How we celebrated Black History Month

30-10-2020

Sharon St Louis

How we celebrated Black History Month

To celebrate Black History Month, EIP’s Sharon St Louis unearthed fascinating and overlooked black inventors and shared them with her firm.

I was not taught anything of note about black history at school (except slavery) so my knowledge of black achievement came from what I was told by my parents. Black History Month (BHM) originated in the US, but has been marked in the UK every October since the 1980s and, given world events this year, I wanted to celebrate it and make it relevant and interesting, so thought I would highlight black inventors and their patents.

Working at EIP, an IP firm which embraces diversity and inclusion, I wanted to use our internal communication channel, Yammer, to celebrate BHM so I posted a new inventor’s story on Yammer every day throughout October.

‘EIP’ers’ are great quizzers so to try and pique interest I added questions within the daily posts for them to learn more about black history and its impact of our industry. I even organised a prize (some authentic hot sauces from the Caribbean!) for the winner of our EIP BHM Quiz.


Black History Month, EIP, Sharon St Louis, black inventors, patents, diversity, inclusion, STEM

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