She has received recognition for her work to improve diversity in the tech industry and was honored in 2015 by Michelle Obama at BET's Black Girls Rock!
In high school, Thomas was an avid reader and realized that there were not enough black girls in the young adult novels she was reading.
She credits a TED Talk by Kimberly Bryant, founder of Black Girls Code, with sparking her interest in the tech industry.
The idea for the app was based on Thomas' experience as a young reader who struggled to find diverse books.
[15] By mid-April she had surpassed the initial goal of $10,000, indicating that additional funds would be put toward developing a website for the app and introducing fiction titles aimed at adults.
[13] In 2015 she spoke at BookNet Canada's 10th annual Tech Forum where she advocated for the importance of children, from all backgrounds, being exposed to diverse book characters.
She encouraged the traditionally white publishing industry to include ethnicity based metadata about authors to improve discoverability of diverse writers and publications.
[16] In addition to writing for various news sites, including TechCrunch and Model View Culture, Thomas has appeared on podcasts Another Round and Code Newbie to discuss her work.