Dear SeedSprint community,

Our team has been engaged in challenging and reflective internal conversations about the recent events that have transpired in the US. We are taking this time to listen and learn and share an update on the actions we will take to fight racism, advance social justice, and amplify the voices of BIPOC in science and open innovation.

We stand in solidarity with Black communities and their allies and stand against racism and the marginalization of Black communities, and we affirm the goals of the Black Lives Matter movement. We share the anger and horror over the loss of the lives of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks, Dominique Rem’mie Wells, and those of many others over the decades-long failure of justice that underlies the recent events, and we fear for new victims. We understand the immediate need for meaningful and collective action and lasting change and pledge to be part of the solution.

In reflecting on our responsibility as part of the community of inventors and innovators committed to advancing science and technology, we can and must do more. To become a truly anti-racist organization we will educate our team on anti-racist actions to be taken within SeedSprint and in our wider community; commit to recruiting, supporting, and retaining more BIPOC talent; and do a better job of identifying, fostering, and pointing out the work of BIPOC scientists, open innovation professionals, and startup founders in the content we publish.

We are committed to doing this work, and we are taking three initial steps:

1. Starting next week, we will begin a program of dedicating 100 hours of the time of our three most senior team members to identifying, recruiting to our platform, and supporting new deep-tech startups that are led by BIPOC scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs and/or address disparities in BIPOC communities and work to broaden inclusion and access. We will support their development by devoting our expertise in helping them achieve their industry collaboration goals. We commit to providing further information about this initiative by July 17, 2020.
2. We will re-focus our hiring and professional development practices to make sure we are doing all we can to attract, hire, support, and retain BIPOC talent. We commit to updating our hiring and professional development program by July 31, 2020.
3. We will foster and amplify the contributions and perspectives of BIPOC scientists and open innovation professionals on our blog and in other published content, and we will seek to include diverse perspectives in developing our posted content. We commit to making these changes effective immediately.

We will continue to update the SeedSprint community on our progress toward these goals. We are here to listen and welcome questions, recommendations, or additional thoughts you may have to help us achieve the goals we have outlined above. Please reach out to [email protected] to share any ideas you have. We look forward to sharing this journey with all of you and continuing to support you in achieving these important goals to defeat racism, further social justice, and enrich our society by accelerating the movement of innovation from the lab into the marketplace.

The SeedSprint Team