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WASHINGTON — Days after her conversation with President Obama, Jewel Burks still beams. The entrepreneur from Atlanta, Ga., gained an audience with the president at the White House Demo Day on Tuesday. She and co-founder Jason Crain explained how they came up with the idea for Partpic, a replacement part recognition application that helps companies order the correct part to get their machines back in action.

The lack of diversity in Silicon Valley is still a major and noticeable issue. Last year, when various tech companies released statistics on the racial and gender makeup of their employees, which until that point had been kept largely secretive, the numbers didn’t add up. According to the Wall Street Journal, for companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo, and Twitter, minority employment in leadership and technology roles is hardly progressing.