Читать книгу Upper Hand - Sherrell Dorsey - Страница 17

When we think about innovation, we don't often think about a city like Jackson, Mississippi, launching the next great tech company or defining the future of tech talent. And yet, this is where artificial intelligence expert Dr. Nashlie Sephus is setting up shop to define the future of innovation.

Raised in what she calls humble beginnings by her grandmother in Jackson, Nashlie studied computer engineering at Mississippi State University before going on to Georgia Tech in Atlanta to earn her master's and PhD in electrical engineering. She spent her summers interning at IBM, Delphi, and General Electric.

Her first full‐time job after graduation was with a startup called PartPic, co‐founded and led by entrepreneur and investor Jewel Burks Solomon, where Nashlie came on board as CTO. After about a year and a half with the company, PartPic was acquired by Amazon, where Nashlie went on to lead visual search and applied artificial intelligence research for the tech giant.

Armed with company stock and a few powerful connections, Dr. Nashlie went back home and began acquiring vacant lots to build a live/work/play/multimillion‐dollar real estate development across 12 acres in downtown Jackson.

The development will take $150 million over the next five to 10 years to build and is slated to draw in festivals and restaurants, an idea to cater to the crowd and build community, with technology and innovation access on the periphery. From hosting hackathons to robotics clubs, Nashlie's plans are to make this tech district one where anyone of any profession can access the facilities, day or night, post up inside a workspace, or sit comfortably outside, in a safe space to build, create, think, and enjoy the local activities.

Jessica and Nashlie are exemplary examples of making use of their surroundings to inform their work and who they build for. They have been notably successful at navigating important spaces and bringing those resources back to the communities they come from. For both, the internship was a landing post that helped to launch them into some of the most reputable technology‐leading companies.