'Searchable Museum' gives digital experience of Smithsonian's National Museum of African-American History
BALTIMORE -- The Smithsonian's National Museum of African-American History and Culture opened in Washington DC in 2016.
Curators saw a real need to create a digital experience.
After a two-year selection process, Delali Dzirasa and his Baltimore-based team at Fearless Solutions were tasked with developing the "Searchable Museum."
"The task is to create a museum that is online that takes advantage of a digital experience that you can't get in person," said Dzirasa, founder and CEO of Fearless Solutions.
A complement to the slavery and freedom exhibition, experience it all at your fingertips.
"A place where you can come and learn, not just for the African-American community but for the entire world to be able to see," Dzirasa said.
Since its launch in 2020, the Searchable Museum has seen more than 260,000 visitors from all over the world.
The son of Ghanaian immigrants, University of Maryland, Baltimore County alumnus, Dzirasa, said this is a huge accomplishment.
"When we came here, the mindset is, you got to work hard, and we didn't sacrifice this, so you could come here and be a knucklehead, and so the expectation was success even from an early stage," Dzirasa said.
As a Black man in tech, Dzirasa said he sometimes felt inferior.
A mentor worked to shift his perspective.
"Saying that you are assuming your Blackness is coming from a place of weakness instead of a place of strength," Dzirasa said. "He said if you are the only one in the room, make sure that everyone remembers the Black guy with the purple tie."
Now celebrating the 14th year of Fearless Solutions, he also runs Fearless sports, and hutch which works to grow small tech companies.
He said it's all about lifting while you climb.
"We've got a responsibility to do our part, to then raise the stakes for other people, bring other people along so they, in turn, can go even further than we can," Dzirasa said.
The Searchable Museum recently expanded and its second exhibit is now live.
For more information, visit Searchable Museum here.