Panel on 'Hidden Figures' Hosted by Soledad O'Brien

(From left to right: Elizabeth Gabler, President Fox 2000 Pictures, 20th Century Fox; Rashid Ferrod Davis, Founding Principal, P-TECH; Kristen Summers, Technical Delivery Lead, Watson Public Sector, IBM; Soledad O’Brien, journalist and panel moderator. Image: Black Enterprise)

Coinciding with the official nationwide launch of Hidden Figures, the biopic about three black women mathematicians who worked in the earliest days of the American space program, Soledad O'Brien hosted a panel on the movie and a discussion of women in science and tech.

Those mathematicians (Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Johnson, and Mary Jackson) did work that helped John Glenn orbit the Earth in the 1960s.

The panel at CES, the world’s largest technology show, included the film's director, Theodore Melfi, and one of its stars, Octavia Spencer as well as leaders in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and focused on the incredible achievements of the three mathematicians as depicted in the film and the ongoing push for women to succeed in STEM.



Soledad O’Brien said that the movie was an emotional experience for her because it not only recognizes the power of these women using math and science, but also what they accomplished socially. She was struck by how the women affected great change. “These are some tough, amazing women who really got the job done that needed to be done,” she said.

During the movie, Octavia Spencer’s character learns to program the IBM 7090 DPS—a vacuum-tube mainframe computer. IBM is one of the oldest tech companies in the world, forming in the 19th century. Its technology was used in World War II and for space exploration.

“Big Blue” also has an extensive history of diversity. “We’re so privileged to have had the IBM forefathers who hired the first black employee,” said Lindsay-Rae McIntyre, IBM’s chief diversity officer. That employee was Richard MacGregor hired in 1899 by IBM’s precursor company, the Computing Scale Company. In 1953, IBM hired its first black engineer and continues on a trajectory of diverse hiring today.

You can watch the IBM and Hidden Figures panel in its entirety at facebook.com/IBM/videos/1226504650773148/





Source: http://www.blackenterprise.com/technology/ibm-hidden-figures-celebrate-jeannette-epps-foremothers/

Soledad O’Brien Discusses Service at MLK Lecture at UNC

Photo by Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill

Soledad OíBrien concluded her keynote address at the MLK Celebration Lecture and Awards Ceremony at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill by asking the audience, “What are you going to do?”

Her talk was interspersed with clips from her Latino in America and Beyond Bravery: The Women of 9/11 documentaries highlighting how “uncomfortable conversations” could and should be opened and discussed. Her talk focused on the opportunity each and every individual has to spark social change.

“Every step forward toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering and struggle. What will be my service? To tell the stories of all Americans — whether they look like me or not, whether they agree with me or not — and seek to understand them and accurately reflect their stories.”

As with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whom she described as a regular man who decided he would do great things, “That means for the rest of us that we have that same opportunity,’’ said O’Brien.

O’Brien said her role in sparking social change is to continue to tell — and most importantly listen to — people’s stories.

In 2013, O’Brien launched Starfish Media Group, a multi-platform media production and distribution company dedicated to uncovering and producing stories that challenge the issues of race, class, wealth, poverty and opportunity through personal narratives. She originated the documentary series, In America, which included Black in America and Latino in America and is still produced by her production company.

Sources

• diversity.unc.edu/soledad-obrien-discusses-service-at-mlk-lecture/
• dailytarheel.com/article/2017/01/soledad-obrien-honors-martin-luther-king-jrr-s-legacy-with-celebration-speech
• heraldsun.com/news/look-to-yourselves-soledad-o-brien-says-it-s-our

A PowHERful Summit with Soledad O'Brien

Interview with Emmy-winning journalist Soledad O'Brien.
Her Starfish Foundation brought one of its "PowHERful Summit"
gatherings for young women to St. Paul's St. Catherine University in 2016.

Soledad O’Brien: Sharing Stories That Fly Under the Radar

On this martin Luther King, Jr. day, we share this talk with Soledad O’Brien at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, where she was honored with a 2016 Freedom Award, sponsored by FedEx.

O’Brien’s production company, Starfish Media Group, shares stories about people through their successes and struggles — stories she notes haven’t always received media attention in the past.

Soledad O'Brien, Working Mom

Soledad with her husband, Brad Raymond, and Sofia Elizabeth (2000), Cecilia (2002);
Twins, Charlie, and Jackson (2004)

Soledad O’Brien told Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. that growing up in Smithtown, a predominantly white town on Long Island, NY, her mixed race heritage – her mother’s Afro-Cuban roots and her father’s Irish Australian roots – made it difficult to fit in. Soledad credits her parents with giving her the strength to overcome discrimination.

Soledad O'Brien is herself in an interracial marriage and the mother of four children.

In an interview, she was asked about learning sign language after she found out one of her twins, Jackson, had a hearing problem.

No. It’s so hard. I’m terrible at sign language. It turns out Jackson is a very good lip reader and so it [diminished the need] to learn sign language. He’s great at sign language but he doesn’t use it a lot. He has a lot of language because he lost his hearing late in life — he was 7. We try to get him to read lips more because there aren’t that many people who know sign language. I’m just so slow. [Then she demonstrated.] Sloooow, and I’ve never ­gotten faster.

Does Soledad think any of her children may want to follow her into working in television?

I don’t think a single one. The better question is how many of my nieces and nephews. They don’t really live it. It’s Aww, auntie has a cool job. My children have zero interest. Now they’re young, so I don’t know that they have interest in careers, unless going to the mall is a career. I think my nieces who are now in their early 20s have really started reaching out; two of them work in journalism. My kids are just too little. [The eldest just turned 16] and her conversation is all around, Can I drive? Can I drive your car? How late can I drive? Can I have some money so I can go do something when I drive?