Detroit Black-Owned Tech Company Wins Pharrell Williams $1 Million Black Ambition Prize Competition

Detroit Black-Owned Tech Company Wins Pharrell Williams $1 Million Black Ambition Prize Competition

• Pharell Williams founded Black Ambition to focus on closing the opportunity and wealth gap through entrepreneurship.
• Black Ambition provides mentorship and access to capital to high-growth startups founded by Black and Latinx entrepreneurs.
• $1 Million Prize Winner Livegistics: A cloud-based material management operating system that connects all stakeholders of a construction project in a real-time GPS tracked and mapping network of digital information.

July 13, 2021, Detroit, Mich. – Detroit-based minority-owned tech company, Livegistics, wins Pharrell Williams’s “Black Ambition” $1 million prize competition, as announced online Tuesday, July 13. “Black Ambition” provides a pathway to success for Black and Latin entrepreneurs who are launching early-stage tech, design, healthcare, and consumer products and services start-ups. Headquartered in Detroit, Livegistics understands the components needed for a renaissance movement and is committed to providing a product and experience that will revolutionize the construction industry that is ripe for change.

Founded in 2017, minority-owned company Livegistics is quickly becoming the top disruptor in the tech industry. CEO and Co-Founder Justin Turk, with over 20 years of experience in civil engineering and construction management, Justin applied for the Black Ambition program to take advantage of each and every opportunity to grow the business, his intellect, and resources. Livegistics’ groundbreaking technology helps companies replace their paper with technology to bridge the gaps between civil construction, demolition, waste management, and logistics.

According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, African-Americans make up less than five percent of the technology industry’s workforce in Silicon Valley, and the percentage of African-Americans that occupy executive positions in the industry may be as low as one percent, according to the commission. Independent entrepreneurs reach the same closed-door or minimal access as those already established in the sector. “Winning this competition is bigger than just the prize money”, Turk says. “When we first entered the tech start-up world as two Black entrepreneurs, we had no idea how to navigate in this space. Now, we are not only being taught how to navigate, but also to dominate in an industry that just recently decided to grant access to people of color. The information, skills and tools we are being taught will not only help us thrive in our business, but it will break open doors that we never even knew existed. We don’t just want an invite, we want to create the guest list.”

With Livegistics, civil, demolition, and trucking companies can now easily convert paper truck tickets into a real-time continuous flow of information, data, and metrics that allow them to be in better control of cash flow and planning for the future. What would normally take months to audit and reconcile is complete in a matter of seconds using Livegistics.

Customers who use Livegistics see a return on their investment in less than 4 months.

• Eliminate revenue losses from lost tickets
• Drastically reduce time and labor associated with ticket reconciliation
• Manage cost on a real-time basis
• Data analytics gives a competitive advantage over the competition
• Large reduction in field errors

The COVD-19 Pandemic saw a surge in demand as the trucking industry single-handedly kept the country moving with the shutdown. “U.S. trucking companies are scrambling to hire more drivers as roaring consumer demand and tight shipping capacity stoke a resurgent freight market. Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc., the largest truckload carrier in North America, is the latest trucking company to raise pay”, per The Wall Street Journal. Livegistics software is installed in five Waste Management Landfills across three states, including Auburn Hills, Lenox, and Wayne, Michigan, allowing thousands of customers that cross their scales to use the highly sought out software.

Livegistics plans to invest in the tech industry, increasing the workforce, specifically hiring other Black entrepreneurs, and strategically spending the prize money on sales and marketing to continue to grow and scale the company. The inaugural Black Ambition prize winners were announced online Tuesday, July 13 at 5:30 pm, with earnings ranging from $100,000 to $1 million. The event featured programming, including remarks by Pharrell, a special performance by Tobe Nwigwe, and founder stories.