Today at the IDEA Awards! Meet the JEDIs + over $1.9 million in software grants

Join Data 360 today in celebrating our partners and our community today in the first annual IDEA Awards where we will be giving out $1.9 million in software grants!

And, we have two great parts of the IDEA Awards happening today 4/23!

First, we are honoring three JEDIs or those community partners who advocate for Justice Equity Diversity and Inclusion in the corporate, government and technology sectors. Each JEDI can pick from any of our software grants up to $150,000 for their organization or their own entrepreneurial endeavors.

Second, we are giving away over $1.9 million in software grants for our JEDIs of the Year, 2020-2021 Women's Initiative, including our International Women's Day Celebration with Google Developers Group, and 2021 University Hackathon with Google Developers Group. Join us to meet and mingle with the winners!

There's still time to RSVP for the IDEA Awards, learn about these startups and help pick the top startup to win up to $950,000 in software grants and $50,000 in Data 360 Library resources.

2021 IDEA Awards JEDI Honorees

The JEDI honorees this year are:

Our JEDI Leader of the year is Subash D'Souza.

Subash D'Souza is a Data Evangelist. He is the founder and organizer of Data Con LA formerly known as Big Data Day LA, a data conference based in Sunny Southern California. He is also the founder for Data 4 Good, a public entity using data to solve social causes. Subash's passions lie in building scalable and performant systems. Subash was recognized by the City of LA for his work in helping make data more transparent to the community.

Data Con LA

Data Con LA was founded on the premise of delivering a cost effective way of sharing data knowledge and learnings with the community at large in the SoCal region. Data Con LA started off as Big Data Camp and then was rebranded to Big Data Day LA before its current incarnation as Data Con LA. The conference started off with a way to host an annual quality conference for a low price. For the first 5 years, we didn't charge our attendees a fee. It's only when we started growing larger, we needed an effective way of ensuring attendance that we charged a low entry fee. We continue with the mantra that Data learnings should not be siloed but shared with the community. Data Con LA would not have been possible without the community and this is a conference for the community hosted by hundreds of volunteers who share their love and passion for data. Data Con LA has grown over the years to over thousands of attendees. Data Con LA was awarded a Certificate of Recognition by the City of LA for the work it has contributed so far

Data 4 Good

D4G started as a premise and offshoot of Data Con LA. The thought was that with the large community we have with data Con LA, we were looking into ways to contribute back in more meaningful ways that will help strengthen society. By using data, which is where we feel we can contribute the most, we could potentially use the crowdsourcing help of the community to address social problems such as Poverty, Education, Homelessness, Environments, Social Justice issues and others. By working with public and private interests, we could form a more collaborative thought process around what it means to collect data and more effectively, into using the data to help address these challenges. Data 4 Good is a registered non profit organization.

Our JEDI Nonprofit of the Year is Women in Big Data and Board Member, Regina Karson

Regina is a native Californian who grew up on the beaches of southern California. Currently, she lives in San Francisco and has spent most of her career in Silicon Valley. She is eclectic in her interests and an avid world traveler.

She has both a business and a technical background professionally and educationally.  She has held senior roles in marketing, business development, sales, and engineering. Currently she has her own technical marketing consulting practice with clients such as SAP, and Hitachi Vantara.

Regina is a STEM advocate and helped grow Women in Big Data (an all-things data community) from 1500 to over 17K members in six continents. She was instrumental in founding a Chapter in Nigeria. Regina served as the San Francisco Bay area chapter director where she built the membership to over 3200 members, has served as a Board member and now is on the Advisory Board to WiBD.

Women in Big Data

The goal of the Women in Big Data (WiBD) is to strengthen the diversity in the big data field and to develop leaders. We do this through technical training, career development, mentoring, and networking.

Women in Big Data started as a grass-roots organization in 2015 with the mission to inspire and connect women in big data careers. Starting with 15 members and one chapter in San Francisco’s Bay Area, the WiBD community grew to over 17,000 members across 37 chapters and six continents spreading inspiration, growing networks, and promoting member success on an ever-expanding platform.

In 2020, the organization filed paperwork that shifted Women in Big Data from grassroots to non-profit, expanding funding capabilities and laying a foundation for a new mission. The founders realized that, as important as inspiration and connection are, their ability to move the needle on a future in which gender and resources don’t limit equitable participation is finite. A new mission was outlined to cultivate tangible opportunities; unlock latent potential, act as a catalyst for advancement, and empower equity allies of any gender.

Women in Big Data is an inclusive community who appreciate that, in the broadest sense, big data is a tool being harnessed at every level, in every industry today, to shape tomorrow. Broader diversity among leaders and practitioners will improve the use and function of big data, ensuring a future that’s better for all of us.

Our JEDI Funder of the Year is IFund Women of Color and its Founder, Olivia Owens.

Olivia Owens is the Creator & General Manager of IFundWomen of Color, the platform for women of color to raise capital through crowdfunding, grants, coaching, and the connections needed to launch and grow successful businesses. This funding ecosystem is designed to empower early-stage, women entrepreneurs and bridge the funding gap for women of color. Olivia was a founding team member of IFundWomen and managed Business Development and Partnerships. IFundWomen launched in 2016 and continues to help women raise millions of dollars in capital. Before launching IFundWomen of Color, Olivia’s leadership brokered critical partnerships to help scale the business (Unilever, Visa, adidas). She supported the creation of IFundWomen’s proprietary coaching program and helped build-out one of the nation’s largest connected communities of women business owners through the platform. Olivia previously held positions at Under Armour in People & Culture. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Maryland.

iFundWomen of Color

IFundWomen of Color was created with our founding partner Caress, a division of Unilever, to help diverse entrepreneurs bring their dreams into reality through raising capital via crowdfunding and providing grants, coaching, and the connections needed to launch and grow successful businesses.

Did you know that the 1,800 new businesses started by women in this country every single day and of those, 89% are founded by a woman of color? (Source: American Express) Yet, it’s extremely difficult for these new businesses to get funding.

We launched IFundWomen of Color as the leading platform for women of color to raise capital through crowdfunding, grants, coaching, and the connections needed to launch and grow successful businesses. It is the go-to funding ecosystem designed specifically for diverse entrepreneurs who are early-stage entrepreneurs.

As the Creator & General Manager of IFundWomen of Color, I am extremely proud that 30% of the funds raised through IFundWomen have been raised by women of color, but there’s more work to be done. The data shows there are deeper disparities experienced by diverse founders when it comes to accessing funds.

We all know the stats: Latinx women receive 0.32% of the venture capital pie, while black women receive an even more disturbing .0006%. (Source: Project Diane)

Plus, congratulations to these budding and growing entrepreneurs for their software grants!!!!!

The winners of the 2021 software grants from the Data 360 University Hackathon projects are:

University Hackathon Projects

$10,000 Amazon

$1,000 Miro

$2,000 Bubble

$4,000 Google Cloud

Xiao Zhang, Amasu

$20,000 in free processing in Stripe credits

Up to $5,000 in AWS Credits

Up to $2,000 in Airtable Credits

$480+ in Hubspot Credits

$1,000 Sendgrid Credits

$1,000 Miro Credits  

Jewell Singletary, Gratitude Griot

$20,000 free processing in Stripe credits

Up to $5,000 in AWS Credits

Up to $2,000 in Airtable Credits

$480+ in Hubspot Credits

Lifetime #Blacklivesmatter Buffer Pro Account ($780 per year)

$1,000 Sendgrid Credits

$1,000 Miro Credits  

Mikayla O'Reggio, Activism Always

$20,000 in free processing in Stripe credits

Up to $5,000 in AWS Credits

Up to $2,000 in Airtable Credits

$480+ in Hubspot Credits

Lifetime #Blacklivesmatter Buffer Pro Account

$1,000 Sendgrid Credits

$1,000 Miro Credits  

Donna Sanders, Virimodo

$20,000 free processing in Stripe credits

Up to $5,000 in AWS Credits

Up to $2,000 in Airtable Credits

$480+ in Hubspot Credits

Lifetime #Blacklivesmatter Buffer Pro Account ($780 per year)

$1,000 Sendgrid Credits

$1,000 Miro Credits  

Jacqueline Schafer, Clearbrief.ai

$20,000 in free processing in Stripe credits

$10,000 Volody contract management Credits

$50,000 in free processing in Chargebee

$75,000 in Zendesk

Up to $25,000 in AWS Credits

Up to $2,000 in Airtable Credits

$1,000 Sendgrid Credits

$1,000 Miro Credits

Andrea Wang, AHEAD Medicine

$20,000 in free processing in Stripe credits

$50,000 in free processing in Chargebee

Up to $25,000 in AWS Credits

Up to $2,000 in Airtable Credits

$1,000 Sendgrid Credits

$1,000 Miro Credits

Adonica Shaw, Wingwomen

$40,000 Amplitude

$20,000 in free processing in Stripe

$50,000 in free processing in Chargebee

$75,000 in Zendesk Credits

$5,000 to $10,000 in Intercom Credits

$2,000 to $100K Google Cloud Credits

Up to $2,000 in Airtable Credits

$1,000 Sendgrid Credits

$1,000 Notion.so Credits

Lifetime #Blacklivesmatter Buffer Pro Account ($780 per year)

Lisa Bailey, FeaturesFirst Auto

$50,000 in Segment Credits

$60,000 in Courier.com Credits

$75,000 in Zendesk Credits

$5,000 to $10,000 in Intercom Credits

$2,000 in Bubble.io Credits

$2,000 to $100K Google Cloud Credits

Up to $2,000 in Airtable Credits

$1,000 Sendgrid Credits

$1,000 Notion.so Credits

Lifetime #Blacklivesmatter Buffer Pro Account ($780 per year)

Geeta Banda, Diana.AI

$20,000 in free processing in Stripe

$50,000 in free processing in Chargebee

$75,000 in Zendesk Credits

$5,000 to $10,000 in Intercom Credits

$2,000 to $100K Google Cloud Credits

Up to $2,000 in Airtable Credits

$1,000 Sendgrid Credits

$1,000 Notion.so Credits

Lindsey Tropf, Immersed Games

$50,000 in Segment Credits

$20,000 in free processing in Stripe credits

$50,000 in free processing in Chargebee

$4,000 in Freshworks Credits

$1,000 to $100,000 in AWS Credits

Up to $2,000 in Airtable Credits

$1,000 Sendgrid Credits

$1,000 Miro Credits