Upper Hand

Introduction

Long before I ever sat down to write this book, the unfairness of how innovation and access are distributed among and favor certain communities over others haunted me.

After leaving my hometown of Seattle at 18, drifting across several mid‐size and big cities over the years, visiting home was always deflating. First, there was the excitement of discovering an old‐new city and its latest fanfare of restaurants and elevated shopping experiences, newly installed light rail systems, music venues, and galleries. But when I returned to my old neighborhoods or checked in with old friends and community folks, it was clear that they had not been benefactors of much of the city's growth.

Through the years, in my work reporting on innovation (and lack thereof) in communities of color, I have been frequently reminded of the unfairness of progress. Personally, perhaps by way of proximity, I was able to access opportunities to take part in learning the language, skills, and social networks of technology throughout my childhood and teen years. These small, yet significant, slivers of access empowered me to position myself for a future that would be largely shaped by discoveries and advances neither myself nor my family could have imagined were on the horizon. But those same resources that empowered me were not widely accessible to the vast majority of my peers, let alone the neighborhoods and schools that we were raised in. The evidence of this loss of potential talent and potential ...