Long before AI became the headline of every newspaper and the centerpiece of every corporate strategy, I argued that it would transform education, employment, business, and the way nations compete.
I also warned that the communities already standing on the wrong side of the digital divide would face the greatest risk.
History has taught us that every technological revolution creates new opportunities, but it also leaves people behind if they are not prepared. AI would be no different.
There are moments in a person's life when they stop asking whether they were heard and begin asking why they were not. I have asked myself that question many times.
If I were white, perhaps more people would have listened when I warned that artificial intelligence would become the defining technology of our generation.
For decades, I devoted my life to making sure that would not happen.
Through Career Communications Group, our magazines, our conferences, our partnerships with industry, our work with HBCUs, and our STEM initiatives, we worked to connect people with the future before the future arrived.
We believed that access to technology was never simply about computers. It was about economic opportunity. It was about ownership. It was about participation in building America itself.
Many smiled politely. Some applauded. Too few acted.
If I were white, perhaps those ideas would have been called visionary much earlier. Perhaps investors would have seen the opportunity instead of the risks.
Perhaps institutions would have embraced the urgency instead of waiting until the evidence became impossible to ignore.
Instead, too often, I found myself explaining and re-explaining ideas that today have become common wisdom. Long before the world discovered ChatGPT, I understood that artificial intelligence would become more than another software application. I believed AI would become the world's new operating system for knowledge.
That belief led me to build.
We created STEM City USA, not as another website, but as a digital city where students, educators, corporations, and communities could learn, collaborate, and prepare for the future.
It was a digital twin before digital twins became fashionable. We envisioned virtual campuses, AI-powered learning, workforce development, and immersive experiences that connected education directly to opportunity.
Then we created Collin AI, named in honor of two remarkable technology leaders who inspired me: Dr. Colin Parris and Linda Gooden.
Collin AI was never intended to be just another chatbot. It was designed to preserve, organize, and make accessible more than fifty years of knowledge accumulated through Career Communications Group: our magazines, conferences, interviews, research, photographs, videos, and the stories of thousands of engineers, scientists, innovators, and corporate leaders.
Today, companies are racing to build knowledge engines from their intellectual property. We were building ours before most organizations understood why they would need one.
If I were white, perhaps these innovations would have been celebrated as visionary breakthroughs.
Venture capital might have flowed. Universities might have lined up to partner. Corporate America might have seen not simply another publisher, but an architect of the AI workforce.
Instead, many saw only a niche company serving underrepresented communities.
They missed the larger vision. They failed to recognize that our work was never limited by race. It was always about preparing America for the future. We happened to begin where the need was greatest.
Closing the digital divide was never charity. It was an economic strategy. Preparing underserved communities for AI was never about giving someone special treatment.
It was about ensuring that America did not waste millions of talented minds simply because they started with fewer opportunities. That was true fifty years ago. It is even more true today.
The irony is that the predictions are no longer predictions. They are reality.
Artificial intelligence is reshaping every profession. Employers are redefining the skills they need. Universities are redesigning curricula. Governments are racing to establish national AI strategies. Every major company is investing billions of dollars in technologies that many of us warned would arrive decades ago.
The question is no longer whether AI will change the world. The question is who will benefit from it. My concern has never been about being proven right.
It has always been about ensuring that the communities I have served for nearly half a century would not once again be standing at the back of the line when the next great economic revolution arrived. That is why I cannot stop.
It is why we continue building new platforms, new partnerships, new conferences, and new pathways into the AI economy. This work has never been about me. It has always been about the next generation.
Some may never acknowledge the role race has played in amplifying or overlooking ideas. Others may disagree entirely. But no one can erase the record of what was built, what was said, or what has now come to pass.
History has a way of catching up. So does truth. I am not asking anyone to believe me because of who I am. I am asking them to examine the record. Look at what we built. Look at what we predicted. Look at what is happening now. Then decide for yourself. I may not be white. But the ideas were sound. The work was real. The mission remains unfinished. And time has proven that I was looking in the right direction.