iamthenublack: Michael Lang of Noire Digerati

introduce yourself

I’m Michael Lang and I’m the founder of Noire Digerati and Digerati Labs. Noire Digerati is a company that focuses on fostering the development, visibility, and inclusion of African-American digital natives in technology, game design, mobile computing, and interactive media beyond consumption. Noire Digerati.com is our platform as that seeks to help black IT professionals already in the industry flourish and spark the interest of black digital natives who aren’t in the industry (but may aspire to enter the industry) to pursue careers and degrees in tech, gaming, and interactive media using a concept started at Stanford University called persuasive technology.

I reside in Chicago by way of Dallas, TX.. I graduate June 13, 2010 from DePaul University College of Computing & Digital Media (the hottest most innovative tech school in the Midwest) with a masters in computer science! I have a passion for solving social issues related to computing, which is why I started Noire Digerati. I’m a HUGE tech geek, music lover (huge N.E.R.D fan), who loves to travel, a budding poker player (shout out to my boy Roger for the poker lessons while in Brazil!) and all around lover of life..

fav lyric from a song

Live it, and I write down and I watch it blow up

Y’all know what I’m like, y’all play it your system every night
Now..

Nas – Nas is Like

who and what inspires you

People like Gary Vaynerchuk (I appreciate his passion and work ethic) and Ejovi Nuwere (security guru and tech entrepreneur from the projects of Bed Stuy Brooklyn who resides now in Tokyo) inspire me because they both didn’t come from the best situations, however they worked extremely hard and didn’t compromise their integrity to become two sought after voices in the technology and social media spaces. I also receive inspiration from traveling. A lot of the changes we made to noiredigerati.com (from a design perspective) came from the inspiration I received while in Brazil December 2009 (e.g. Rio, São Paulo, and Florianopolis) learning about their culture, touring their tech incubator, and taking pictures of all of the really cool graffiti on the walls throughout the different cities within Brazil.

who are your icons, past and present

Past: Dr. King, W.E.B. Dubois, Booker T. Washington, Fredrick Douglas, The Little Rock 9

Present: Dr. Mark Dean (IBM), Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, Melody Hobson (president of Ariel Investment.. please don’t sleep on her.. very smart cookie), Steve Jobs, Bill Gates

the nublack philosophy/mantra according to Michael Lang

“We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our ATTITUDE.”

-Chuck Swindoll

Check me out

Noire Digerati

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