About Daraja™
The Daraja Collective was born from Stacyann Russell’s realization that engineering and entrepreneurship did not have to exist as two disparate worlds. The culmination of over a decade’s worth of experiences in engineering and entrepreneurship, Daraja Collective bridges the gap between the two fields in a way that elevates the education and economic levels of underserved communities. Pulling its name from a Swahili term meaning “bridge”, Daraja provides a holistic package of services for entrepreneurs, startups, and organizations whose work will employ and bolster underserved communities by providing skill sets, human capital, coaching, and an expansive network.
Mission
To be the source of innovation that drives technology solutions created by people of color and elevates the educational and economic levels of underserved communities
Vision
To establish an ecosystem that empowers individuals to launch and scale tech entreprises that answer world challenges, accelerate communal wealth, and advance societal well-being
Our Founder
Stacyann Russell is a results-driven business professional with a passion for innovation and entrepreneurship. She is well known for her authenticity, profound insights, and emotional agility. Global companies and Startup Founders enthusiastically lean on her leadership and counsel as they navigate uncharted paths to build and scale their companies. Leaders are drawn to Stacyann’s thought-provoking curiosity, penchant for storytelling, and intuition about optimizing a company’s business context, paving the way for her successful track record of partnering with leaders to ignite and accelerate their product development, innovation, and technology commercialization processes while keeping their supply chain sustainability at the forefront. Throughout the course of her 10-year career, starting as a nuclear engineer, Stacyann consistently delivered results in modeling and simulation, 3D immersive environments, continuous improvement, and operational optimization for manufacturing processes in the automotive, aerospace and defense, communications, and energy industries. Her elite expertise in these fields frequently affords her meaningful opportunities to instruct industry leaders. Stacyann regularly develops and delivers instruction on leadership, professional development, entrepreneurship, and innovation. She is both skilled and deeply experienced at scaling programming and instituting growth initiatives for small businesses, incubators, nonprofits, and universities.
Community engagement has been, is, and will always be a priority for Stacyann. During her collegiate years, Stacyann held local, regional, and national-level leadership roles in the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), eventually rising to the Chair of board position in 2009. Most recently she was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Youth Business Alliance (YBA) in Los Angeles and began serving as the Equity for Minorities in Tech Chair for the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineering’s (IEEE) Technology and Engineering Management Society. In these roles, she has built platforms to increase community engagement, broaden access to opportunity, and support research for truly inclusive technology advancement globally.
At her core, Stacyann is a servant leader and advocate for engineering and entrepreneurship, especially when it comes to ensuring that youth has access to opportunities in both STEM and entrepreneurship. She strongly believes in community empowerment and actively engages citizens to shape the future of their communities.
Stacyann holds a BS in Industrial and Systems Engineering from The Ohio State University, an MS in Engineering Management from The George Washington University, and an MBA from the University of Southern California. Stacyann is of Jamaican descent. She was born and raised in The Bronx, New York, spent several years in Cleveland, Ohio, and currently resides both in Los Angeles, California, and Atlanta, GA.