Working Class

Three years into his doctoral studies, Juan E. Gilbert, Ph.D., didn’t know any other African Americans with Ph.D.s in computer science. “I always thought I was the only one,” says Gilbert. Almost 14 years later he is chair of Clemson University’s Human-Centered Computing division, where 12 of his 15 Ph.D. students and, come the fall, six of the faculty members will be African American.

While most computer science programs struggle to enroll even one black student, Clemson has 16 African American Ph.D. candidates (among the School of Computing’s HCC and computer science programs, which equated to 9.3% of all computer science Ph.D. candidates during the 2010-2011 academic year), and Gilbert says that seven black students have confirmed they will attend Clemson this fall.

Computer science is expected to be one of the fastest-growing occupations through 2014, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The good news is

that the enrollment of African American graduate students in computer science and math increased 33.6% between the fall semesters of 2009 and 2010, reports the Council of Graduate Schools. The bad news is that the increase is still only a drop in the bucket considering that only 1.4% of graduates with Ph.D.s in computer science, computer engineering, and information sciences last year were black, according to the Computing Research Association.

So what makes this program so special? Research shows that minorities gravitate to social science careers or helping professions, says Gilbert. HCC is popular with minorities and women because it unites STEM and social science. Studies also show that African Americans flourish in environments with a strong support group of other high-achieving African Americans.

Touching Humans Through Technology
Human-centered computing is about using technology, information, policy, and culture to solve real-world problems, and Gilbert’s HCC division has been

quite successful thus far. The State of Oregon used Prime III, the lab’s hands-free voting technology, in five counties during the 2012 Republican primary. In June 2011, the United States Election Assistance Commission awarded Gilbert and his lab a three-year, $4.5 million grant from the Research Alliance for Accessible Voting.

Gilbert received the White House’s Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring last November. The award included $25,000 from the National Science Foundation to advance his mentoring efforts.

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The lab also conceived Applications Quest, data-mining software to help university counselors make fair yet diverse admissions decisions while still adhering to the 2003 Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action.

The Business of Science
But with help from Greenville, South Carolina-based businessman Rich Winley, Gilbert has plans to create a new business model to help black entrepreneurs partner with his lab. In November 2011, Winley approached Gilbert for help in building No Chains, a mobile app that travelers and foodies can use to find and experience local cuisine in non-franchise restaurants.

Traversing the tech scene can be daunting for many African Americans. “I know how to build a traditional business, but building a tech business is a totally different thing,” says Winley. “It’s a huge learning curve.”

But Winley didn’t have to teach himself how to code. Instead, he recruited Gilbert and his students to design his user interface, program his back-end software, and help populate his database.

Gilbert’s lab gave Winley the leg up he needed to qualify for and compete as one of 11 participants in The Iron Yard, a Greenville-based, 13-week tech accelerator associated with Startup America Partnership’s Global Accelerator Network.

The collaboration has helped Winley, and the students have benefited from it, too. If No Chains gets funded and becomes profitable, a percentage of the revenue will be donated back to Gilbert’s lab for research.

With the goal of replicating the No Chains model, Winley and Gilbert have launched African American Entrepreneurs in Technology Summit, a demonstration program, which lets aspiring entrepreneurs pitch Gilbert’s lab to build their proof of concept.

With fewer than 1% of venture capitalist-backed tech startups founded by African Americans and less than 1.5% of African Americans working in Silicon Valley, Gilbert’s lab and AAEIT provide an alternate pipeline for increased success for both students and entrepreneurs.

“A professor will create something, protect it, and license it. That is typical,” says Gilbert. “We are atypical because we are meeting with the individual up front to generate the idea. The students are engaged. They see it as an opportunity to help the African American community. The model in our lab is to change the world.”