The 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump sparked Adam Taylor, 30, to become insecure about his work environment. Being the “Black face in a white space,” he did not feel comfortable expressing his anxiety about the uncertainty of Trump’s presidency.
That’s when Taylor, who was working at MIT assisting in software development, created the Black news app, Black, in 2017.
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He understood the importance of mental health when reading the heavy stories. So he is now planning to release a feature that will give readers on the app a mental health rating over time, based on what stories they click on daily.
Although Taylor’s app has allowed him to be a part of Apple’s inaugural Entrepreneur Camp for Black Founders, creating and continuing to develop Black hasn’t been a walk in the park. As a Black-owned and developed app, he has received racist and negative reviews.
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Black is a mobile app that curates Black news from several publications and organizes the stories into a personalized list. When the app was first released it was just about having solely Black content in one place. But Taylor started to get overwhelmed by the stories of violence happening towards the Black community.
Then and there he decided to focus the app differently.