Technology

Thank Edward for That Car

Published

9 years ago

February 10, 2015

General Motors Vice President Global Design Ed Welburn (left) receives the 2015 Black Engineer of the Year award from GM Board of Directors member Errol Davis (center) and GM Executive Vice President Global Product Development Mark Reuss at the BEYA STEM Conference Black Engineer of the Year Gala, Saturday, February 7, 2015 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Tony Powell for General Motors)

By Khari Arnold
Special to NNPA from Howard University News Service

WASHINGTON – If you love the sexy, sleekness of the Chevrolet Corvette, the elegance and luxury of the Cadillac Escalade, the cool truck/SUV look of the Chevrolet Avalanche or the pure brawn of the Hummer H2, you can thank Edward Welburn Jr.

Welburn is not exactly a household name, but for more than 20 years the Howard University graduate and one of the top executives for General Motors, has been overseeing the design of many of the world’s top cars and winning awards and accolades, including from President Barack Obama.

For that work, Welburn, vice president for General Motors Global Design, was honored this past weekend as the Engineer of the Year by engineers from the automobile, space, science and technology industries at the 29th annual BEYA STEM Conference in Washington.

The conference is dedicated to building diversity in the STEM (Science, Technology. Engineering and Mathematics) fields, an issue Welburn has led on during his 43-years in the automotive industry.

Welburn said while he has received many honors, BEYA’s was truly special.

“It’s still sinking in,” he said. “To be recognized for something you love to do, and have fun doing, it’s kind of cool. It’s real cool.”

To honor his alma mater and to aid increased diversity and curriculum development in the STEM field, Welburn presented a $110,000 check to Howard University on behalf of General Motors.

“In achieving my goals, one of the defining chapters in my life was the time I spent at Howard University,” Welburn said. “There is hardly a day that goes by that I don’t think about the instructors and professors and the guidance that I received from them and what I learned.”

LaWanda Peace, the assistant dean of Howard’s College of Engineering, Architecture and Computer Sciences, said Welburn’s contribution by example and his donation can point more Howard students to STEM careers.

“It’s really important to get our young Black people into the STEM area,” Peace said. “STEM is where it is now. It really is.”

Peace added: “Back in 1972, when we first started trying to get young, Black people into engineering, it probably wasn’t even 3 percent of the workforce that was Black at that time.”

When Welburn was 11, he wrote General Motors asking for information on how to become a car designer. Eleven years later, he joined General Motors as an associate designer in the Advanced Design Studios.

Welburn, who also interned at the company the summer before he graduated, would go on to become the first African-American designer at General Motors. In Weburn’s current position, every car that General Motors develops globally is created under his design direction.

Welburn, the highest-ranked African-American in the automotive industry, said he wants to see more African-Americans and other people of color to follow on his path.

“I just want to see Black folks do well,” Welburn said. “I want to see them succeed. Car design was what I wanted, and I know there are people out there who have the same dreams, whether it’s car design or whatever it is that they’re interested in. We need to do everything we can to open doors and help them realize their dreams.”

Welburn concluded: “I know from my many years designing automobiles for General Motors is that having a diverse workforce has huge benefits in developing a design for a car.”

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Attorney General Rob Bonta, Oakland Lawmakers, Introduce Legislation to Protect Youth Online

At a press conference in downtown Oakland on Jan. 29, Attorney General Rob Bonta joined Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) to announce two pieces of legislation designed to protect children online. The bills are Senate Bill (SB) 976, the Protecting Youth from Social Media Addiction Act and Assembly Bill (AB) 1949, the California Children’s Data Privacy Act.

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From left to right: Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), Attorney General Rob Bonta and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) at a press conference introducing legislation to protect young people online.

By Magaly Muñoz

The bills are Senate Bill (SB) 976, the Protecting Youth from Social Media Addiction Act and Assembly Bill (AB) 1949, the California Children’s Data Privacy Act.

Skinner authored SB 976, which addresses online addiction affecting teenage users, while Wicks’s bill, AB 1949, takes on big tech by proposing data privacy and children rights protections.

“Social media companies unfortunately show us time and time again that they are all too willing to ignore the detriment to our children, the pain to our children, the mental health and physical challenges they face, in order to pursue profits,” Bonta said.

SB 976 would allow parents to control the nature and frequency of the content their under-18-year-old children see on social media. Notifications from social media platforms would also be paused from midnight to 6 am and controls would allow parents to set time limits on their children’s usage based on their discretion.

Skinner stated that the longer that kids are on their phones during the day, the higher the risk for depression, anxiety and other related issues.

The bill would also push to get rid of addictive media that is harmful for young women and girls, specifically image filters that mimic cosmetic plastic surgery.

Bonta and 33 other attorney generals had previously filed a lawsuit against Meta, owner of the popular social media applications Instagram and Facebook. The filing claims that the company purposefully uses algorithmized content that harms younger audiences.

“Social media companies have the ability to protect our kids, they could act, but they do not,” Skinner said.

The Child Data Privacy Act would strengthen existing protections for data privacy under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The lawmakers argue that the law does not have effective protection for those under 18 years old.

Wicks stated that the bill would forbid businesses from collecting, using, sharing, or selling personal data of anyone underage unless they receive informed consent, or it becomes necessary for the purpose of the business.

Wicks added that the acts would make it so that a search on the internet like “How do I lose weight?” would not result in dieting pill advertisements targeting youth, which, some experts report, could be harmful to their mental and physical health.

“In a digital age where the vulnerabilities of young users are continually exploited, we cannot afford to let our laws lag behind, our children deserve complete assurance that their online experience will be safeguarded from invasive practices,” Wicks said.

Supporters of the two acts say they have gained bipartisan support issue, but the authors and Bonta expect them to be met with pushback from the affected companies.

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