Daily Inspiration: Meet Nashlie Sephus

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nashlie Sephus.

Hi Nashlie, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi the capital city which is a majority black city although there is little black property ownership in the downtown area. The greater Jackson area is very diverse as Jackson is an urban city with many colleges and universities (as some refer to it as a large college town). Despite getting a bad wrap due to our harsh past as a state and economic issues, the city has a lot of soul and arts/music/food culture with a sense of community.

While getting my undergraduate degree in computer engineering at Mississippi State and obtaining my phd in the same at Georgia Tech, I would work as a consultant doing websites and software development for small businesses as a side hustle to make extra cash. I later ended up working with a startup company called Partpic as a CTO and developed one of the first prototypes to be able to raise $1.5 million. I often say I was working at a startup company but didn’t really know what a startup was due to my background in engineering. Now, I’ve founded a few additional companies and advise several others.

I wanted to provide tech help and exposure to people in the community who otherwise wouldn’t have been empowered with such or had access to such. I wanted to bridge the tech gap in my communities. So, I founded BeanPath.org non-profit in 2018. This program was so successful I decided to scale the work by purchasing 21 acres of land and 8 buildings as of August 2022 in downtown Jackson, MS in 2020 called the up-and-coming JXNTechDistrict.com, a live-work-play innovation hub with collaboration, inclusion, and equity in mind. Lastly, I cofounded KITTlabs.io which is a co-development studio in West Midtown Atlanta co-founded by black technologists to build community, equity, and opportunity in STEAM fields.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I have experienced many challenges, but as someone who works in corporate setting leading AI teams and having had a successful startup acquisition, I have learned how to overcome obstacles.

Some challenges include raising funds, convincing people who’ve never experienced a thriving tech ecosystem that this is possible in a place like Mississippi or in the underrepresented communities in Atlanta, and uniting many great initiatives that have been working in silos mainly. I believe with the right strategy, precision, and understanding the community’s needs, this is how I am overcoming these.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Dr. Nashlie Sephus is the ML Tech Evangelist for Amazon AI focusing on fairness and identifying biases at AWS AI. She formerly led the Amazon Visual Search team as an Applied Scientist in Atlanta, which launched visual search for replacement parts on the Amazon Shopping app in June 2018. This technology was a result of former startup Partpic (Atlanta) being acquired by Amazon, for which she was the Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Prior to working at Partpic, she received her Ph.D. from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2014 and worked for a year with Exponent technical consulting firm in New York City. Her core research areas were digital signal processing, machine learning, and computer engineering. She received her B.S. in Computer Engineering from Mississippi State University (2007).

Dr. Sephus is a native of Jackson, Mississippi and a 2003 graduate of Murrah High School/Power Academic and Performing Arts Complex (APAC). She’s had several internships and research experiences worldwide with companies such as IBM, Delphi, University of California at Berkeley, GE Research Center, GE Energy, Miller Transporters, and Kwangwoon University in Seoul, South Korea. Recently, Dr. Sephus became founder and CEO of The Bean Path, a non-profit organization based in Jackson, MS, to sow technical expertise and bridge the tech gap in communities by hosting free tech office hours in local libraries, conducting youth coding workshops and giving away grants. She is also developing 21 acres of land in the downtown area deemed the Jackson Tech District for strengthening a community amongst the next generation of technologists.

Dr. Sephus has been featured in AJC, CBS kids’ show Mission Unstoppable, Black Enterprise, Ebony, Amazon Science, AWS re:Invent, Afrotech, Your First Million podcast, along with several others. She also serves on several startup and academic advisory boards along with mentoring others and investing in Atlanta-based startups. During her leisure time, she enjoys playing tennis, playing the piano, listening to music, bargain hunting, biking, and working on do-it-yourself (DIY) projects at home.

What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
I like the opportunities that exist and the ability to progress in business, politics, networking, etc. People come to Atlanta to make something out of nothing, yet still in a diverse environment where many people of color are able to find these opportunities and thrive. I don’t like the barriers amongst groups that should work together yet feel more competitive than what it should be.

Contact Info:

• Website: beanpath.org, kittlabs.io
• Instagram: @phenomenashlie, @thebeanpath, @kittlabs
• Twitter: @phenomenashlie
• Youtube: @thebeanpath

Image Credits
Terrence Wells of Wells Media