Lunii

Ludi Akue is currently CTO of Lunii. From a love of mathematics during her youth, she moved into the field of computer science before working as CTO for several tech companies. As one of the few women of color at her level, Ludi is mentoring and coaching other women in tech to help them advance through their careers.Passion for mathematicsPreviously, I was CTO of Carlili, a Parisian startup which I joined as a late technical cofounder, as the third employee. I left after we raised our Series-A funding, at which point there were about 20 people in the team.I have a PhD in computer science. During high school, I fell in love with mathematics. I knew I wanted to do science. My parents were both teachers — my mother taught biology, and my stepfather taught physics — so even if I was a girl I never questioned my passion for science.&nbsp;It was only later, at university, that I really noticed there were only three girls in my mathematics class. Still, I really enjoyed studying mathematics, despite it being male dominated. At some point, I realized I didn’t want to be a teacher like my parents, so I made the switch to computer science. That’s where I learned how to code.&nbsp;Journey of increased awarenessAt the end of my master’s degree, I started an association called “Zéro Une” 0-1, to help girls in computer science. Unfortunately, it didn’t succeed because I didn’t have enough time to do it properly, but it helped me gain awareness of the gender imbalance in our industry. I noticed that my female friends wanted to do project management, while I was eager to code and do hard science.After that, I won a Google scholarship in 2011 which brought me to the US. That’s where I understood the real problem with the lack of women in computer science — the scholarship really opened my eyes to the systemic barriers and biases holding women in tech back.Love for storytelling&nbsp;I was first introduced to Lunii, though I didn’t know it at the time, through my godchild. We loved experiencing the stories together. Later, when Lunii reached out to me for a job, I discovered that there was this amazing team and product behind those stories.&nbsp;Lunii helps spark childrens’ imagination and teaches them how to think critically and be open-minded. There is a lot of value in that. Fun fact: when I joined the company, the publishing team were working on their first afro-feminist story. It was confirmation for me that I was in the right place!Representing diversity&nbsp;For me, it’s very important that as a company we’re building products for everybody. Society is diverse, so the people building the products should also be diverse. That’s the way we can limit bias. You can never eliminate bias altogether, but limiting it makes a huge difference.&nbsp;There are many talented people of color out there, with the same degrees and qualifications, so we need to go out and look for them. The first thing is to communicate that your company culture is diverse. In my opinion, Lunii does that really well. There is always room for improvement, but we have a diverse company with 70% female employees. That's huge. It’s the first thing I saw on the team page, with the photos of everyone working at the company. This image made me instantly feel connected and welcome.&nbsp;Equity, not equalityI’m a big believer in equity as opposed to equality. Equality is about treating everybody the same. But in reality, in a company, you have very different jobs and very different types of people. You have the tech developers, HR, the sales people, the content publishing team — in the end, what you want is to foster a culture that takes into account these differences, but still treats them with the same respect.&nbsp;As CTO, I try to foster that culture by coaching and mentoring a lot of women through their tech careers. I’m also part of a CTO network called TechRocks, where I’m editor-in-chief of the newsletter. We’re thinking of how to increase our visibility as female CTOs and which types of initiatives to launch.&nbsp;

“There are many talented people of color out there — we just need to find them”

Julien Londeix