After a turbulent flight from the east coast, I stepped off the plane on Friday ready for my life to change.

The 2016 Blavity's AfroTech Conference was even more dope than I expected it to be, and I had high expectations. AfroTech was inspirational, intellectual, and social. I learned digital design techniques that I didn’t know existed. I acquired the startup vocabulary. I got out of my comfort zone for an engineering panel. I made a few new friends, and I left the keynotes feeling fired up!

My mom always said she wanted me to be an entrepreneur, and as a child I waived it off as a vague and unappealing thing. I thought, “I’m creative, so why would I want to be a businesswoman?” My parents did that murky “business” thing.

I didn’t fully understand the range of ways to be an entrepreneur until AfroTech. I met gamers, athletes, beauty mavens, world travelers, fashion killers and code writers who all had something special to share with the world, on their own terms.

Currently I work for the longest standing black-owned advertising agency the country. When our founder Byron Lewis built UWG, he was filling a void for a group of consumers who were largely ignored, much like the young businesses that were represented at AfroTech. And, a lot like today’s culturally-specific startups looking for support and funding, there were people back in 1969—media outlets, brand managers, investors—who just didn’t get it.

My agency was built with the same spirit of social, savvy and even savage entrepreneurship that I encountered at AfroTech, and I look forward to the ways in which we as a multicultural company will be able to contribute to the ecosystem of new businesses and young talent. As attendees learned at the conference, young makers of color are standing on the shoulders of giants, and there exists a robust village of mentors and collaborators to bolster our efforts.

Initially, after the election results last week, I was stunned, but later that day when a group of friends gathered in my home to keep each other company, I realized that we had work to do.

Now I’m charged up for the movement that is to come. I can’t wait to see the genius, the creativity, the innovation, and the leadership that is apt to form under this newly felt pressure. What better way to have a positive impact than to seek fulfillment in our own lives and to improve the lives of those around us with the platforms we build?

After AfroTech, I felt truly filled. I was overflowing with knowledge and joy. At this meeting of souls in San Francisco, I realized the agency I have in being a part of the emerging movement for positive change. I found community. I claimed my creativity. I only have to gather the courage to forge the new paths that I stepped off the plane dreaming of on Friday.

Alexis Van Eyken

Writing since November 2016 · 1 story contributed