Local Student Creates Live Map of Black-Owned Businesses

NOTE: Alex Sikand has made this code open source for any community that wants to use it.

Born and raised in Santa Cruz, CA, Alex Sikand headed East to pick up a B.S. in Computer Science from Boston University. After graduating this May and being accepted to continue his studies at BU’s M.S. in Artificial Intelligence program, Sikand found himself in the midst of protests, kicking tear gas canisters and watching civilians take body checks and get doused in pepper spray from police officers. 

While he has and continues to partake in the protests, Sikand decided to dedicate his nights to build a live map for city dwellers that identifies black-owned businesses in the Boston metro. As society wages a new war on racism, Sikand believed he could help consumers express their support for people of color by shopping and dining at the establishments run by them, which have also been the businesses most affected by the. recession.

“Certain minorities are incredibly underrepresented in tech and often don't have people in their communities with the skills and resources for projects like these. It's important we try to help” Sikand said. “I'm still working to make the map render nicely on mobile using Plotly and Dash. If anyone with programming skills wants to assist I will post the Python code and CSV file, please email me at alex@sikand.org”.

Alex Sikand created a resource for consumers in support of #BLM.

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, between February and April, at least 3.3 million businesses closed, and African-American businesses were hit the hardest. Entrepreneurs of color are facing added challenge on top of the systematic bias that awaits their business endeavors. For example, The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation reports that African-American business owners are three times more likely to report a negative impact from lack of access to additional funding than their white counterparts. 

Voting with your dollar has always been a way to affect change and Sikand’s map is a powerful tool for Boston residents as they look to support business owners of color as they enjoy the newfound freedoms of a society that is re-opening amid a pandemic. While he is hammering away at a mobile-friendly version of the app and making it more usable, time will tell whether he intends to scale his work to other cities. In the meantime, he encourages people to create right now and to consider a donation to Black Girls Code, which helps bring computer science education to young African-American girls.