Last month the company announced a new program called Google for Startups Accelerator: Black Founders, which will essentially select a handful of tech firms (with Black founders) from around the country to get three months of hands-on training/expertise from Google personnel. The program received hundreds of applications, but this morning Google announced that a Newark startup was one of the 12 selected.
MindRight Health is a health tech firm founded last year which focuses on mental health coaching and support for teenagers of color and low-income families. Their services connect young people with mental support professionals digitally (usually via text) and often focus on cultural/racial-related issues (including prejudice, Black feminism, white supremacy and identity self-love). Unlike crisis response teams, MindRight’s professionals reach out to users proactively every day, and in many cases partner with youth groups and schools for wholesale stress/trauma support help. MindRight’s selection into the accelerator means they’ll be paired with Google experts to identify and solve various technical challenges (including machine learning, mobile app help + improving user experience design). MindRight’s founder, Ashley Edwards, will also participate in fundraising, hiring and sales workshops with Google personnel.
The accelerator program is meant to complement Google’s new Google for Startups Black Founders Fund, which will provide cash awards up to $100,000 to selected Black-founded startups affected by COVID. The company is also partnering with U.S. Black Chambers, Inc. to create a new Black-owned business function on Google Search and Maps. That effort means that companies in New Jersey with a verified Business Profile on Google can add a Black-owned business attribute to their profile (there are between 240,000 and 300,000 minority-owned businesses in the state, FWIW).
