46.0% of all Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children, according to a new report. That percentage is the highest level recorded since the American Immigration Council started examining immigrant entrepreneurs in annual reviews in 2011. Amazon, DoorDash, and Apple were among the Fortune 500 companies founded by immigrants or children of immigrants, as highlighted by the council’s research. These companies employ 15.5 million people worldwide, more than the population in Pennsylvania. As major companies across the country have rolled back their DEI efforts to comply with President Trump’s executive orders, these
Leon Burns III and Open Technology Group are helping Black students pursue careers in data analytics with the DEIB in Black Analytics scholarship. Students attending Hampton University’s James T. George School of Business will be able to receive $25,000 scholarship, which will be split among five full-time junior or senior students ($5,000 per student). “The idea behind the scholarship is to get African American students into careers in data analytics. Data is shaping the way that we’re moving forward as a country business wise, on a sociological scale, economically across
Right-wing influencer Robby Starbuck has been appointed as an AI bias advisor at Meta to help the company’s chatbot be less “woke.” The announcement came after Meta settled a lawsuit filed by Starbuck, claiming that he was part of the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to MSNBC. “Since engaging on these important issues with Robby, Meta has made tremendous strides to improve the accuracy of Meta AI and mitigate ideological and political bias,” Meta and Starbuck said in a joint statement to Advocate. Who is Robby Starbuck? Starback is a former Hollywood director
Casap has raised $25 million in new funding to help banks tackle credit and debit card disputes. The new capital brings its total funding to $33.5 million, according to a press release. The funding round was led by Emergence with participation from Lightspeed, Primary Ventures, SoFi, and others. The startup aims to change the way financial institutions handle disputes and reduce fraud cases. Its intelligent automation accelerates resolutions, cuts fraud by more than half, and eliminates friction for consumers. This capital will allow the company to expand its first-party fraud
The US Latino GDP has soared to $4 trillion, making it the second-fastest growing among the world’s ten largest, according to the newly released 2025 Official LDC US Latino GDP Report. The report, now in its eighth edition, was published by the Latino Donor Collaborative (LDC), a think tank dedicated to highlighting economic growth opportunities. “The data confirms what we’ve seen building for years,” Sol Trujillo, Co-Founder and Chairman of the Latino Donor Collaborative, said in a press release. “Latinos in the US are not just participating in the economy;
In July, Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye announced that her beauty brand Ami Colé will close in September. As one of the few Black women to have raised more than $1 million in venture capital, N’Diaye-Mbaye’s exit marks a loss not just for beauty lovers, but for Black female founders, too. Ami Colé had a devoted following, but the brand struggled to compete with industry giants backed by deep-pocketed corporations. “I couldn’t compete with the deep pockets of corporate brands; at retail stores, prime shelf space comes at a price, and we couldn’t
Arif Gursel, founder and CEO of Pan-African Center for Empowerment (PACE), has launched SEA619, a program created to support Black entrepreneurs in the Seattle area. Gursel is launching multiple programs within SEA619, taking an individual approach for each business. The organization’s name is a combination of the Seattle-Tacoma airport code, SEA, and 619 to honor Juneteenth. “I believe people come into things at varying needs, skill sets, and understandings, and when you try to put something on a rail, some of those carts go faster. Some of those carts go
Pan-African payment orchestration platform, HoneyCoin, has raised $4.9 million in a seed round led by Flourish Ventures. Other investors included Visa and TLcom, Stellar Development Foundation, Lava, and more, according to a press release shared with POCIT. The Nairobi-based startup tackles inefficiencies in global financial infrastructure, particularly for businesses in pre-emerging markets. It gives businesses a unified, stablecoin-compatible platform for collections, treasury management, settlements, and FX management. By building a stablecoin-based liquidity engine and bypassing fragmented rails, HoneyCoin gives businesses instant or same-day settlements, compared to the traditional four to seven-business-day timeframe. David Nandwa
Mastercard released a whitepaper highlighting Africa’s readiness, opportunity, and roadmap for responsible artificial intelligence (AI) adoption. Harnessing the transformative power of AI in Africa shares insights into how AI can unlock significant outcomes across the continent’s major industries, including agriculture, healthcare, education, energy, and finance. The whitepaper also details the potential positive impact of AI on digital infrastructure, policy and governance, research and development, local language processing, and investment into Africa. Additionally, it examined how AI can create more jobs, with up to 230 million digital jobs projected by 2030 on
The Nigerian melon seed, Egusi, made history by becoming the first West African crop and the first object from Nigeria to reach space. The seeds, which are initially from Oyo State in southwest Nigeria, launched aboard SpaceX Crew-11 as part of a NASA-backed research mission to the International Space Station, according to BBC Africa. The trip was led by 2021 Forbes Africa 30 Under 30 honoree Dr. Temidayo Oniosun. The project explores how culturally significant crops, such as Egyptian cotton and Pakistani wheat, behave in microgravity. Taking Egusi to space
