Founded by Matt Mitchell in 2013, CryptoHarlem provides the predominantly African American community in upper Manhattan with free workshops on digital security, encryption, privacy, cryptography, digital policing and surveillance.
Initially a series of security workshops, Mitchell said he founded the organization “due to the feeling of profound loss, the loss of all black folks, after Trayvon Martin’s death.” [3] Monthly digital privacy clinics called "crypto parties" hosted by Mitchell and CryptoHarlem started in 2012.
[5][6] In 2017, CryptoHarlem developed an open source tool to help organizations prepare for data breaches.
The now-defunct site hosting the tool, ProtectYour.Org, was supported by the Mozilla Fellowship and the Ford Foundation.
[11] In 2021, Newsweek profiled Mitchell and CryptoHarlem as one of "America's greatest disruptors" for their work against "digital stop and frisk".