Though Latinos currently represent 17% of the population in the United States, they are vastly underrepresented in the tech industry, where they only make up roughly 8% of the workforce. That’s why we teamed up with Lexus to shine a light on tech entrepreneurs who are defying these odds, and taking new routes to enter this sector.

In our first episode, we talk to Tlacael Esparza, co-founder of Sensory Percussion by Sunhouse Inc.

A trained jazz drummer, Esparza spent his early career performing with indie bands in New York. Though he was passionate about drumming, he soon began to feel frustrated with the limitations that digital drumming software posed for acoustic drummers like him. As producers increasingly rely on electronic drums and samples in the recording studio, acoustic drummers have been struggling to recreate them in a live performance. Esparza found that the majority of digital instruments designed for drummers lacked the expression, nuance and dynamics of an acoustic drum. So, he set out to create a software system that could help bridge the divide between the digital and the acoustic and give drummers a tool to play electronic sounds with more nuance and expressivity.

Below, learn more about his journey as an entrepreneur, and how he’s innovating the future of drumming.