We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lewis George Walker. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lewis George below.

Alright, Lewis George thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s kick things off with talking about how you serve the underserved, because in our view this is one of the most important things the small business community does for society – by serving those who the giant corporations ignore, small business helps create a more inclusive and just world for all of us.

The Black Family Technology Awareness Association (BFTAA) was created in 2004 to support the national Black Family Technology Awareness campaign created by Career Communications Group and IBM. In Kansas City as a member on Community NETwork African American Telecommunications Professionals of AT&T I was offered the opportunity to lead the Black Family Technology Awareness Week in Kansas City, Mo.

The First Black Family Technology Awareness Week was held in 2005 and was a huge success and the Kansas City event was recognized a one of the best in the Nation. We held workshops and events for seven days at various locations around the city with a different theme everyday Business Opportunity, Technology and You, Tech Health, Tech Education, Discover Your Future, Black History Tech Pioneers, and Technology: Everybody Can Play. Each day was designed to expose families to the opportunities opening up and to use the internet to improve their standard of living.

The Association has evolved to offer year round opportunities for youth with robotics programs in Lego and VEX robotics competitions and soon to incorporate the Drone Cadets program. We also have added internet broadcasting for the community and schools. Our internet radio station KUAW broadcasts 24 hours a day. We are a global community radio station.

BFTAA is located in the Urban Core of Kansas City and our services are mostly free or very low cost. We are a 501c3 organization and fund operations with donations and grants.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Lewis George Walker, most people call me George. I worked in the telecommunications industry first for Southwestern Bell Telephone, which became SBC, and then AT&T. I was hired right out of high school as a frameman, and retired as Principal-Advanced Technical Support. I retired after 43 years of service.

I graduated Suma Cum Laude from DeVry University with a BS in Telecommunication Management.

I have been President of The Black Family Technology Awareness Association (BFTAA) since its founding in 2004.

I was able to lead the BFTAA organization to hold the first ever VEX Robotics competition in the city of Kansas City.

I was President of the Kansas City Chapter of Community NETwork AATP of AT&T.

I started KUAW radio to give a voice to all in the community we broadcast talk shows, news, poetry, Smooth Jazz, Blues, Soul music, and youth shows.

The Black Family Technology Awareness Association that I lead is open to all, we do not discriminate due to race, ethnicity, sex, age, gender, religion, background, or gender identification

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

As we started KUAW radio station we had a low power FM radio construction permit. I worked very hard to find funding and also to place a broadcast antenna on the roof of the school building. The process of getting the building rezoned for the antenna to quite a bit of time, and after we won that battle we worked with a engineering firm to place the antenna and after more than a year we found that the old building we were in could not support the antenna. After spend $20,000.00 we were at the deadline of our permit and had to surrender the permit. This was a great disappointment. We pivoted to a new plan and created the internet radio station KUAW. This has allowed us to broadcast video and audio and give more training opportunities and visibility to our community users.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

When I was first starting the BFTAA and wanting to sale the idea to funders of putting on a week of events on technology I ran in to a problem, neither I nor any of the original members had ever put on an event like this. Never under estimate the power of networking and enthusiasm, you never know where you might make a valuable connection. We contacted a wide variety of companies engineering companies, communications companies, healthcare companies, insurance agencies, and many others. We presented to officers again and again with out much success. We got some result $500 or $1,000 a couple of times but that would not cover the events that we had budgeted would cost fifteen thousand dollars or more. Our break came from two members that had contacts with a couple of executives. The first was a healthcare company that had just bought 4 or 5 hospitals to come into the Kansas City Market. We pitched to the president and vice president of marketing. After the presentation the vice president asked have you ever done anything like this before it is a lot of work. I answered no but we believe in this and we can do it. We got five thousand dollars and the company stayed with us for four years. The second came from my own company SBC I had talked with our community relations representative and they didn’t have the budget. The president of the erg that asked me to do the job said you are really working on this I will bring it up on a call her team has with a vice president. She brought it up one time on the call and we got ten Thousand dollars. The first Black Family Technology Awareness Week was a local hit and the associated press picked it up as a national story.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bftaa.org
• Instagram: KUAW_Radio
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BFTAA/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lewis-walker-5841938/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/BFTAA
• Youtube: KUAW Radio
• Other: www.kuaw.org

Image Credits
J. Pamela Stills