Yeshimabeit "Yeshi" Milner is an American technologist and activist.
She is the executive director and co-founder of ''
Data for Black Lives
Data for Black Lives (D4BL) is an American non-profit organization with the mission of using data science to create concrete and measurable change in the lives of black people. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Data for Black Lives was fo ...
''.
Early life and education
Yeshimabeit Milner grew up in
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
,
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
.
Starting in her late teens, Milner became involved in activism and data science. She worked with the ''Power U Center for Social Change'' as a high school senior.
Milner attended
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
, graduating in 2012 with a BA degree in
Africana Studies.
Career
In 2013 at age 22, after returning to Miami after college, Milner started working with the ''Power U Center for Social Change'' and looking at Black infant mortality rates locally in trying to understand why they were disproportionately so high.
They were able to retrieve data from 300 mothers, and as a result changed local policy.
One of her classmates at Brown University was mathematician Lucas Mason-Brown, together they founded Data for Black Lives in November 2017. The Data for Black Lives (D4BL) annual conference was started in 2018 by Yeshimabeit Milner and Lucas Mason- Brown. They use the slogan, "Abolish Big Data!" with hopes to redesign big data and to "put data into the hands of those who need it most". In 2020, the group was able to compile state-level data about the impact of COVID-19 on Black people and are working on compiling a nationwide database of technologies used by police departments. In 2021, Milner co-wrote a research piece for
Demos
Demos may refer to:
Computing
* DEMOS, a Soviet Unix-like operating system
* DEMOS (ISP), the first internet service provider in the USSR
* Demos Commander, an Orthodox File Manager for Unix-like systems
* plural for Demo (computer programming)
...
on
algorithmic racism from
Big Tech
Big Tech, also known as the Tech Giants, refers to the most dominant companies in the information technology industry, mostly located in the United States. The term also refers to the four or five largest American tech companies, called the Big ...
companies.
Awards and accolades
Milner served on the board of the
Highlander Research and Education Center
The Highlander Research and Education Center, formerly known as the Highlander Folk School, is a social justice leadership training school and cultural center in New Market, Tennessee. Founded in 1932 by activist Myles Horton, educator Don West (e ...
in Tennessee.
In 2018, she was awarded a Roddenberry Foundation Fellowship, which honors and invests in extraordinary people who can change the world. In 2020, Data for Black Lives and its founders were awarded the
Forbes 30 Under 30
''Forbes'' 30 Under 30 is a set of lists of people under 30 years old issued annually by ''Forbes'' magazine and some of its regional editions. The American lists recognize 600 business and industry figures, with 30 selected in twenty industries ...
and the New York Times 2020 Good Tech Awards.
See also
*
African-American women in computer science
African-American women in computer science were among early pioneers in computing in the United States, and there are notable African-American women working in computer science.
History
African-American women were hired as mathematicians to do ...
References
External links
Ashoka fellow profileEchoing Greens fellow profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Milner, Yeshimabeit
Brown University alumni
People from Miami
21st-century African-American scientists
Living people
African-American activists
Women data scientists
Data scientists
Year of birth missing (living people)
Data activism
Ashoka Fellows
21st-century African-American academics
21st-century American academics