2022 Reflections on Tsai CITY's Continuing Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

In my role as executive director of the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale, I’m often impressed by the work our students, alumni, and colleagues are doing. This is especially true of Tsai CITY’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

Tsai CITY launched in 2017 with the mission of inspiring students from diverse backgrounds and disciplines to seek innovative ways to solve real-world problems. This mission fits well within Yale University’s mission, which is interdisciplinary, and focused on the importance of diversity and impact. Belonging at Yale has further guided efforts across the university to set “high standards of acceptance, inclusion, and belonging.”

Diverse perspectives fuel innovative thinking, so DEI is an essential part of our work at Tsai CITY. When students collaborate at and engage with our center, they do more than generate big ideas – they develop the skills to bring their projects to life, from launching entrepreneurial ventures to engaging in civic action.

Tracking Our Progress on DEI

To hold ourselves accountable for growing and strengthening our DEI initiatives, we analyze our data annually. Tsai CITY’s most recent annual report includes a look back at our first five years, and we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished. We’ve built a strong track record of student engagement across demographics that reflect the diversity of the 耶鲁大学 student body.

In addition, several years ago we began asking those joining our mentor network to disclose on a voluntary basis aspects of their identities that they believed were important in shaping their perspectives. While this information is not shared, it has allowed our team to evaluate whether our 500+ mentor network has the same diversity of background and discipline that we aim to achieve with the students who engage with us.

In research conducted by VentureWell in 2020, Tsai CITY emerged in the top 10% of innovation centers in DEI. In 2021, Tsai CITY co-wrote a report with VentureWell as part of their “Advancing Equity” initiatives, in which we detailed the Social Equity Racial Justice framework through which we review our programs before launch. We recognize the importance of creating more equitable and inclusive pathways to innovation and entrepreneurship, and our Pathways Initiative clarifies for students what resources, programming, and mentorship opportunities are available to them depending on their interests. We were delighted when the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers recognized our accomplishments last year with an award for Outstanding Emerging Entrepreneurship Center. All of this work has been made possible through the creativity and commitment of Tsai CITY’s team, itself comprised of individuals from diverse backgrounds and disciplines who value our person-focused, process-oriented approach to experiential learning. This year we are undertaking a review and planning process to develop new programming in 2023-2024 that will further advance our DEI goals.

This significant progress was made possible through creating and adhering to an organizational strategy and to everyday practices that support our mission. We build DEI into every level of our organization's functioning. We’ve created a place for belonging through our Tsai CITY Community Norms, through our recruitment practices, and by providing sensitivity training for everyone on our team so that we can reduce bias in our decision-making. Focusing on the day-to-day is the only way to achieve the big picture goals.

Shining a Light on Tsai CITY Alumni and Affiliates

The data show that Tsai CITY’s DEI work is making a positive impact. We are also deeply inspired by the growing list of Yale alumni and affiliates who are actively engaged in bold initiatives to impact and disrupt systemic biases in entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems.

I’ll highlight a few of them here:?

Gary Stewart , alum of Yale Law School , recently joined Techstars New York City powered by JP Morgan as managing director. This accelerator provides funding and support for diverse founders. (Applications to Techstars are open year-round.)

Lindsay Siegel , Yale School of Management alum, is Head of Impact at Company Ventures, which recently launched Boost, a 4-month program for historically underserved tech founders.

Kathryn Finney , Yale School of Public Health alum, launched Genius Guild, which invests in diverse founders, focusing on high-growth companies that promote healthy communities and environments. She also published the WSJ bestseller Build the Damn Thing: How to Start a Successful Business if You’re Not a Rich White Guy.

Caroline Tanbee Smith and Margaret Kyongjin Lee , Yale College alumnae, co-founded Collab in New Haven, Connecticut. Collab is a community-based organization that provides entrepreneurship and innovation programming for local residents.

Gabby Cazeau , Yale School of Management alum, is a Principal at Harlem Capital and a former innovation advisor at Tsai CITY. Harlem Capital is committed to “changing the face of entrepreneurship” and Gabby regularly publishes tips for founders and funders on LinkedIn to share relevant knowledge.?

The Social Justice Fund, founded by the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation, recently announced BK-XL, an early-stage startup accelerator for BIPOC founders in Brooklyn, launched in partnership with Visible Hands. (Applications are now open.) Daniel Acheampong , managing director of Visible Hands, is also a venture advisor for students in Tsai CITY’s venture development programs. We are fortunate to be able to have Joe Tsai, Clara Wu Tsai, and Daniel Acheampong regularly on campus to engage with 耶鲁大学 student innovators.

I can’t wait to see what our students and alumni accomplish in 2023.

Are you doing similar work? I’m interested to hear from Yale alumni and others in the innovation and entrepreneurship community working on making innovation ecosystems more inclusive. I hope that together we can expand this community so that it looks as diverse as our cities and neighborhoods.