Black Tech Saturdays: Detroit’s Hub for Black Tech Innovation
Two years ago, entrepreneur De’Lon Dixon was ready to leave Detroit for the warmer climate and burgeoning tech scene of Miami. However, a chance encounter at an emerging monthly gathering for Black entrepreneurs and creatives in Corktown changed his plans. The meeting, facilitated by Johnnie Turnage, co-founder of the initiative known as Black Tech Saturdays, motivated Dixon to stay and contribute to Detroit’s tech landscape. According to Dixon, Turnage “was interested in what I could do and he gave me a stage to showcase my skill sets.”
As Black Tech Saturdays commemorates its second anniversary, it has evolved from small gatherings to a thriving community event that takes place at Michigan Central. The event draws hundreds of attendees, fostering community, mentorship, and business opportunities for Black entrepreneurs. The initiative has gained significant state and national attention. Johnnie Turnage and his wife and co-founder, Alexa Turnage, have been visited by actor and former U.S. Senate hopeful Hill Harper and Olympic swimmer Cullen Jones. The initiative also gained a shoutout from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer during the 2024 Mackinac Policy Conference, and garnered an Afrotech speaking engagement.
The success of Black Tech Saturdays has also attracted substantial financial investments. The Gilbert Family Foundation has contributed $1.2 million to the organization, along with a $350,000 investment from the Rocket Mortgage Fund. As Johnnie Turnage noted, “From April of 2023 to the end of September of 2023, we went from a five-person gathering to about 500 people and we were less than six months old… That’s what really let us know that Black Tech Saturdays had to evolve a little bit and keep up.”
The events are inclusive, attracting a diverse group of participants including artists, athletes, lawyers, and political figures, with free membership. Reflecting on the initiative’s growth, Alexa Turnage stated, “Just like Black Tech Saturdays have evolved, me and Johnnie for the past two years have been on a true, personal growth journey where we’ve been forced to evolve into the leaders that we are now.”
From Networking Event to Movement
The idea for Black Tech Saturdays originated after the Turnages hosted a networking event in February 2023, designed for Black entrepreneurs like themselves. Following the event, the Turnages, co-founders of the donation app EvenScore, witnessed significant interest, with people reaching out on LinkedIn seeking information about future gatherings. A couple of months later, the first Black Tech Saturdays meeting emerged to help people brainstorm new product ideas and work on grant applications. Attendance expanded quickly, eventually reaching dozens of people each week.
Alexa Turnage reflected on the early meetings, saying, “I really thought this was just gonna be a few of us and the fact that we had 30 people come to just learn and check out what we were doing was really special. It became even more evident after that meeting when the attendance doubled. We were like, ‘Oh, this won’t just be a small working group of nerds trading notes and trading information.’”
Black Tech Saturdays offers a comprehensive suite of services including workshops, training, networking opportunities, mentorship programs, and community outreach. During a recent meeting, attendees participated in a marketing workshop led by a chief marketing officer from Rocket Companies, according to Alexa Turnage. They also host “founder takeover” sessions where expert tech founders lead discussions on subjects they are experts in.
Johnnie Turnage mentioned, “Also, we do different webinars… Last summer we did virtual sessions with the National Science Foundation.” The Turnages highlight the positive impact of the organization’s growth on emerging entrepreneurs. Darren Riley, founder of the environmental tech company JustAir, secured a $2.7 million contract with Wayne County in 2023 to install 100 air-quality monitors. Johnnie Turnage recounts how this success inspired another entrepreneur: “An entrepreneur called me up and said, ‘I didn’t know that Black people were getting million-dollar contracts. I’m in negotiations with a big potential customer, I didn’t know I could ask for that much… It changed how she approached negotiations.”
Creating an Equitable Tech Landscape
Detroit’s tech ecosystem is the second-fastest-growing globally, surpassed only by Dubai. The Turnages aim to ensure that entrepreneurs of color continue to have a prominent role in this growth. Despite the progress, Black and brown entrepreneurs still encounter obstacles, including limited access to entrepreneurship training and capital. Statistics show that Black founders in the U.S. secured 0.48% of all venture capital allocated in 2023, amounting to approximately $661 million out of $136 billion, according to Tech Crunch.
Johnnie Turnage emphasized, “A Black unicorn in Detroit could create millionaires in equity with the jobs… A tech role is taking people from making $16 an hour to $85,000 (annually) and that kind of income change doesn’t just impact the family, it starts to impact neighborhoods because you get five people in a neighborhood who are making $85,000 overnight, the community has different anchors and that’s the way we have to think about it.”
Even with the growing number of startups in Detroit, the Turnages believe more work is necessary to solidify the city’s role in the tech world. A critical part is shifting preconceived notions about Detroit and its economy, specifically dispelling the idea that it is solely reliant on the auto industry, according to Alexa Turnage. Johnnie Turnage also advocates for increased capital, stating, “If you have an idea and you’re in Silicon Valley, it is so much easier to figure out how to get $50,000 to $100,000 just to try the idea… When you’re in Detroit, most people don’t have the flexibility to try their entrepreneur endeavor in jeopardy of their job or whatever else is going on. Think about how many people who have amazing ideas that can’t technically afford to take the risk.”
The Turnages are planning a Women’s History Month celebration on March 22 and a Black Tech Saturdays digital empowerment summit in September. “Black Tech Saturdays is our first little baby here,” said Johnnie Turnage. “We want to set our kid up for success, because one day we’re not going to be here to do everything for our kid. So we gotta give it these things and give it a couple other people and make sure it’s got some aunties and uncles to look out for it.”
New Generation of Tech Startups
De’Lon Dixon, who founded his Detroit-based AI company Think Technologies in 2022, has grown his company into a five-person team with the support of Black Tech Saturdays. The company is currently developing an AI-powered e-learning platform named UThink. This app will deliver micro-courses on tools such as ChatGPT, Google Analytics, and Canva, according to Dixon. The goal is to provide accessible tech education, particularly for those who are not as tech-savvy, helping them to learn these platforms. Dixon has also created an AI chatbot for the Black Tech Saturdays website and participated in the group’s Black History Month Innovation Summit as a panelist and partner. He plans to develop a curriculum around the summit sessions.
“We’re going to have experts make short videos to show people how to do different things with those tools and ultimately, this will be uploaded into a curriculum to where people can sign up and watch a quick course on how to make an Instagram post on Canva or something of that nature, just to get more guidance and really help people leverage technology in a quick and efficient way. Our main goal is to bridge the digital divide,” said Dixon.
Brittanie Dabney and Kameron Dye, Detroit residents, have actively participated in Black Tech Saturdays since 2023, establishing their company, Ecosphere Organics, in the past year. Dabney is the founder of Ecosphere Organics, a Detroit-based company that transforms food waste from local restaurants and suppliers into reusable materials.
Ecosphere focuses on converting food waste into raw materials and eco-friendly products, with Dabney as CEO and Dye as chief business officer. Dabney’s inspiration for Ecosphere stemmed from her desire to expand the application of food waste in the creation of sustainable materials: “I have the desire to re-imagine how we use waste streams, how we rethink waste streams, and then how we can scale it to reduce the amount of harmful plastics in our chemicals. And that really comes from my background being in environmental science.” Ecosphere received a $20,000 grant from Black Tech Saturdays and the Rocket Community Fund last fall, to help bridge the digital divide. Dabney and Dye plan to use the grant to launch a summer program that will engage youth in environmental science and engineering.
“The community that Johnnie and Alexa are building, being very intentional about the startups that are heavily involved and those that can be mentors to people that want to get into tech, has made this a really good community to keep being involved in,” said Dabney.
Black Tech Saturdays hosts bi-monthly meetings at Newlab inside Michigan Central, located at 2050 15th Street in Detroit. Those interested can register to become members at blacktechsaturdays.com.
