On the west side of Detroit, under the shadow of aging utility poles and blocks lined with promise and grit, Deana Neely walks into a home needing power. Not the political kind, not metaphorical. Literal power. The kind that lights a room, fuels opportunity, and—when placed in the right hands—sparks a movement.
Neely owns Detroit Voltage, a Black woman-owned electrical contracting company building more than circuits. She’s rewriting access. Her company has installed over 1,000 electric vehicle chargers across Michigan. For her, it isn’t about catching up with the clean energy trend—it’s about making sure Black Detroiters aren’t left out of the infrastructure shaping the next economy.
“Too often, our communities are the last to benefit from innovation. I’m here to shift that,” Neely said. She grew up in Detroit and built her company in 2015 with a mission to provide both service and education. Whether it’s training apprentices or leading conversations about the energy transition, Neely stays rooted in Detroit’s needs while positioning her company in a global conversation around clean energy.
Her work intersects with Darren Riley, another visionary rooted in tech, health equity, and survival. Riley co-founded Just Air after watching his father battle respiratory issues in Grand Rapids. He later developed asthma himself, which pushed him to ask a question that many policy makers overlook: Why are Black neighborhoods hit hardest by environmental injustice?
Just Air uses air-quality sensors to monitor pollution levels at the hyperlocal level—block by block. The technology gives communities data they’ve never had access to and the power to organize with facts behind them. Riley said, “We are building tools to advocate for ourselves. This is about health. This is about dignity.”
Just Air has already been deployed in more than 20 neighborhoods across Michigan, Alabama, and Georgia. In Detroit, the system tracks pollution in areas surrounding industrial corridors where residents have long complained about asthma, heart disease, and a lack of accountability.
Michael Polk adds another crucial layer to the story. He’s the founder of Stock Pal, a fintech platform teaching financial literacy through culturally relevant content. Where traditional stock trading apps feel disconnected, Stock Pal speaks to users in their language—Detroit slang included—and focuses on creating generational wealth.
Polk calls Stock Pal a movement. “We’re teaching folks how to build portfolios, not just pay bills,” he said. The platform allows users to simulate trades, learn from curated financial news, and build confidence in investing without feeling judged or shut out.
Polk grew up seeing the barriers. He talks about the lack of wealth conversations in Black households not as a moral failing, but because of systemic exclusion. His app, now used by thousands of Detroiters, is a reclamation tool—a way to put the keys of the economy in the hands of those locked out for too long.
These three founders are not anomalies. They are evidence of what happens when Black innovation is resourced, trusted, and centered. Their work spans energy, health, and finance, but each project asks the same question: What does futureproofing look like for Black Detroit?
For Neely, it means building skills in clean energy that young Detroiters can use to secure careers and start businesses. She hires local, trains on the job, and collaborates with state-level EV initiatives to ensure representation.
For Riley, it means turning technology into activism. He meets with community groups and local governments, urging them to act on the data Just Air provides. The work becomes political when the right to breathe clean air turns into a community’s collective demand.
For Polk, futureproofing is about ownership. He refuses to let Black families be last in line when markets shift, or new technologies emerge. Stock Pal offers more than lessons—it delivers agency.
This kind of leadership redefines tech innovation. It doesn’t show up wearing hoodies in Silicon Valley. It shows up with steel-toe boots in Brightmoor, laptops in classrooms, and data sensors on street poles. It’s the kind of innovation that knows the smell of burned rubber from factories near schools. The kind that remembers block club meetings and church announcements as core parts of business strategy.
Detroit’s tech scene doesn’t always get the national spotlight, but it holds something deeper than hype. It holds the spirit of survival and a refusal to be erased. These founders are building systems that don’t ask permission to exist—they create spaces where others can thrive.
Black Detroiters have long lived at the intersections of extraction and erasure. From housing to health, energy to economics, the pattern is familiar. These innovators understand that. They’re not responding to a trend. They’re responding to a history.
That’s why their ventures matter. They don’t only aim to scale—they aim to root. They want Detroit to rise, not through gentrified promises or investment fads, but through strategies shaped by lived experience and cultural fluency.
Neely’s EV charger installs, Riley’s air quality monitors, and Polk’s financial education platform all work toward the same goal: a Detroit where Black futures are protected, profitable, and powerful. Their ventures are blueprints for what happens when tech doesn’t just extract data from our communities—it responds to our truths.
These aren’t just businesses. These are legacies in motion.
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