You might have seen Tisch grad student Sharon De La Cruz’s work at the ITP Winter Show: One of her projects was inspired by the Wu-Tang Clan, while another challenged groups of four people to balance atop a ball.
But when the NYU Stories team bumped into De La Cruz at a speed networking session at ITP’s Women Entrepreneurs Festival, the former Fulbright scholar and program director of THE POINT Community Development Corporation in Hunts Point, the Bronx, was busy selling her new business venture. We asked for her elevator pitch.
We’re all ears. What’s your big idea?
I’m pitching an all-women tech cooperative, specifically cooperative because I’ve worked with a lot of undocumented marginalized women. I understand capitalism—I get it, but a cooperative would be a much more sustainable business model. I’m looking to create something that women who aren’t necessarily citizens of the United States could hold onto that is theirs. They would own the business.
Where does the tech piece come in?
Technology is super expensive and moves really fast. So I figure, okay, if we share our resources, if we buy into this technology together, let’s use it to build [an alternative media platform] for women of color and marginalized women. We’ll not only change the world and media but also create something that’s more sustainable.
What in your previous experience led you to this work?
I’m an artist, focusing primarily on mural-making and animation. A lot of my art tends to deal with multiple identities, and what it means to be a woman, specifically. But I’ve also done five years of community organizing in the South Bronx, where I was born and raised.