'Blackness At Your Fingertips': New App Seeks To Connect, Inform Twin Cities Black Community

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A new app is being designed to create a space where Black Minnesotans can be "Plugged" into the community.

Jeffery Bissoy and a small group of his friends posed a question to themselves last summer.

"Just how do we stay informed in our Black community?" Bissoy said.

Looking around the Twin Cities, they realized the Black community is not just one centralized place.

"There are a lot of silo Black communities here. I'm from the east side St. Paul, so that's one side of the Black community. You got Midway, you got north side, you got south Minneapolis, you got Brooklyn Park, Brooklyn Center. Already you've named six different zones," Bissoy said,

He says if you are not plugged into these different communities you often don't know what happening as far as events, opportunities, resources and access are concerned.

So they created the Plugged app to change all of that. First, you set your profile like you would on any other social media or digital space and click on the things you are interested in.

"The app basically curates for you things that you're interested in staying up to date with. There's going to be events, virtual and live. We live in a COVID world," Bissoy said.

The app will also include a job board, blogs and podcasts.

"Blackness at your fingertips. That's what we are trying to do, enable you to live your best Black life however you want that to be," Bissoy said.

He and his partners hope to use the app to give creatives and artist a place to connect for more visibility, support economic investment, uplifting of the community, and giving the community an opportunity for social and service projects.

Bissoy says the Plugged app is for consumers of all backgrounds.

"If supporting Black is something that's important to you, if supporting Black businesses, supporting Black creatives, you know, attending Black events is something that you find important and you're trying to be more engaged with, this is for you," Bissoy said.