Entrepreneur/performer Angelica Ross opened the 2018 TransTech summit, which was held Oct. 20 at Groupon's River North headquarters with a keynote address about finding one's own "superpower."
Ross, a former Chicagoan who is currently a regular on the Ryan Murphy-produced television series Pose, founded the TransTech incubator in 2014 to help trans women and trans men engage technology to both find vocations and thrive in the workplace.
She spoke at length about the need to discover one's own interest and talents, and not set goals and benchmarks based exclusively on other people's achievements and expectations.
"When it comes to jobs, employment or capitalism, we frequently [attach] value through comparison," Ross explained. "Unfortunately, we do that with each other too."
But Ross also added that trans people, and people who work with them, need to make space for trauma that so many in the trans community face; sometimes the residual effects from that trauma make it difficult to show up or follow through as planned. Ross noted that in TransTech's early days, some early participants disengaged when personal challenges impeded on their training and work.
Ross overhauled the program to take such situations into account, she said. When someone suffers a setback, she added, "All is not lost—there is just work that still needs to be done."
PayPal and Braintree were among other summit sponsors.
An interview with Ross is at www.windycitymediagroup.com/lgbt/Angelica-Ross-returns-TransTech-project-to-Chicago/64351.html .
