As we chatted amid the hum of the exhibit hall at the Austin Convention Center, a California woman who works for a popular vacation-rental company described last week’s AfroTech conference in a way that felt a bit outdated but was undeniably succinct. “It’s all the tokens in one room,” she joked.In the seven years since it launched in 2016, AfroTech has grown into the largest Black tech industry gathering in the United States. Attendees this year numbered about 25,000, and chances are that many of them may feel like “tokens” at their companies. According to the Computing Technology Industry Association, Black Americans make up only 8 percent of the tech workforce nationally, compared to 12 percent across all occupations. In Texas, those numbers are slightly…
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