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Panel Track: Incarcerated to Tech Entrepreneurs: How Navigating Reentry Barriers Led to Digital Workforce Solutions, Sponsored by Aventiv
SESSION INFO
Tuesday, August 29, 2023
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM
Session Type: Special Session
More than 600,000 incarcerated individuals leave prison each year. Most of them face barriers to employment upon their release, limiting their opportunities for economic security and employers’ chance to tap qualified job candidates. For the millions of individuals convicted of a crime who did not go to prison, obtaining employment has similar benefits and can keep justice-involved individuals from recidivating. In panel structure moderated by Shamia Lodge, Director of Community Engagement at Aventiv, you’ll hear from Harley Blackman, Founder/CEO of Honest Jobs and Laurin Leonard, Co-Founder/CEO of R3 Score, as they share their personal experiences navigating reentry and explain how proximity led them to create digital workforce solutions. We’ll also discuss how their innovative solutions are being made available to individuals who are currently incarcerated through an initiative launched by Aventiv.
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SESSION PRESENTERS
Harley Tanner Blakeman
Founder & CEO, Honest Jobs
Harley Blakeman is the Founder & CEO of Honest Jobs, a platform to help people with criminal records find better jobs faster. He spent 14 months in prison as a teenager, so the mission is personal. He helps over 1,300 employers nationwide give people with past convictions a fair chance.
Laurin Leonard
Co-Founder/CEO, R3 Score
Laurin Leonard is the President and CEO of R3 Score Technologies, Inc., an alternative background check and credit score built to better assess people living with records or less than prime credit scores. Laurin came to this work by way of her lived experience: the unexpected incarceration of her mother. Choosing to remain committed to their relationship, she soon realized, “people do not go to prison, families do” and they set out to find meaning in this hardship, together. R3 Score is in the market as a Tier Two vendor helping employers and small business lenders assess candidates with criminal records and/or poor credit scores. R3 Score is the only Black woman led vendor in the market at present. Laurin is a graduate of Old Dominion University as well as The Johns Hopkins University. She is a former Visiting Research Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School Carr Center as a Human Rights & Artificial Intelligence Fellow as well as an Echoing Green Fellow.
Shamia Lodge
Director of Community Engagement, Aventiv Technologies
Shamia Lodge currently serves as the director of community engagement at Aventiv Technologies. Most recently a fellow with CEO Action for Racial Equity, serving as the economic empowerment platform lead overseeing the corporate engagement and public-policy strategies. Shamia is passionate about creating fair opportunities for those impacted by the justice system. She holds a bachelor’s degree in human-resources management and is currently pursuing her master’s in legal studies at Arizona State University.
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