Building in Color

BOSTON, MA — Thrive TidePartners, a strategic advisory firm working with Black-led companies and organizations at the intersection of technology, culture, and innovation, today announced Building in Color: Black Founders in AI, a curated panel and networking event taking place on Tuesday, May 26, 2026 at 8:30 AM at Northeastern University. The event is part of Boston Tech Week 2026, produced by a16z, which is coming to Boston for the first time.

Building in Color will bring together Black founders building AI companies in the Commonwealth with civic leaders, university faculty, students, and the broader innovation community for a frank conversation about capital access, the talent pipeline from university to startup, and the strengths and gaps of Massachusetts’ innovation ecosystem.

Featured panelists include:

Tosin Joel, Founder and CEO, ToluAI — A technology and energy industry executive who has led strategic initiatives for Fortune 500 companies including Amazon, Eni, and NextEra Energy, Joel founded ToluAI, an AI-native enterprise intelligence company transforming high-stakes decision-making for large institutions. Unlike traditional analytics tools that report on past events, ToluAI reasons about future outcomes, providing predictive and prescriptive intelligence across financial and operational systems. Joel attended MIT Sloan School of Management and the Stanford LEAD executive program. Joel is a fellow in the Spring 2026 cohort of MassVentures’ Founders School, a pre-accelerator backed by the Commonwealth’s Executive Office of Economic Development that prepares underrepresented deep tech founders for investment readiness. ToluAI operates from Cambridge, MA and West Palm Beach, FL.

Shawne Robinson, Co-Founder and CEO, Tosch.ai — A product leader with more than 20 years of B2B and B2C experience at IBM,
Monster Worldwide, and Pegasystems, Robinson co-founded Tosch.ai with his son Myles to build the first AI-powered, centralized college sports data and analytics platform. Tosch.ai aggregates disparate performance data and delivers actionable analytics and insights through an intuitive interface — serving a broad spectrum of users at the high school and college levels, including
student-athletes, coaches, athletic directors, club sports teams, sports agents, and sports enthusiasts. The company launched its platform in November 2025 and has been accepted into the MIT Venture Mentoring Service (VMS). Robinson holds an MBA from UC Berkeley Haas, an MS in Computer Science from USC, and a BS in Computer Science from Manhattan University.

The event will open with remarks from Richard O’Bryant, Phd, Northeastern University’s Chief Belonging Officer and Director of the John D. O’Bryant African American Institute. Dr. O’Bryant holds a PhD in Urban and Regional Studies from MIT and a bachelor’s
degree in Computer Engineering from Howard University. His office is sponsoring breakfast for the event.

Donald Wright, Interim Chief of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion for the City of Boston, will also deliver remarks on behalf of Mayor Michelle Wu’s administration. The Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion works to help businesses launch and thrive in Boston while advancing economic equity across the city’s neighborhoods.

The panel will be moderated by Taneshia Nash Laird, founder of Thrive Tide Partners. Laird is a strategic advisor, gubernatorial appointee to Massachusetts’ Cultural Policy Development Advisory Council, and associate professor of Africana Studies at Berklee
College of Music, where she teaches “Entrepreneurship in Black Creative Expression.” She also serves as Executive Director of Project REAP, a national nonprofit creating pathways into commercial real estate for underrepresented professionals.

“There are more Blackfounders in Boston than many realize, but we don’t always have the opportunity to engage with one another as often as we’d like,” said Robinson. “I’ve created my own ‘iron sharpens iron’ conversations with other founders so we can talk
shop, share lessons, and keep building. Being the only one in the room is not fun, and that’s why a forum like Building in Color: Black Founders in AI matters.”

In addition to the curated panel, Building in Color will feature an open floor segment where pre-registered founders can share what they’re building in two minutes and make one specific ask of the room. The event will close with open networking.