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Four Atlanta social ventures have been awarded a total of $200,000 by the Spanx by Sara Blakely Foundation and Atlanta Emerging Markets, Inc. (AEMI) through the Civic Impact Loan Fund. This loan fund is an effort created in partnership with the Center for Civic Innovation (CCI) to support early-stage civic entrepreneurs in scaling their businesses and expanding their community impact in Atlanta.
Trish Miller has over 20 years of experience working as a corporate and public health professional. She is the Founder and CEO of SwemKids, a school-based nonprofit program that eliminates the barriers to Black children learning to swim by transporting them to local pools for water safety and swimming instruction as a part of the school’s curriculum.
Trish is passionate about the health and well-being of children and works to create equitable opportunities for their development. Originally from Virginia, she received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Virginia, a Master of Business Administration from the College of William and Mary, and a Master of Public Health from Emory University.
When I was 19 years old I went on Spring Break with my friends and once they learned that I didn’t know how to swim they agreed to teach me. After about 15 minutes of lessons, I thought I was ready for the deep end - I was wrong. I jumped in, panicked and almost drowned. Thankfully my friends were close to the pool edge and were able to jump in and rescue me. That experience stayed with me for decades. It took me years to get back in the water and conquer that retching fear that I now had of the water.
The notion that hair is the number one impediment to black women engaging in cardio exercise, swimming or physical activity in general should come as no surprise. Even though we’ve been sold the Kool-Aid of natural hair as the be-all-end-all solution, naturalistas struggle with this dilemma as well.
Below you can read about the other five teams currently in our accelerator program. From esports to swimming, these startups cover a unique array of sports technology and come with some very intriguing backstories. We know for a fact that these founders will be positively changing the sports landscape for years to come.
Comcast NBCUniversal announced the first class of startups chosen for its SportsTech accelerator program, buying equity in 10 companies across technology, apparel and performance categories.
