NewME Community Launches in Your Area

It’s been an amazing several months working on the NewME Accelerator but while we are focused on diversifying the tech industry by targeting the epicenter, Silicon Valley, the team here continued to think about, well… everyone else.  Getting into the NewME Accelerator is great but it’s no easy task.  We only accept 16 Founders per year!  That said it’s always been our goal to extend some of what we have learned into other communities across the country, and even across the globe.  CNN’s airing of Black in America 4, where NewME was featured, helped to quickly confirm what we had suspected.  And that was people wanted to be able to replicate, to a certain degree, the community that was developed with the NewME Accelerator in their own towns.  The number of emails we’ve gotten has been more than overwhelming and have come from folks who mostly want to do 1  of 4 things:

1. Help with NewME and/or asking for advice on developing something in their communities;
2. Asking for us to connect them with developers, designers, or co-Founders to help complete their project;
3. Asking if we could host something where they live;
4. Asking for help in educating themselves on HOW to launch a start-up and follow their dreams.

We are using Meetup.com’s Everywhere platform to empower YOU to achieve these things!  Enter stage right:

NewME Community

You can check-out the NewME Community page to learn more about the specifics and some topics to help get you started.  While these communities will start as informal meet-up groups so that you can meet other Founders and supporters who are part of the underrepresented in the tech industry (Blacks, Latinos, and Women), in 2012 we’ll be expanding to offer more support in your communities through education, workshops, and grants.

We already have 4 communities started:  Atlanta, Chicago, NYC, and the East Bay (CA).  We’ll also be announcing soon a Worldwide NewME Community Meetup day.  Stay Tuned & Get Empowered!

About the Author
Angela Benton is the Founder and Publisher of BlackWeb20.com. Her experience spans a variety of industries including consultative relationships with companies such as UPS, Bizjournals.com, Realestate.com, and Lendingtree.com.
See all posts by Angela.