17 Jun Five Black-Owned Tech Companies You Should Know About
Atlanta is an exceptional city for many reasons. There is no denying the talent, the growth of businesses, the support of the community, and the many opportunities that this city holds. We want to take the opportunity to highlight a few of the incredible Black community members and friends who have created technology space in this city. They have founded incredible establishments and helped to develop some of our technology into what it is today.
Tope Awotona – Founder, Calendly
Calendly was founded in September of 2013 by Tope Awotona. Tope is originally from Nigeria and moved to Atlanta with his family in 1996. He would later become a UGA graduate and entrepreneur.
Tope’s company, Calendly, is a scheduling software platform that allows business professionals to meet with clients and co-workers without the back and forth emails. Calendly can connect to 6 of your calendars to quickly check availability. The company has grown rapidly as part of Atlanta Tech Village and has served close to 30 million people worldwide.1
Photo: Atlanta Tech Village
Farah Allen – Founder and CEO, The Labz
Farah Allen is the CEO and founder of The Labz, which is a collaborative platform that helps independent musicians safely create and protect their music. The Labz provides timestamps, automatic archives, and stores everything on the blockchain. The platform also allows multiple artists to collaborate and build tracks through an online portal that verifies each contributing artist’s percentage.
Farah began her business after seeing that the music industry lost $12.5 billion a year due to copyright infringement.2 Musicians can use the platform to make sure that their music is protected and carefully documented.
Photo: Lioness Magazine
Amari Ruff – Founder and CEO, Sudu
Amari Ruff noticed an opportunity in the trucking business and took the risk to start Sudu. The once homeless entrepreneur began his company without a degree or an idea of how to run a business. Today his business is reportedly worth over eight-figures.
Sudu is an Atlanta-based trucking company that provides a platform that matches shippers and carriers based upon route optimization. They work with minority, women, and veteran-owned trucking firms.
Photo: Biz Journals
Liberty White – Founder, CHOZEN MEDIA
Liberty is the Founder, a Producer, and Creative Director at CHOZEN MEDIA, a video marketing agency. She has over 17 years of multi-media experience and is a woman of many admirable talents. She is a member of Women in XR Atlanta, is on the leadership team of a DTM Toastmasters, she serves on the advisory board of WOE and REFACTR.TECH, and is the Co-Founder of ATL WEBFEST, the first web series festival in the Southeast. Her talents include the production of social media videos to teach on the newest gadgets in tech, and she is also an FAA Part 107 Certified Commercial Drone Pilot. She enjoys teaching clients how to use content to increase sales and connectivity.
Photo: General Assembly
Doll Avant – Founder and CEO, Aquagenuity
Doll is an award-winning Data Scientist, TEDx speaker, and Harvard graduate. She is the founder and CEO of Aquagenuity, an app that leverages artificial intelligence to help everyday people and cities protect and monitor their water quality and health by asking, “What’s in Your Water?”
Doll’s company has gained recognition by Google, Forbes, NASA, the U.S Department of Defense Security Innovation Network, and WIRED magazine. In January 2020, Aquagenuity launched the Water Genome Project alongside the Georgia Aquarium.3 The project is an initiative designed to map all the world’s water (city-by-city) to provide insights into water quality.
Photo: Forbes
