Starting today, our mentees and mentors will convene about an hour a week based on their schedules and preferences. The program will officially end in six months and we will circle back here with a progress report from our graduates and their mentors on September 1st. In the meantime, program directors will be checking in with every participant to ensure each individual feels they are getting what they need and are supported throughout the process.

The Slack group offers an avenue for everyone to get additional help and resources when they need, and will hopefully be a thriving community for all participants in time. We’re excited to learn how to improve the program for future iterations and can’t wait to see what the future holds for our inaugural class of mentees!

Carlos Lima and Sherri L. Smith

Carlos (he/him) is a lifelong technophile who loves helping people get the most out of their gadgets. This all started with an old IBM computer and figuring out how to get school assignments done on WordPerfect. Since then, he has gone on to work in various tech-oriented roles ranging from data entry to device repair and information technology. In addition to consumer tech, Carlos has an interest in architecture and urban planning.

Julia Mercado and Anthony Ha

Julia (she/her) is a freelance writer and creator of Alternatakes, a TV and movie review blog that looks at online media from another perspective. When she’s not writing about TV and movies, she’s probably making presentations about why her favorite characters are so amazing.

Luc Gore and Dieter Bohn

Luc (he/him) is a first-generation freshman at California State University, Sacramento. He’s a hobbyist photographer and a video-editor, specializing in Adobe Premiere, Vegas Pro, and AVID Media Composer. As a nerd at heart, he enjoys talking about Google and Apple smartphones, IoT devices, computers, streaming services, and pop culture

Pete Sheppard and Roger Cheng

Pete (he/him) has always been enthusiastic about tech and gadgets, since losing his vision 17 years ago. He likes to see what devices are accessible to the visually impaired “Out of the box” or how perhaps with minor changes it might be possible for them to become accessible.

Eric Chiu and Alan Henry

Eric (he/him) is a staff writer at CableTV.com, where he writes about internet and TV providers. Previously, he worked as a local news reporter and technology copywriter.

Christopher Reardon and Florence Ion

A brain tumor survivor since the age of 8, and handicapped  since the age of 10, Chris (he/him) is now 34. He fell in love with creative writing after writing a poem about his struggles in the 7th grade.  Since then, he has self-published five books. After 2 years at The University of Arizona, he graduated from Stonehill College in 2009, and earned his Master’s degree in English in 2011 from Salem State University.  He now lives in Beverly, Massachusetts.

Cornel Waugh and Daniel Howley

Cornel (he/him) is a Canadian citizen who currently works in the shipping and logistics industry as a driver. He has been passionately interested in Tech ever since he was a little guy begging his dad to install an extra 2 megabytes of RAM so he could play obscure text-based adventure games like The Dagger of Amon Ra and Hero’s Quest.

Note: Unfortunately, one of our mentees Bruna Fernandes Guimarães had to drop out of the program due to personal reasons. We wish her all the best and hope to work with her in future.

The post Inaugural class kicks off today appeared first on Platform Agnostic.

The members of the first class of Platform Agnostic are:

• Carlos Lima
• Julia Mercado
• Luc Gore
• Bruna Fernandes Guimarães
• Pete Sheppard
• Eric Chiu
• Christopher Reardon
• Cornel Waugh

The program will kick off on March 1st 2021, and our mentees will be added to a Platform Agnostic Slack group in February. Mentor-mentee matches will be announced next month as well, and we look forward to starting the program!

The post Announcing the first class of mentees appeared first on Platform Agnostic.

We will be reaching out to applicants to schedule interviews between January 19th and 30th, and all applicants should have received correspondence informing them of this change.

We thank our applicants for their patience and apologize for the delay. Thank you, and enjoy one of the busiest weeks in consumer technology news.

The post New announcement date appeared first on Platform Agnostic.

To give aspiring mentees more time to apply, we’ve decided to extend the submission deadline to December 15th, 2020. No other aspect of the schedule will change at this time — we will still announce and inform successful applicants on January 6th, 2021.

We hope this extra breathing room will encourage those that haven’t made up their minds to file an application and get the chance to connect with an established mentor in consumer tech media.

The post Application Deadline Extended appeared first on Platform Agnostic.

October 28th, 2020 — The tech industry has been too white and male for far too long. But often the available jobs in tech media keep going to people from the same group because they simply outnumber and out-qualify minority applicants. Founded by Alex Cranz (Gizmodo), Cherlynn Low (Engadget) and Sherri L. Smith (Laptop Mag), Platform Agnostic is a mentorship program that’s launching today to help those from more diverse backgrounds find a way into the consumer tech media industry. It will connect people from underrepresented communities with established journalists from reputable publications in the industry. 

For now, Platform Agnostic is focusing on the consumer tech industry because it’s the space the founders are most familiar with and feel responsible for, but also because it’s historically one of the least diverse areas in media. After we’re able to see what works with the program and find more experts in other fields, we may bring Platform Agnostic to those industries too.

Applications for the program open today, and the submissions deadline is December 9th, 2020. Successful applicants will be announced on January 7th, 2021, and the six-month program will kick off on February 1st, 2021. Candidates will be matched with a mentor most suited to their goals — a video expert with someone looking to specialize in onscreen reporting or a features editor with an applicant who’s interested in longform writing, for example. Mentors and mentees are expected to work together for about an hour a week. 

Mentors will work with their matches on the writing and reporting skills needed to thrive in tech media, with the goal of getting the mentee published in a top-tier tech publication. Areas of mentorship could include editing and refining a pitch, honing news judgement or getting a breaking news story up in a timely manner. 

Additionally, all mentees will be added to a Slack group to interact with other mentors and program directors, as well as learn from each other’s experiences. Mentors’ participation in the Platform Agnostic Slack is opt-in, and those who choose to join will be able to help out candidates other than their own matches. 

As of today, Platform Agnostic’s mentors include Sherri L. Smith, Lisa Eadicicco (Business Insider), Dieter Bohn (The Verge), Jessica Conditt (Engadget), Alan Henry (Wired), Roger Cheng (CNET), Davey Alba (New York Times), Anthony Ha (Techcrunch), Daniel Howley (Yahoo Finance) and Riley MacLeod (Kotaku). Mentorship is currently on an invite-only basis as we tap into our networks for industry veterans we believe can be great and reliable mentors.

Cranz, Low and Smith hope that with a program focusing on diversity and connecting underrepresented voices with established and respected mentors, those hiring for tech media jobs will have a far more diverse pool of talent to consider. And ultimately, the goal is to foster better representation in the industry.

The post Platform Agnostic Launches Today appeared first on Platform Agnostic.