Power players - African American executives in the high technology industry

Black Enterprise, March, 2001 by Marjorie Whigham-Desir, Wakeen Edmonds

Darien Dash CEO, DME Interactive Holdings Inc.

This Gen-Xer blazed trails by making his firm, DME Interactive Holdings Inc., the first publicly traded, black-owned high tech company on the Nasdaq.

The company is currently dealing with some restructuring issues. But with Places of Color, a consumer products subsidiary of DME that enables minorities to secure low-cost computers and easy Internet access, Dash, 29, is on course to accomplish what he initially set out to do--bridge the digital divide.

Dealt Hamilton Founder, President, and CEO CoSine Communications

Dean Hamilton came to Silicon Valley seemingly at just the right time. The semiconductor industry was really hitting its stride, and microprocessors were starting to be incorporated into many systems.

"I started to work at a company in the early days of the first microprocessors on an optical sensor called a flue gas analyzer, trying to put a microprocessor into its system." To finish the project, Hamilton transferred from the physics side of the company to the software engineering department. It was where theory met practice, and where Hamilton found his joy.

Fast-forward 20 years to today, where, at 38, Hamilton, is the founder, president, and CEO of CoSine Communications, a $30 million IP service delivery communications company. With 530 employees in 22 countries, Hamilton's publicly traded firm is focused on manufacturing high-performance computing and communications equipment used by large telecom companies to secure voice and data networks.

And that, he says, is the way business will be done in technology in the future--outsourcing competencies. And the Internet will be the platform. "Even small mom-and-pop businesses will be able to use the most sophisticated IT technology, like encryption, encrypted information into one form, which now only large businesses can afford. It will level the playing field."