Two L.A. startups opened by Black women have been awarded $150,000 each from Google’s Black Founders Fund. Guardian Lane in Bunker Hill is an online platform that allows parents to book appointments for their children with counselors, particularly grief counselors, who most meet their needs. The other is Vantage Point, which uses virtual reality and immersive technology in corporate training programs with an emphasis on developing an anti-sexual harassment culture.

Guardian Lane was founded by Kristina Jones, who was 7 years old when her father died of cancer. She channeled her grief into the arts – she became an advertising art director – and wrote a book about grief called “My Forever Guardian.”

Vantage Point was started by Morgan Mercer, a two-time sexual assault survivor. Vantage Point was founded under the belief that while technology can cause apathy, immersive technology can drive empathy and fundamentally make the world more humane. 

Besides the cash, for which Google does not take equity, each founder gets product support from Google mentors and industry experts. They also learn to become more effective leaders through research-based strategies and coaching.

In seeking award candidates, Google looks for Black-owned companies between pre-seed and Series A funding as well as ones that are building a tech-driven scalable product or service that has a defensible growth model. 

• • • 

The Los Angeles State Historic Park is a pleasant if nondescript stretch of green space just north of Chinatown. But it has some stories to tell. 

And now, Jessica Kim, a history professor at California State University – Northridge, has been awarded more than $100,000 by the California Department of Parks and Recreation to research and develop those stories.

For one thing, the park once housed an important train station where new arrivals from the East disembarked. And when the A Line adjacent to the park was being constructed, work crews uncovered remains of the original irrigation ditch that brought water from the Los Angeles River to the Pueblo of Los Angeles during Spanish colonial times.

“It was probably constructed along the lines of Indigenous irrigation routes, so it may even predate the 18th century,” Kim said. “The rail line to Los Angeles is also contained in the park and it’s also not marked.”

Kim and her students hope to find a way to tell the stories of the park’s history that goes beyond the obligatory sign. 

“Perhaps it’s QR codes that people can scan to learn more about something or some other innovative idea,” she said.

The Insider is compiled by Editor-in-Chief Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].