In 2017, the Tuskegee alum made history as the first Black LGBTQ candidate to run for Federal Office in the United States with his bid for the U.S. House representing Harlem. If ‘Detroit hustles harder‘ embodies the spirit of his hometown, Keith exemplifies its relentless drive and determination. - ESSENCE Magazine
James Felton Keith, is an award winning Mechanical Engineer & Labor Economist. He is CEO at InclusionScore Companies and formerly a professor at the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business. As an entrepreneur, he established the first international diversity & inclusion certification based on the ISO-30415:2021 standard and effectively reshaped commercial insurance underwriting to incentivize inclusion via a standardized "inclusion score".
Via the Keith Institute, James has authored and edited multiple books including, Inclusionism, his bio-political philosophy which is at the forefront of International Relations and Diplomacy. As an organizer, his Data Unions redefined the labor movement and people’s personal-data as the natural-resource driving all corporate productivity. He co-founded the Ethics of Personal Data Collection series at Anthem Press and wrote the book "Data Is Labor". He and his institutions have either written or consulted on all of the Western World’s seminal cyber policy during the 2010s including Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
JFK has founded multiple companies across the Non-Profit & Tech sectors. His expertise is in the ethnography of technology, or the study of the culture of tech. Over the past 20 years between 5 continents, he has been obsessing about economic inclusion, and how to get equity in the hands of the people who have increasingly less, while the world becomes more productive from their data’s input.
Working between government and business he regularly says “it’s necessary to have the mind of a CEO and the heart of a Social Worker to solve real people's problems”. His career transitioned to public life after starting Detroit’s LGBT Chamber of Commerce and "Pride Nights" at all four Big Box American sports franchises: NBA, NHL, MLB, & NFL. James has been appointed to the cabinet of Elected Officials, taken over for and advised CEOs, Academics, Diplomats, and Non-profiteers. James is an elected member of the New York Democratic Committee and is a frequent keynote at global venues like the United Nations, Future Tech Congress, Data Protection World Forum, and the World Pride Human Rights Forum to name a few.
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