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Nashlie Sephus, a 35-year-old Black A.I. researcher, has a vision for transforming her hometown into a thriving center for tech entrepreneurs.
Techpreneur and Amazon worker Nashlie Sephus is accomplishing a groundbreaking goal to build a tech hub downtown in her Jackson, Mississippi hometown to help train the next generation of tech geniuses.
According to Face2Face Africa, Sephus is turning downtown Jackson — which isn’t well-known for its technology prowess — into a $25 million tech district made up of 12 acres of vacant lots and seven buildings — roughly 500,000 square feet of workspace — to put her community on the map in the tech world.
“My goal is to turn this space into a self-sustaining village where people can live, work, play, and eat,” Sephus told Inc.
he idea to build up this tech community came to Sephus back in 2018 when she was looking for an office space for her own startup Bean Path — an incubator and technology consulting nonprofit — which has assisted over 400 local businesses and individuals with their technology needs.
Her search landed her in the downtown Jackson area, which was once considered a booming business community for Black companies.
“It’s clear that people don’t expect anything good to come from Jackson,” she said to Inc. “So it’s up to us to build something for our hometown, something for the people coming behind us.”