James Curran, 35, — who some of you may know well as JTM or James the Mormon – started off as a struggling teenager who had been expelled from BYU-Idaho twice. It wasn’t until a reported encounter with a police officer who let him off for driving while drunk and high on marijuana that he finally decided to turn his life around. “He knew that was a turning point for me,” Curran said. “I could either choose to change my life or go to jail and who knows what would
Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings and his wife, Patty Quillin, an independent film producer, are personally donating $10 million to Tougaloo College, a historically Black college and university in Mississippi, and the school’s partnership with Brown University. The gift will fund much-needed financial aid for Tougaloo students working toward careers in medicine, public health, the sciences, education, business, and other fields and aspiring to make a positive impact on their communities after graduation. Of the total, $5 million will fund scholarships at Tougaloo, in Jackson, Miss., and $5 million will establish the Brown-Tougaloo Partnership
Founder and CEO Chandler Malone’s tech startup ‘Bootup’ has reportedly raised $2.1 million in seed-round from all Black investors. The product was first launched in July 2021 during what was considered the pandemic’s peak where dozens of countries were thrown into lockdown. Bootup, which focuses on sourcing and hiring non-traditionally trained talent for a range of companies, is said to have grown rapidly, increasing revenue 100% month over month from July through November to a seven-figure run rate, while developing relationships with over 80 employers and 125 tech training programs, according
Investors will be with you for a long time – and ending the relationship can be harder than getting a divorce, says June Angelides, a business owner, venture capitalist, and columnist. Before we discuss the business tips she’s shared in her most recent FT column. Here’s a breakdown of who she is for those of you who don’t know. Angelides was raised in Lagos, Nigeria where she had an early introduction to entrepreneurship through her family. Her uncle Ben Murray Bruce founded Silverbird, the first cinema in Nigeria. She recalled in an interview
MarketForce, the retail B2B and end-to-end distribution platform founded in Kenya, has raised $40 million in Series A funding for its merchant inventory financing and expansion across Africa. The firm, which first launched in Uganda in 2018, plans to introduce buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) options to help merchants access fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs) on credit. It also plans to enter additional markets in East and West Africa. Through its merchant super app RejaReja, informal traders can source goods directly from manufacturers and distributors, make and pay for orders digitally, accept payments for utility
The historical and ongoing cost of not addressing our climate disasters is some-what insane. The United States is said to have spent $29bn cleaning up climate disasters in the 1990s, but $112bn dollars in the last five years. That’s a huge jump. This week we’re celebrating the Black-owned innovative companies from across the US that are working on sustainability and environmental solutions. The three founders, based across the US — from Silicon Valley in California to tribal nations across the Midwest — are driving innovation in energy efficiency, AI, solar,
It’s not the first time we’ve heard of a startup founder or colleagues reportedly fabricating things in order to appear more advanced than they are. Remember Ozy Media?
This week, a systematic review of 28 studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association found that telehealth-delivered interventions for patients of color were most effective in treating and managing many conditions. The study, led by researchers from Monash University in Victoria, Australia, focused on examining telehealth’s effectiveness for non-Indigenous patients of color. Telehealth was and still is being used extensively during the pandemic as some hospitals remain open primarily for urgent care patients. Researchers in the study wrote: “Findings from this systematic review indicate that telehealth for mental
British entrepreneur and YouTube star Jamal Edwards has died at the age of 31, his company has told the BBC, but his cause of death has not yet been revealed. He was the founder of SBTV, an online urban music platform that helped launch the careers of artists like Dave, Ed Sheeran, and Skepta. His YouTube channel, which was started in 2006 “on a £20 phone” while he was still at school, has given early exposure to almost every key player in the game including the much-loved Stormzy, Skepta, JME,
The Capital Factory and DivInc Black winners in Tech Challenge pitch competition have been announced. Typically – there is just one winner but according to reports the competition was too good this year and two startups were chosen. The local winner of the challenge, which is aimed at increasing diversity in the tech community, was Safer Management, a public school and university attendance tracking startup. Safer was founded by Fred Burns in 2020. His company, along with Indiana-based gig work platform Clutch, took home a $100,000 investment. According to reports, Burns noticed one of these
