Be Where Your
Feet Are Planted

Most journalists cover the room. Samantha Dorisca covers the people who built it.

Dorisca is a journalist at AFROTECH, one of the most influential platforms covering Black innovation in tech and business. She has been recognized as a Black Tech Saturdays Future 100 awardee and named among the 25 "Dope Thinkers" to watch by the Kulur Group. But the credential that matters most to her isn't printed on any award. It's the moment a founder told her that a story she wrote opened a door they'd been knocking on for years.

Dorisca did not arrive at journalism in a straight line. She originally set her sights on law, a path she reflects was shaped more by expectation than calling. It was storytelling that kept surfacing as something more. "Storytelling, along with photography, became a natural form of expression that I later fully leaned into, one that aligned with and reflected my mission to empower Black communities," she says. When she finally leaned in fully, the work didn't feel like a career pivot. It felt like recognition.

That sense of alignment is what she credits for her output. More than 3,000 articles is not a number that comes from hustle alone. It comes from never treating the work as ordinary. "I've never viewed it as a typical 9-to-5 job because, for me, it has always been purpose-driven work." Her discipline behind closed doors looks like early mornings, virtual calls with founders outside of office hours, and a curiosity that keeps her simultaneously plugged into LinkedIn, podcasts, TikTok, and X. She describes herself as a sponge. The metaphor is apt. Dorisca doesn't just cover the ecosystem. She absorbs it.

Ask Dorisca which stories stay with her, and she doesn't reach for the highest-profile names. She reaches for Russell J. Ledet, a former security guard who was told, by the doctors at the hospital where he worked, that security guards don't become doctors. He went on to earn an MD, PhD, and MBA. The specializations he chose were a direct response to what he never had growing up. "I really enjoy interviewing people who defied the odds," she says. "I remain passionate about amplifying advancements across industries including business, technology, education, medicine, and sports, while highlighting the people within the community who are leading and driving impact in these spaces."

That instinct, to find the person behind the achievement, is the thread running through all of her coverage. She writes across tech, business, healthcare, education, energy, and sports. But what she's actually covering, every time, is a human being carving space in rooms that weren't designed for them.

When the Future 100 and Dope Thinkers recognitions arrived, Dorisca says her heart was full, not because she had been chasing them, but because she hadn't. "I spend so much of my time focused on the work itself, never doing it for validation or recognition," she reflects. "Those honors were confirmation that I am walking in my God-given purpose." There's a distinction worth holding: she is not someone who defines herself by accolades. She is someone for whom accolades arrived as evidence of something she already knew.

For the broader media industry, her advice is direct: consider Black founders for year-round coverage, not as February features or one-off inclusions. Show up at events. But also, get on a virtual connection call. "I've been able to connect with hundreds of founders on connections calls that I may not have otherwise had the opportunity to meet," she says. "Those conversations have helped me better understand both their individual journeys and the industries and ecosystems they're helping shape." And naturally, she adds, they led to stories.

As beauty increasingly intersects with technology, Dorisca believes the next generation of founders won't simply build products. They'll build communities, adopt the latest technologies, and create brands powered as much by storytelling as formulation. It's a convergence she is uniquely positioned to witness and amplify, sitting at the intersection of the tech and beauty ecosystems that Black Beauty Founders has always known belong in the same conversation.

Beyond the bylines, Dorisca is someone who loves to laugh, who travels when she can, who is fully present wherever she lands. She lives by a phrase she comes back to again and again: be where your feet are planted. In an industry built on rapid news cycles and constant context-switching, that is almost countercultural. It is also, she would argue, the only way to do the work well.

For Samantha Dorisca, every story is an opportunity to move someone one step closer to the room they deserve to be in. And that's exactly why founders keep answering when she calls.