It can feel overwhelming to keep track of every world issue that deserves attention and support. Seeing a need to take social justice more fully into the social media era, tech entrepreneur and activist Chloe Cheyenne, 32, developed COMMUNITYx, a platform focused entirely on worldwide activism where users can create and discover petitions, fundraisers, events, and boycotts.
When Cheyenne was a child, her father was shot multiple times by Chicago police in a no-knock raid at the wrong address, leaving him with permanent disabilities. Driven by this injustice, and no stranger to battling the odds, she was inspired to launch COMMUNITYx. Starting out as a young woman of color in the very white, cis, profit-focused tech world was challenging, but Cheyenne never gave up until her vision was realized. “What I was bringing to the table didn’t align with what investors were used to seeing, and what they were funding. So, I was told ‘no’ for the first 12 months,” she says. “But young people have a lot of ideas about life and humanity and society. The most important thing is to hold strong to those beliefs.”