00:51 - Nikema’s Superpower: Connecting To People Through Authenticity & Vulnerability Background in Dancing The Ailey School Shift to Tech Having Babies ADHD Diagnosis (Neurodivergence) Masking 28:02 - Seeing People For Their Whole Selves; Facilitating Safe Spaces Nikema’s Founder Journey Remote Work & Homeschooling Pop Schools School Can Be Damaging to Children The Purpose of School Self-Directive Education 51:38 - Impostor Syndrome Isn’t Natural; The Tech Underclass Bias & Discrimination Equity & Accessibility Reflections: Damien: Connecting through authenticity. Arty: Even when you’re scared, stand up and speak. Chanté: Our youth is our future. Nikema: Making real connections with other people. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: ARTY: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Episode 269 of Greater Than Code. I am Arty Starr and I'm here with my fabulous co-host, Chanté Martínez Thurmond. CHANTÉ: Hello, everyone, and I'm here with our fabulous friend and co-host, Damien Burke. DAMIEN: Hi, and we are here with our guest, today, Nikema Prophet. Nikema Prophet is a software developer and a community builder based in California. Her current projects are a book to be released in 2022 and hosting conversations on Twitter that highlight Black and neural diversion perspectives in the tech industry. Welcome to the show, Nikema. NIKEMA: Thank you for having me. DAMIEN: What is your superpower and how does you acquire it? NIKEMA: My superpower is connecting to people through authenticity. I acquired it by practicing standing up and speaking—speaking from my heart in front of others—and I had to overcome very painful, debilitating shyness to do that. CHANTÉ: I love that you started with that because Nikema, it doesn't seem like you're shy and I think even on your Twitter account, you're louder on Twitter than you are in person. I find your presence to be really lovely and a voice that our community so very much needs. When I found out you were going to be on the show, I got excited and did my research and did all the things we normally do and found a whole bunch of stuff about you. But before we get into those exciting parts, I am a person who loves to orient people to who you actually are to bring you into the room and just tell us a little bit more like, who are you besides the titles? Where are you living? Where are you from? The things that you do for joy, and if your job is one of those things, tell us about those. So just curious, who you are and then we can get into the things that you're doing now. NIKEMA: I really do need to sit down at some point and write down the story that I want to tell about myself because I tend to make it very long. So I'm going to try to keep it brief. [chuckles] But I am Nikema Prophet. I was born and raised in Sacramento, California. So I'm definitely a California girl. Sacramento is the capital city, but it's not super exciting [chuckles] as a place to grow up. There's a lot of government jobs. People say, “Get that state job, get those benefits, you're good.” Government jobs, healthcare, a lot of that. But I grew up and probably starting when I was a preteen, like 12, 13, I decided that I wanted to be a professional dancer. So that was my life goal. No plan B. I'm going to be a dancer. I'm going to get out of this small town and I'm going to go dance, which is funny because I did say that I am very shy [laughs] so I always struggled with being self-conscious and I never felt like I was really dancing full out, as we say. I always felt like I was holding ...