[seats]

I didn't hear the author call anyone racist. In fact I think you are only supporting his point. These kids were minorities in at least two ways, race and age (for the girl there is a third). I would say that age was clearly the biggest deterrent for people joining their efforts and the tone of the article to me was more about age than race. Even look at the title, it says '11 year olds learn hard lesson', no mention of race. Two white 11 year old kids would have had the same tough lesson.

These kids are minorities at this event mostly because they are minors. That'll fix itself in time and I commend the author for trying to help keep their spirits up so that this was a positive experience for them instead of a let-down.

There is also something interesting to say here about the psychology of voting without commitment. If the voting at this event was your true ranking of which team you wanted to join (i.e. you rank all ideas and join the top one that makes the cut), then no one would have picked these kids. When there was nothing on the line, no one wanted the kids to feel bad so they got some 'mercy votes' or maybe 'cute kids, nice try' votes, but when it got down to voting with your feet, no one thought their ideas or abilities were attractive enough over the alternatives.

[aneth]

The title is actually "Two 11-year-old entrepreneurs learned the hard way what it’s like to be a minority in tech during Startup Weekend"

I think it's pretty clear "minority" here means black. By indicating the audience made their decision based on race, the author is implicitly calling them racists.