The special thing about AFROTECH™ Conference is that even as new people are introduced to it each year, there are also those who have been there since the beginning in 2016. The “OGs” of the conference have not only seen AFROTECH™ grow but have also experienced their own development over the years. Among those who jumped on board since the inaugural conference in San Francisco, CA, is Ruben Harris, CEO of Career Karma and OutRival.
Harris’ work is centered on education and career placement, helping people and organizations connect with top talent while simplifying workflow and integrating efficient models through technology and AI. The admissions teams at Career Karma use OutRival’s technology to create conversational AI agents to serve millions of people a month who visit the site for career advice. Currently, OutRival owns Career Karma, and Harris is the leader of both entities.
Because of his emerging career in the tech space, Harris has been invited to speak at AFROTECH™ Conference several times. As a friend of Blavity CEO Morgan DeBaun, he has watched the conference grow into the massive convening it is today.
Although he has been able to grace the AFROTECH™ stage a few times, he has also leveraged his influence to pay it forward for other tech leaders.
“I was invited to speak in 2022 and said, ‘I don’t want to speak [alone]. I want somebody I’ve helped get a job to speak on stage with me so she can tell you how she used Career Karma to get a job at Accenture, and then I could fill in the story.’ So we did that talk,” Harris explained. “And after that the lady running things at Google came up to me, and that’s how we secured a deal with them.”
2022 would prove to be a pivotal year for Harris. Not only did he speak at the conference in November, but earlier in the year, Career Karma had announced a $40 million Series B funding round led by Top Tier Capital Partners, a global venture capital firm based in San Francisco. This game-changing fundraising followed a Series A round of $10 million, a seed round of $1.5 million, and a pre-seed round of $437,500.
Since then, Harris’s trajectory has been on the up and up. But it was the previously mentioned AFROTECH™ moment that helped propel Harris and his business, specifically when the Google representative caught up with him after the talk and let him know she had been trying to reach him for a while.
“She told me that she had been trying to get in contact with me and wanted to work together. So we put our heads together and created Black Genius Academy. That is actually an AFROTECH™ baby,” Harris stated.
That “baby” has grown into a contract where Harris and team are training 5,000-10,000 people as part of the tech equity collective, which is a group of other organizations with the mission to train hundreds of thousands and even millions of people, with the goal of equipping 1 billion people in tech over the next decade.
Convenings like the AFROTECH™ Conference are necessary for Black and brown people to not only connect but also leverage the many available assets during the conference to advance their careers and propel their futures. For Ruben Harris, the conference has done that and more.
AFROTECH™ 2024 is set to be a remarkable experience. Whether you’re aiming to boost your career, connect with leading professionals, or soak up the vibrant atmosphere of Black excellence in tech, this conference offers something for everyone. By using these tips and planning ahead, you’ll be ready to maximize your AFROTECH™ journey. Don’t let this opportunity pass you by — secure your spot and prepare for an exciting week in Houston, TX!
