“Your network is your net worth,” Kimberly Bryant, the founder of Black Girls Code and Black Innovation Lab, where she currently serves as CEO, told a select cohort of Cornell Engineering’s emerging student leaders at an event on April 20.
Bryant was the keynote speaker at this year’s capstone event for WE LEAD, a competitive program for undergraduates administered by the Cornell Engineering Leadership program. WE LEAD supports Cornell engineers on their path to becoming confident, powerful and inclusive future leaders by offering development workshops, personal coaching, networking and other opportunities.
“It was incredibly impactful for our WE LEAD participants to hear from a national figure like Kimberly Bryant,” said Kelly Northridge, a professor of practice in the Engineering Leadership Program and the director of the WE LEAD program. “Her valuable insights into the power of resilience, networking and defining your core values underscored so many of the lessons and tools we aim to impart to our students through this program.”
Bryant was an engineer working in biotechnology prior to founding Black Girls Code in 2011. The nonprofit was inspired by Bryant’s own school-aged daughter, who was unable to find any local groups adequately serving populations not traditionally represented in engineering when she wanted to pursue technology-related activities. Black Girls Code grew rapidly into a national — and then an international — organization.
For her work, Bryant has been recognized as a White House Champion of Change for Tech Inclusion, received a Smithsonian Magazine American Ingenuity Award for Social Progress and was a keynote speaker at SXSW EDU, among numerous other recognitions.
After parting ways with Black Girls Code, Bryant created Black Innovation Lab, a Memphis-based accelerator focused on supporting socially and economically disadvantaged entrepreneurs and innovators in Memphis, Tennessee.
“We are grateful to Kimberly for sharing her story and what she has learned upon her remarkable leadership journey,” said Erica Dawson, the Nancy and Bob Selander Executive Director of the Engineering Leadership Program and a professor of practice. “It is truly invaluable for our students to hear from and interact with someone who has applied these leadership principles so powerfully out in the world.”
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