27 Feb UTC’s President and CEO Sheryl Osiene-Riggs Celebrates Black History Month By Honoring African American Industry Icons.
This February, we celebrate the doers, changers, and makers working towards a more diverse and equitable world. Since the beginning of our history in the United States, African Americans have been pushing the limits imposed on us and defying the odds.
I have the pleasure of working in an industry filled with engineers, and I would like to honor a few African American engineers and inventors that changed the game. The inventions of Marian Rogers Croak, VP of Engineering at Google, enable us to enjoy remote work and conferencing as we know it by inventing VoIP, the technology that allows us to call and conference over the internet. The late Jesse Ernest Wilkins Jr. in addition to being the youngest student ever, attending college at age 13, developed the approach of estimating the distribution of neutron energies within nuclear reactors, on the theory on which all modern nuclear reactors are designed. Both Rogers Croak and Wilkins fundamentally changed the way the world works, and our world has been made infinitely better by their contributions.
In 2023, as we mark 50 years of hip-hop and the acceptance of Black culture and art into the mainstream, we do so against the backdrop of continued violence and hate against African Americans. These moments of strife that punctuate our celebrations of history and progress remind us that even though we have come so far, there is still work to be done.
In the words of The Color Purple author Alice Walker, “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” This February, take time to reconnect with the power within yourself.
