AFROTECH Conference is the largest conference for Black tech professionals that offers not only educational information, but also the chance for attendees to meet with job recruiters at the most recognized companies nationwide.
The career fair is one of the most popular elements of the event. As AfroTech has continued to evolve, so has the number of companies like JPMorgan Chase & Co, Playstation, Amazon, American Express, Riot Games and many more looking to recruit exceptional talent. Each year, thousands of people worldwide come out hoping to land their next job. The result? People are succeeding with this goal.
Blavity recently learned the stories of two prior and current attendees who got a gig due to the conference.
James Miles II is a senior human resources business partner for onboarding at Toast, a “restaurant point of sale and management system that helps restaurants improve operations, increase sales and create a better guest experience” per its website. He attended the annual summit in 2018 with the intent to get hired by a new company.
“There is always a big hype around tech from the pay [to] the lifestyle [to]the smarts of its employees, etc.,” Miles told Blavity. “I wanted to see one, how I matched up against the best and brightest, and two, I also wanted to get a taste of what all the other perks would be like.”
Ready to leave the manufacturing industry for a career in technology, he believed AFROTECH would allow him to do so.
“I was expecting the conference to be a melting pot of tech companies coming ready to hire candidates. It did live up to my expectations. I left with approximately seven job offers, some were even on the spot,” he said.
He uploaded his resume to AFROTECH’s talent portal to assist him in gaining interest from companies who had a table at the job fair takes place. One of the enterprises intrigued by his work experience was Amazon. After reviewing his resume, the e-commerce and multimedia digital platform reached out for an onsite interview regarding a potential human resources position. Following the conference, he continued the interviewing process and eventually was offered the HRBP role. While there, he held three positions before moving to his current place of employment.
The next victory story falls on the side of entertainment and shows the range of possible jobs outside of tech available to registrants. Bobby Akinboro, a program manager at Microsoft, a recognized international music curator known as DJ Blast and the founder of Seattle’s Afrobeats festival Blast Fest, has a long-standing history with AFROTECH. His first time attending the convention was during its second year in 2017 in San Francisco. He recalled feeling happy he had the opportunity to experience an intentional innovative event for Black tech professionals.
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“I thought it was the most amazing thing. And at that point, I had just started DJing so I wasn’t really doing too many big events, but I saw a lot of the larger parties happening around AFROTECH at that point. It was still Toasted Life, it’s called The Fade,” he shared.
Having an unforgettable experience, Akinboro knew he’d return the following year. Ahead of the conference, he decided to pitch himself as a DJ to employees at Blavity.
“When I was getting ready for AFROTECH 2018, which was also in San Francisco, I started just sending emails to everyone with a Blavity email that I could find,” he said with a laugh. “I got connected with someone at the time who was over events and programming and they put me [on] at lunch.”
Landing a DJ session for lunch, which was in an “open space, kinda like a parking lot,” was his first corporate gig. Little did he know this was the start of his introduction and expansion into corporate America as a DJ.
“It was one of the smokiest foggiest days ever. It was cold and I was out there by myself DJing AFROTECH’s lunch, you know what I’m saying? And while I was DJing lunch, I was by myself so I was just having the time by myself and someone at Google saw me,” Akinboro explained. “Google was having an event in their office that day. They invited me over to come in DJ ’cause their DJ had canceled on them. So that’s how I built my first relationship with Google. And you know, that was all I did in 2018.”
With the many leaders onsite, he was noticed and eventually locked in contracts not only with AFROTECH for 2019 but also with other corporations.
“2019 comes around, now we’re in Oakland and that’s where I really got to go up. That’s when I started DJing for Google. That’s when I DJ’d for Amazon. That’s when I really started DJing for Microsoft. Like I was doing a lot more bigger events,” the entrepreneur disclosed. “Again, all through this guise of I had previously DJ’ed at AFROTECH. Although I did only lunch, all people knew was that I was at AFROTECH right? And then I continued to still do events for AFROTECH.”
He continued, “Now, fast forward to our first in-person one in Austin. And that’s when I did the corporate events. That’s when like AFROTECH [and] Blavity was booking me for everything, you know? And it was really, really cool how they started to amplify my brand alongside theirs, you know?”
Akinboro expressed his appreciation for Blavity’s team for helping change the trajectory of his DJ career as he’s worked with Microsoft, Amazon, Adobe, and Starbucks.
He’s never missed the annual conference since 2017 and has returned to DJ on behalf of Blavity and AFROTECH since 2018. While at this year’s, he spoke on noticing that the occurrence was needed for Black folks given the results of this year’s presidential election.
“I think a lot of people were down last week and they come here, they see Black excellence in all forms. They see people in all forms just enjoying one another,” he expressed. “Creating these spaces, creating this community, and realizing in a way not all hope is lost, you know? I’m really, really appreciative of what Blavity is to the community, what they do for the community. And I don’t think that’s an easily replaceable space that they hold.”
