your academic and your professional experiences.
And I know for me, when I was an undergrad,
I had to really take stock.
And, you know,
how was I treated throughout being a woman of color,
even a young girl that showed interest in science,
interest in STEM and math.
And I had to realize that, you know,
And then in that I started to realize
that I felt shame in my narrative.
I felt shame.
I felt all of these things like I wasn't good enough.
I couldn't compete.
I wasn't ready.
And then one day, you know within my 20s,
I had to take a step back and realize, you know,
And in the movie even, Hidden Figures,
we didn't even know that there are women that looks like us
that have moved the needle in STEM.
And that made me realize that, you know,
there is a responsibility to use our platform,
use our skills, our knowledge,
and even our experiences to begin to elevate those
that have not been,
that have been underestimated and overlooked.
And because of that,
it really inspired me to this journey on
how do I use my experiences, my skills
to build technology for the future.
- Yeah. I think all women of color have an experience
with imposter syndrome.
And it's because we don't have these conversations
about our shared experiences
and not even realizing that they're shared to begin with.
Shavonne, same question to you.
What inspired you to create Magic In Her Melanin?
- Yeah. Honestly, the gaps.
You can't be what you can't see summed up.
And for me, in being from San Diego,
both of my parents are entrepreneurs.
I grew up in small businesses,
my mom's hair salon and my dad's restaurant
When I think about Magic In Her Melanin
and just underrepresented creatives
and particularly Black creatives
and also Black women in STEM,
I think we share so many versions of our different stories,
but there's also nuance there.
There's also kind of specific learned and lived experiences,
and tear down these walls and barriers
that keep us from being transparent
and having to reinvent the wheel
and start from scratch and struggle
every time we're sort of met with challenges
in our careers and in our path.
And most of the time,
these challenges are so similar
and these problems are shared.
So with Magic and community,
it's all about helping to bridge those gaps.
And it's all about also just kind of
and also helping to increase access for, you know,
young people, people at risk, people
who may not be able to see the light
at the end of the tunnel,
who may not know that, you know,
they can exist as they are in these spaces that we work in
and all in an effort to normalize Blackness
and normalize diversity in these spaces,
you know, in just standing in your truth in these spaces.