Angela Benton co-founded NewMe Accelerator is on a mission to fire up minority entrepreneurship

Angela Benton’s Bay Area startup accelerator for minority founding tech entrepreneurs (read Black), NewMe had its First Demo day, a significant step in its commitment to what she describes as “increasing exposure to talent, connect founders to access of early stage capital, mentorship and finally collaborate and build successful companies in the heart of Silicon Valley.”

NewMe was borne out of a 2010 conference in Washington DC that brought together some of the best minds in minority-led startups and venture capitalists to devise methods and chart out a “policy framework for advancing and stimulating the growth and sustainability of minority new media start-ups.” The result of the combined efforts was NewMe that put together an accelerator program, based out of the Bay Area to encourage national as well as local minority talent in technology.

The Visiting Startup Program, that set rolling on June 16th, 2011,  had seven start-ups from across the country spending the summer with NewMe, and according to it, would be ” building and learning, bunked up with us in a house in Mountain View for the summer where they’ll spend 24 hours a day sleeping, eating, and drinking our start-ups.”  The session that  lasted for 9 weeks, including private weekly dinners where Founders and Speakers  broke bread over conversations and mentors who worked with them one-on-one on specific stumbling blocks all led to the Demo Day. They also ran a local minority-led start-up program alongside, who also benefitted from all the interactive sessions and weekly dinners, sans the bunking down.  The selected founders would finally demo their wares to the movers of Silicon Valley.

You can find a complete list of the selected tech startups here.

Angela Benton who along with Wayne Sutton spearheads the initiative has worked at several InterActive Corp businesses including RealEstate.com, LendingTree.com, and RushmoreDrive.com. Additionally she has held roles at Bizjournals.com, UPS, and Homes of Color Magazine. Throughout her career she has worked in a variety of roles in design, marketing, development, and digital strategy. Her expertise lies in New Media.

Presently Angela is the CEO of Black Web Media, which publishes BlackWeb20.com the leading online publication for African-Americans interested in Technology and New Media. Black Web Media’s mission is to be a catalyst for innovation and inclusive ideas on the web for African-Americans. She also Founded and Chairs’ the New Media Entrepreneurship Conference, who’s goal is to steer the Internet economy to be more diverse and inclusive. She is one of Fast Company Magazine’s Most Influential Women in Technology for 2010 and one of Ebony Magazine’s Power 150.

wowElle will keep you updated on the commencement of the next session as and when it is formally announced. Stay tuned.

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