Open Technology Group President Leon Burns III Launched A Scholarship To Support Hampton University Students Pursuing Careers In Data Analytics

HBCU alum Leon Burns III is paying it forward to his HBCU.

Burns has always maintained a community-driven spirit. Growing up in Silver Spring, MD, he made it a goal to involve himself in local activities such as the Boy Scouts (Scouting America), after-school programs, and then the rugby team in high school. Additionally, he strived to be a pivotal player in his community, and his tech journey became the path that allowed him to do just that.

Burns attended Hampton University, a Historically Black College And University, to obtain a bachelor’s degree in management and later Long Island University to secure an MBA. He has applied his studies to rise in the ranks at his family-owned IT services and consulting company, Open Technology Group, which was founded in 1992. His LinkedIn notes that he is also a project manager at Hexagon AB.

DEIB Efforts As President Of Family-Owned Tech Company

Since 2022, Burns has served as president of Open Technology Group. Before his current role, he worked on ground operations and then moved to the help desk, manager, and quality assurance. As president, one of his immediate priorities was to enforce mental health support in the workforce. It was through losing his father in 2011 that he grew to understand mental health and the importance of therapy. Additionally, Burns champions diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB). With this in mind, he has revamped a program to ensure career growth for diverse candidates in federal contracting roles and promotions. Other initiatives include wage scale adjustments to ensure fair compensation and certification assistance to promote career development.

“I made it a point after I found my footing in my career to work hard enough to open up doors for people that came behind me, especially the ones that looked like me, so that we could advance in tech,” he told AFROTECH™ in an interview. “Tech is a very funny field. It’s a very diverse field, but when it comes to African Americans, we only make up about 7% of that workforce. So once I was fortunate enough to take over my family’s tech company, I made it a point to turn it more into a diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging effort to get people that look like us over the hump by doing a number of different things.”

Scholarship For Hampton University Students

Burns’ goal of becoming a pivotal player in his community is also carried out through various efforts to energize interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) among Black and minority students. In fact, Burns and Open Technology Group started the “DEIB in Black Analytics” scholarship in 2023 at his alma mater. Over four years, the company’s $100,000 commitment will be dispersed to students attending Hampton University’s James T. George School of Business, HBCU Buzz reports. Each year, $25,000 in scholarships will be split among five full-time junior or senior students ($5,000 per student). To qualify, students must be studying business management with a minor in management information systems (MIS) and have a 3.0 or higher GPA.

“The idea behind the scholarship is to get African American students into careers in data analytics. Data is shaping the way that we’re moving forward as a country business wise, on a sociological scale, economically across the board, and we’re not really being placed in the rooms that are allocating the algorithms to actually include us,” Burns detailed. “So my goal with this is to kind of start that flame, get some people interested, get them into the career, get them to give back. And hopefully this will be the spark that we need to ultimately get a business analytics curriculum going for Hampton.”

The scholarship aims not only to diversify the business analytics field but to support the next leaders in AI, according to information shared with AFROTECH™.

“We empower students to use AI as a tool for deeper analysis, creativity, and problem-solving, enhancing their critical thinking rather than replacing it,” Dr. DeShea Simon, associate professor of management information systems and chair of the scholarship, said in a statement. “This approach ensures graduates are not only technically skilled but also ethically grounded and innovation-ready in an AI-driven world.”