LIFE APPlications: Owning your Legacy - by Lakweshia Ewing - American Diversity Report: QUANTUM * DIVERSITY

I am Lakweshia Ewing, a co-owner of Biz Boom Apps, LLC. I was born in Memphis into a life of poverty and all of the negative symptoms that it can bring along with it. It was always a dream to become a game-changing businesswoman and philanthropist so this early curiosity and an already successful family member willing to educate me on how to change the world through technology I dove in head first into the realm of technology known as the “Mobile Market” as a co-owner of Biz Boom Apps, LLC. It was the desire of Biz Boom Apps to provide the small business world with a mobile solution that is a one-stop-shop for all of its marketing and communication needs.

As a young African American woman I find it extremely rewarding to be present as a breakthrough pioneer in the majority “Boys Club” of new tech startups across the country. The technology that we’re able to put in the hands of the average small business owner allows them to give some of their largest competitors a real run for their money. With notable clients such as the 2nd largest evangelical denomination in the world (Churches of God in Christ Int’l), NBA legend Anfernee”Penny” Hardaway, First Things First and Judge Joe Brown our technology solutions has allowed Biz Boom Apps to become a household name.

My education background includes a BS in Psychology, MS in Educational Admin, and I am currently an Organizational Leadership Doctoral candidate. My civic engagement includes serving on several Board of Directors (Chatt. Community Foundation, CGLA, OnPoint, Chatt CARES). I have been awarded many notable awards including The City of Memphis Award of Merit, Next City National Vanguard Class 2014, Univ. My passion is in youth ministry and I currently serve at Holy Temple COGIC. I am married to my college sweetheart Julian Ewing and we are raising my 2 half-brothers Fredrick (age 16) and Emerson (age 13).

My purpose for becoming a technology entrepreneur is to be able to position myself as a leader in the community able to afford career and development opportunities for women, particularly women of color ages 18-40, ensuring them more professional options beyond traditional employment opportunities and providing this underrepresented group a place at the table of change in the wake of this new high-growth innovation economy.

The amount of information that individuals can now access via the internet has exploded over the past decade. There have been advances in the way we store data as well as in the way we transmit and process data at such an alarming rate that the world wide web has become a strong fiber in our society. However while the last decade or so has been about access to information, It is my belief that the next decade of technology will be somehow saturated with the idea of how do we make sense of all the information that we have on the internet.

The internet was created so that we have access to any information, from anyone, about anything we are quite literally drowning in data. While we have created some very useful search engines like Google, even they are having a hard time separating meaningful information from the meaningless. As a result, over the next decade we will see some significant changes in how we interact with the internet. We’re already seeing the beginnings of this in websites like Wolfram Alpha that “computes” answers to queries rather than simply returning search hits, or Microsoft’s Bing, which helps take some of the guesswork out of searches. As devices like phones,TV’s, computers and cars become increasingly integrated and connected, we should prepare for rapid changes in how we interact with and make sense of the internet.

STEM is apparent in almost every aspect of our day to day lives. As the workforce evolves, STEM knowledge and skills are becoming more necessary in many professional arenas. Understand that we face both the challenges and successes of a knowledge-based global economy and technological and scientific innovations are the future of our society’s growth. Yesterday’s STEM strategies will not sustain students in this new information age, young ladies of today must understand that they must develop their educational capacities to higher levels beyond the innovations of the past.