Tamar Huggins is a Canadian tech entrepreneur, author and AI transformation strategist, based in Houston.[1][2] She is an advocate for culturally responsive technology, whose work focused on the development of the Black tech ecosystem in Canada.[3] Huggins founded DRIVEN Accelerator Group,[4] a tech accelerator for underrepresented founders in Canada. She founded Tech Spark, a Canadian technology school for Black youth, girls, and other youth of colour. She also created Spark Plug AI, the first generative AI tool to center Black culture, to make learning more relatable and empowering for youth.[5][6]
Huggins was born in Etobicoke and grew up in Brampton, Ontario as the youngest of eight children. She is of Jamaican and Kittian descent and Nigerian ancestry.[citation needed] She graduated in 2007 from Centennial College, where she studied creative advertising with a major in media planning.[7]
Career
Huggins pursued entrepreneurship in 2009 after losing her advertising job during the recession.[8] In 2012, she created the first tech accelerator for BIPOC leaders in Canada, called DRIVEN.[2] The accelerator raised $1.1 million for Black, Brown and women-led tech startups in Canada. In 2015, Huggins launched a technology school in Canada focused on BIPOC students, called Tech Spark.[1][9] The school educated 1500 students in the first two years.[10] In 2017, Huggins released her first book, Bossed Up: 100 Truths to Becoming Your Own Boss, God's Way![3] In November 2019, Huggins founded EDUlytics, later rebranded as Spark Plug,[11] a digital tool that uses data, hip hop culture and artificial intelligence to personalize education and inform education policy.[12]
In 2021, Huggins' technology company was awarded $1 million from TD Canada Trust, to scale Spark Plug to 40,000 North American students.[13]
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