Tag: Underrepresented Founders

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words – and, according to Forrester Research, a minute of video may be worth 1.8 million words. For businesses ranging from ecommerce to social media, visual content is worth more than the amount of words that it conveys: it is an opportunity to build customer engagement, increase trust and safety, enhance personalization, and glean actionable insights based on content engagement. Coactive helps data practitioners derive rapid insights from unstructured data at scale and with minimal supervision. Accessible by user interface or APIs, the platform’s capabilities range from intelligent search to production analytics that use the full power of SQL.

To celebrate Black History Month, AWS Startups is excited to spotlight Tiffany Johnson, global business development manager on the AWS Startups underrepresented founders business development team, who has spent her eight years at Amazon challenging customer perceptions and building bigger and better.

AWS Startups is excited to announce the inauguration of a global movement, AWS Startups Women’s Demo Week, set to take place annually from November 6th – 10th.

Reports show that only 1% of venture-backed founders are Black, 1.8% Latino, and 9% women. AWS aims to help change that. Last year, we launched the AWS Impact Accelerator for startups led by underrepresented founders—giving high-potential, pre-seed startups the tools and knowledge to reach key milestones, such as raising funds or being accepted to a seed-stage accelerator program, while creating powerful solutions in the cloud. Read on to find out more about each of the three cohorts we’ve held so far.

As part of our $30 million commitment to provide underrepresented founders with the resources, capital, and community they need to level the startup playing field, we are announcing today the 20 companies that will participate in the AWS Impact Accelerator Latino Founders Cohort. The program kicks off this week in our HQ in Seattle and closes in 8 weeks, with an investor pitching day in New York—including the Nasdaq Closing Bell Ceremony, which is set to foreshadow a successful journey to the Latino-led companies that joined this cohort.

Founded in 2020, Women@Startups aims to provide visibility and voice to the challenges that women founders and women in technology face. The group intends to create a sense of belonging and support for women in tech, working to address the inequities and challenges faced by women in the industry. Through employee and customer support functions, the organization provides coaching, technical support, and connections to organizations that support funding.

To celebrate International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, we’re featuring posts throughout the month that highlight women in technology who are building and creating. Meet Jill Stelfox. Jill is a serial founder and entrepreneur, holds multiple patents, and is the chief executive officer (CEO) and executive chair of Panzura. Panzura’s award-winning CloudFS global file system gives the ability to access files from anywhere with visibility, security, and control.

At AWS, we know that building a dream is best achieved by having support from people like you who want to get where you’re going as much as you do. To celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, we’re recognizing the achievements and contributions of Hispanic and Latino Americans who have inspired others to achieve success. In Part 1, we hear from Israel Niezen, co-founder and CEO of Factored, a company that develops advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and data science solutions for US companies. Per Israel, they also “employ engineers in Latin America whose individual economic impact leads to the creation of four-to-five additional jobs in local communities.”