Winner Stephanie Lampkin (center) with leadership of the National Black MBA Association (Image by Brian A.M. Williams)
Stephanie Lampkin, founder and CEO of mobile job matching application Blendoor, is the 2015 National Black MBA Whiteboard Innovation Challenge champion. Blendoor helps connect technology firms such as Google, Twitter, Facebook, Intel, and many others, with qualified women, veteran, and underrepresented minority job seekers interested in both technical and non-technical roles. Lampkin won the $10,000 prize during the National Black MBA conference in Orlando, Florida, after becoming one of three finalists selected from a nationwide pool of applicants.
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During her pitch, Lampkin noted that as a woman with an engineering degree from Stanford University, and a master’s in business administration from MIT, she was deemed “not technical enough†for a position at a leading technology company. This implicit bias in hiring is one of the many issues she looks to solve through her mobile application, which she develops herself. The mobile application matches candidates and employment opportunities based strictly on the applicant’s qualifications and the employer’s needs, while omitting other information that may cause subconscious bias. This makes it easy for technology companies to find diverse talent, and for potential employees to feel confident in their job search. Employers and job seekers will only be notified when there is a match between their corresponding needs.
The Blendoor website highlights that even though women are 33% more likely to earn a college degree, they only represent about 30% of employees. Also, by 2030, black and Latino Americans will represent at least 50% of the population of the United States yet hold less than 10% of positions at top technology companies.
Blendoor will be available in Google Play and Apple’s App Store.
–written by Brian A. M. Williams
Brian A.M. Williams (@BrianAMWilliams) is the founder of PurchaseBlack.com, a curated marketplace offering products from exceptional Black-owned businesses by invitation only. Brian is an expert in buying and selling Black and has created his own coursework on the subject at the University of Texas MBA program. He can be contacted at www.BrianAMWilliams.com.
