Equal Pay Day: VeraCloud supports all who work to dismantle systemic inequalities in the US economy.

Legislation + Implementation: The best intentions of the most progressive public servants REQUIRE collaboration with the Private Sector.

As part of his great vision for a New Frontier, John F. Kennedy signed The Equal Pay Act of 1963, a US labor law aimed at abolishing gender-based wage disparity.  Half a century later great disparities still exist, and the more diverse the population, the greater the inequalities.

According to the Voter Participation Center:

54 years after the Equal Pay Act was signed into law, women are still fighting to earn the same earnings as men for equal work. According to the most recent data on 2016 available from the U.S. Census Bureau, women on average make 80 cents for every dollar a man makes.

Earning disparities are even greater for unmarried women, who have seen a steady three-year decline on their earnings in comparison to married men. Unmarried women now earn only 59 cents to every dollar a married man earns, part of an ever-consistent pattern of unmarried women being left behind, even in a growing and improving economy.

In short, there have been no real substantive gains for women. In fact, equal wages is seeing a backwards trend while married men continue to see their earning power grow.

This is not just a US problem, but a global one: In 2006 The World Economic Forum introduced theGlobal Gender Gap Index to capture and track the magnitude of gender-based disparities over time. At #45 globally, the US has a lot of catching up to do.

At VeraCloud, we partner with those also driven to dismantle systemic inequalities, change lives, transform communities, and positively impact generations. 

We have built our platform to better equip the private and public sectors to deliver on progressive policies, and to substantively impact the bedrock issues of diversity, access, and inclusion that continue to threaten the advancement of multiple diverse communities throughout the United States. 

Today as we recognize these issues, we join in with leaders like Sheryl Sandberg who work with great purpose and intent to resolve these systemic inequalities at whatever scale is needed.  From Forbes:

Today is Equal Pay Day. #20PercentCounts highlights that women are, on average, paid 20% less than men in the U.S.; that statistic is worse for black women (37% less) and Hispanic women (46% less). "Equal pay is essential to the goal of gender equality," says Sheryl Sandberg, one of America's few self-made women billionaires, in a statement on the launch. "This issue speaks to how we value women’s labor, knowledge, time, training, and so much more. In short, it’s about women’s worth. There’s nothing more fundamental than that." 

The Missing Million Minority-owned businesses and the Entrepreneurship Diversity Gap in the US

Kansas City’s Kaufmann Foundation has researched entrepreneurship in the US for decades.  This year’s State of Entrepreneurship details the stark realities of the systemic inequalities that exist for diverse entrepreneurs in the US.

This year, the Kauffman Institute is turning their thought leadership into action with the launch of Zero Barriers to Startup , a new, collaborative, nationwide effort to ID and address barriers to entrepreneurship faced by many diverse communities.

Says Kauffman Foundation President and CEO Wendy Guillies:

As a nation, we must re-create the conditions in which optimism can thrive. We must increase support not only for entrepreneurship, but also for the key ingredients of its success. We must remove the barriers that have been erected and develop communities that will encourage, guide, and reinforce…

Breaking down the entrenched barriers for minorities and women isn't only the right thing to do; it will add millions of jobs to our economy…

…If minorities started and owned businesses at the same rate as non-minorities do, the United States would have more than 1 million additional employer businesses and as much as an extra 9.5 million jobs in the economy…

At VeraCloud we also recognize these issues, and join in with leaders like the Kaufman Foundation who work with great purpose and intent to resolve these systemic inequalities at whatever scale is needed. At VeraCloud we also believe that fostering and enabling entrepreneurship throughout all of America’s diverse communities is the key to our long term collective economic, social, and cultural success.

• We exist to profitably transform the way diverse entrepreneurs, their businesses and government work together in the $500+Billion government contracting marketplace.
• We’re driven to create a more just, inclusive use of public sector funds to unlock opportunities, and sustainable job creation for certified diverse businesses.
• We’ve built our SaaS platform to efficiently enable private contractors, governments, elected and appointed public officials, foundations, nonprofits, and philanthropies to better collaborate and tangibly advance progress on critical marketplace issues. These include diversity, access, financial inclusion, economic opportunity, and ongoing support for diverse businesses across the US. 

Reconciling history with the necessity for dismantling systemic inequality and discrimination: Yale steps up.

From Yale's President today comes this timely and critical recognition and change at the University.  

Today I write to announce that the name of (one of Yale's undergraduate colleges) Calhoun College will be changed, and that we will honor one of Yale’s most distinguished graduates, Grace Murray Hopper ’30 M.A., ’34 Ph.D., by renaming the college for her....The decision to change a college’s name is not one we take lightly, but John C. Calhoun’s legacy as a white supremacist and a national leader who passionately promoted slavery as a “positive good” fundamentally conflicts with Yale’s mission and values.

When he learned of Calhoun’s death in 1832, Benjamin Silliman Sr. 1796 B.A., 1799 M.A., professor of chemistry at Yale and the namesake of another Yale residential college, mourned the passing of his contemporary while immediately condemning his legacy:

“[Calhoun] in a great measure changed the state of opinion and the manner of speaking and writing upon this subject in the South, until we have come to present to the world the mortifying and disgraceful spectacle of a great republic—and the only real republic in the world—standing forth in vindication of slavery, without prospect of, or wish for, its extinction. If the views of Mr. Calhoun, and of those who think with him, are to prevail, slavery is to be sustained on this great continent forever.”

The recipient of Yale’s Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal, the National Medal of Technology, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, “Amazing Grace” Hopper was a visionary in the world of technology. At a time when computers were bulky machines limited to a handful of research laboratories, Hopper understood that they would one day be ubiquitous, and she dedicated her long career to ensuring they were useful, accessible, and responsive to human needs.

An extraordinary mathematician and a senior US naval officer, Grace Murray Hopper achieved eminence in fields historically dominated by men.

Today, her principal legacy is all around us—embodied in the life-enhancing technology she knew would become commonplace. Grace Murray Hopper College thus honors her spirit of innovation and public service while looking fearlessly to the future.

At VeraCloud we celebrate Yale's recognition of this early female STEM pioneer.  Our mission is to tangibly advance progress on critical marketplace issues that include diversity, access, financial inclusion, economic opportunity, and ongoing public/private sector support for all diverse populations across the US. This includes building a better future for women and girls in STEM and all industries.

Our society is inching toward a future when the phrase "you code like a girl" will be a compliment of the highest order.

But there are significant hurdles before we get there. The statistics behind women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) are still far from indicating an even playing field.

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, female employees fill fewer than 25% of STEM jobs — even though they make up nearly half of the overall workforce. In the startup world, just 5% of women head up their own companies.

There is much work to be done. #BeFearless #GetInTheArena

Thank you Coca-Cola for reminding us all, as we come together at the start of the Super Bowl, of the great diversity of the people who have built our country over the last 300 years.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows worldwide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Emma Lazarus @The Statue of Liberty

Let the word go forth from this time and place...

"Your mayor... he's a leader..." my taxi driver assured me on the way to Dublin Airport this morning.  News of Boston Mayor Marty Walsh's swift, substantive actions to protect at-risk individuals and families from the Immigration Ban had telegraphed quickly across the Atlantic and indeed around the globe:

In Boston, 48% of children have at least one parent who was born outside the United States. I identify with those kids because I was one of them. My mother and father came from Ireland to Boston looking for opportunity. They found their American Dream, and I got to live mine by becoming mayor of the city that embraced us.

My family was far from alone. In Boston, immigrants make up nearly one-third of our population. We welcome and cherish those who are fleeing persecution or simply seeking a better life. We know our success -- and our nation's success -- has always depended on the drive, talent, community and culture of newcomers.

In these uncertain times much will be said and emotions will run high, but let it be said long after all this plays out — of our leaders and of champions of diversity, access, opportunity, and inclusion everywhere — that we persisted, stayed the course, and unflinchingly supported those who needed it when and where it mattered most.  

We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage--and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

Resiliency, persistence, democratizing access, and dismantling systemic inequalities: tools for success from the 12th annual Massachusetts Conference for Women

The 12th annual Massachusetts Conference for Women has kicked off last night and today at the Boston Convention Center. This conference brings front and center the underlying systemic disparities around opportunities, support structures, and tools available to help girls and women to achieve economic empowerment, success, and mobility.  The data on the outcomes of these kinds of collective efforts to support women’s business initiatives (despite public, private, and non-profit sector efforts), is still far from promising, and more clearly needs to be done:

Nearly 10 million businesses in the United States are majority-owned by women, 36 percent of all firms. While that’s nothing to sneeze at, the proportion of entrepreneurs who are women actually has dropped in recent years, according to the Kauffman Index of Startup Activity. In 1997, women started nearly 44 percent of new businesses, and by 2014 that level had slipped below 37 percent.

At this Boston conference are many strong role models with invaluable experience, context, and coaching for women to address: #opportunity #access #inclusion #inequality and more. Let’s hope that the organizers put these sessions up so that more than just the 11,000 passionate individuals here can have access to them. Among the speakers who stand out: Sarah Blakely, the youngest female self-made billionaire and founder of SPANX who speaks quite powerfully about resilience, failure, the power of failure as a character builder and foundational learning tool.  (Read 10 Lessons I Learned from Sara Blakely That You Won't Hear in Business School for additional insights into the resiliency of this motivated and accomplished female entrepreneur.)

MWBE fraud: $Billions in lost economic opportunity for diverse businesses and the families & communities they support.

A Manhattan federal jury has convicted Canadian contractor DCM Erectors and its owner Larry Davis for minority- and woman-owned (MWBE) business fraud during the execution of almost $1 billion of steel work at the Freedom Tower and World Trade Center Transportation Hub projects, according to Reuters.

Prosecutors alleged that DCM and Davis enlisted two minority firms to be administrative fronts on the projects while DCM, trying to avoid paying tens of millions of dollars to minority firms, did all the work itself.

Until the 1970’s, federal procurement dollars virtually bypassed Minority and Women-owned businesses.  Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon signed executive orders to increase women and minority participation in the US public contracting market.

President Carter’s Public Works Employment Act of 1977 mandated for the first time that “at least 10% of federal funds granted for local public work projects” be used to procure services and products from MWBEs.

Cities and states have long since joined in, seeking to level the playing field via mandate, legislation, and compliance enforcement. BUT: all of these efforts have lacked effective tools & technologies to match opportunities with diverse businesses that are ready, willing, and able to work.  As a result, inefficiencies and fraud like that at NYC's sacred Freedom Tower cheat diverse businesses out of their fair share of economic opportunity.

@veracloudtech we’ve built our technology platform to efficiently enable private contractors to better collaborate with diverse businesses to fuel greater access, opportunity and inclusion in public sector contracting work.  When barriers are broken down, the market becomes stronger, competition ensues, and tangible progress is made on critical issues: diversity, access, financial inclusion, economic opportunity, and ongoing support for diverse businesses across the US.