology classes, I knew there was no way I could continue studying that curriculum, it was just too dry.  So, at the end of my freshman year in college,  I spent a fair amount of time and energy trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up,” Blair says.

Blair accidentally registered for an introduction to programming course during his sophomore year.  He didn’t realize his mistake until the first day of the class.

“I thought I had registered for a class about spreadsheets, etc.  So you can imagine my shock on the first day of class with the professor talking about Pascal, programming and a bunch of other stuff that I absolutely did not understand,” Blair recounts.  “The only thing that kept me from dropping the class was the fact the professor was so passionate about programming.  I mean, I could see that he thoroughly enjoyed programming and teaching it, so I had to stay to see what was keeping this man so hyped about this stuff.”

The passion of his professor inspired Blair to dedicate himself to mastering the challenge of programming.  He spent late nights learning the Pascal language until he began to understand how it worked.

“Something just kind of clicked for me, it was like I had found my calling.  It was the most fun thing I had done in my life, at that point.  I just got hooked and wanted more…,” Blair says.

Creating TechPloyr.com

Blair took his growing mastery of programming and applied it to the challenge of learning an increasingly popular language:  Ruby on Rails.  He took the approach of training himself in Ruby as if he was given a work assignment to create a job board application.

As the economy entered the current recession, Blair began thinking about the requirements his application would need to help the growing number of unemployed workers.  He implemented features to meet these requirements and realized the flexibility of Rails.  Blair also came to understand that he had a tool that could help people searching for work.

“I just felt like I wanted to help in some way, and my mind immediately shifted towards this training application I had written.    After that I asked a number of people that I’ve worked with during my career if they would like to start a company, and the rest is history.  The product has only been up and running a couple of months and we’ve received great feedback and usage in that amount of time,” Blair says.

Helping Young Minorities Get into Tech

Recognizing that media portrayals of African Americans as rappers, athletes, etc., limit the ability of young black people to consider careers in technology, Blair wants to change how technologists are viewed.

“One thing that I’m exploring is having an annual programming conference for African-American and Latinos,” Blair explains.  “If I can get that off the ground in the next year, I want to do sort of traveling shows to universities around the country to share programming with African American and Latino students where you can give them a real picture of what it’s like to be in this industry.”

Electric Vehicles:  A Tech Trend to Watch

Blair shared several technology trends to watch in 2011.  One was the growth of electric vehicle (EV) technology.

“EV technology is a great opportunity for the country to do something “different”, but at the same time help to move the country forward.  It is something that the country will have to “come together” on, and I’m interested in seeing if the country can put petty differences aside and move the country forward in some individual areas,” Blair says.

What’s Next for Blair

In addition to planning a programming conference for African Americans and Latinos, Blair has another online project in the near future.

“I’m currently working on a project with a partner organization to bring the first true online network to the internet.  I cannot give any more information than that at the moment, but it should be online early January 2011,” Blair says.

On Being a Tastemaker

“I feel honored!!  I mean, you do things in life and you never really expect people to take notice, but to have some recognition isn’t a bad thing, especially if it is something that can help someone else in their life somehow.  I mean, now more African Americans can see that there are lots of African-Americans in technology.  This is very important to me because every person who has ever been on Black Web 2.0 whether it is a small article, comments, etc., can be the vehicle to help an African-American kid to step towards technology.  If they see all of these people on the site, who weren’t afraid to step in the technical direction, it helps to give a young person courage to walk towards their own dreams.  So, I am honored to be selected as a Black Web 2.0 Tastemaker,” Blair says.

About the Author
Anjuan Simmons is an emerging technology consultant and freelance technology consultant currently working as a Director at Adverlyze, an online marketing strategy company. Anjuan has previously worked for Accenture and Deloitte. He has an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Texas A&M University. He can be found on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/anjuan and on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/anjuan.
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