ReThink
Austin 
2021

Waziri Garuba, CEO of Harlem Labs, presented us to Ellen Bailey, VP of Diversity and Culture at Harvard Business Publishing, a proud sponsor of ReThink Austin 2022. She talked about how important it is to set ourselves up for success and to have a personal board of directors. She described a personal board as a group of people who can actually help you get where you want to go.

Austin Urban Technology Movement (AUTMHQ), in partnership with Harlem Labs, is presenting ReThink Austin for the fourth time during SXSW in March 2022. This year's theme is "Leading by Action," and it will include a series of events featuring leaders from the communities we represent. Leaders will discuss how to establish your own professional board, display an interactive display on NFTs, and talk space technology; there will also be a session led by phenomenal women, all while we enjoy music and party! ReThink Austin is a powerful gathering that focuses on topics affecting central Austin such as technology, entrepreneurship, community impact, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

This panel, which was moderated by Paty Sesma, VP of MarCom at AUTMHQ, provided an excellent opportunity to share the stories of accomplished women in technology. We had a really fascinating and informative conversation about the challenges that women face in the workplace or as entrepreneurs. We talked about Impostor Syndrome and, of course, the significant achievements of our panelists, Taisha Dotson, Melinda Garvey, Muna Hussaini, and Mercedes Ballard. This was such an uplifting discussion.

ReThink Austin was created in 2019 to "rethink" the trajectory of the city and cultivate a diverse community across the realms of entrepreneurship, technology, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and community impact. Every quarter, ReThink Austin inspires collaboration in order to eliminate the racial, economic, social, and political divides that exist in our society. Join our first panel on forming integrated partnerships across sectors with a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens.

GRAMMY Award-nominated artist SaulPaul graced us with his presence and deliver an inspirational speech. He shared a bit of his personal life experience as well as the lessons he learned through hardship and overcoming challenges since he was a child.

Deepika Sangam, Ph.D., NASA EPDC Education Specialist at Texas State University, spoke on how space technology drives exploration. She discussed anticipated NASA milestones and the importance that a diverse workforce may offer to space technology exploration.

How worried should we be about our privacy and data in the twenty-first century as technology evolves? How concerned should we be about our digital footprint when we use the Internet? During this session, we want to raise awareness about our data trail and how each click on our devices leaves an imprint that another person may view. We are leaving traces of our online behavior for others to follow. These are just a few of the many questions we will take away from this session.

The Culture Crawl ATX podcast, presented by Michael Ward Jr. and Donald Scott II, which is intended to foster togetherness, invited Destin Bell, a motivated entrepreneur and Michael Odokara-Okigbo, founder of NKENNE, the first African Language Learning App on the market, to join the stage to describe what gaming and gamification are as well as the influence these have on STEM.