Under a Trump administration, the results for 2025 inevitably look bleaker. He has promised to invest in an economy that is anti-awakening, bolster his cabinet with agitators (like Brendan Carr, his pick for chairman of the Federal Communications Commission) who have promised end DEI. Project 2025, the 900-page conservative policy agenda around which Trump will likely base much of his administration, targets organizations that employ “racial classifications and quotas” and promises to rescind an executive order requiring federal contractors to ensure equal opportunities. (And the big tech companies were already Cut DEI programseven without the threats of a hostile president).
“The idea that DEI is hurting productivity is nonsense,” said Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, the only state representative present. “Look at the numbers.” TO 2020 report from McKinsey & Company, for example, shows that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are, in fact, good for business. “Authenticity” was the most popular buzzword of the week, repeated vigorously in every discussion I attended, which felt brand-related and also eerily strange, given that the business of authenticity will be a target for the next few years. four years.
“We have never seen what is to come,” said artist Will.i.am on stage, and that was true.
All the big players were present at the recruiting expo (Netflix, American Express, Axon, Meta, Google, Oracle) as people formed snaking lines that sometimes stretched longer than those at the after-night parties. As I took in the extravagance of the show floor, with its large signs in every direction, I thought about my first day in Houston when a Microsoft recruiter joked that he shouldn’t tell anyone what he did, for fear they might overwhelm him. with resumes and questions about vacancies in the company.
Still, it was difficult to gauge how effectively the conference was preparing its next generation of heroes. It was not a question of programming but of impact. Naturally, all eyes are on AI, but others’ concerns were noticeably elsewhere, in the here and now, and that meant getting a job.
“I’ve always been nervous about job security. I’ve always had uncertainty,” said Candace Madison, who works in legal technology at Relativity, a data organization software company in Chicago. It was his first time at AfroTech. “I don’t think the elections increased that, but since elections and DEI are not a priority, we have to be more alert,” he added. Still, she was optimistic. “The way to be on the cutting edge of everything that’s happening now is to network,” although he admitted that until now he had met very few people in his field.
In the elevator at Le Meridien in downtown Houston, a graduate student completing her PhD in data science and also looking for a job colored her experience differently. “This is my eighth (conference) of the year,” he said. “I’m doing my best to network, but I’m not getting much from them.”
On Instagram, the conference was touted as a success. In a story post, a product engineer at a Fortune 50 company movingly explained how the conference was a “full circle moment” for him, having landed an internship at the expo in 2017 that led to his current job. In another post, by a high-ranking marketing executive, this year’s experience was described as “a balm in Gilead.”
Unsurprisingly, everyone at AfroTech had their eyes on the future; Only no one could say what would come next or how much weight they would have on it. Everyone, it seemed, wanted a piece of what they felt they were owed: the promise of a stable tomorrow. How they would get there was another question entirely.