New figures reveal that Black shoppers had a significant impact on the February 28 ‘Economic Blackout,’ particularly at major retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Target, Retail Brew reports. The boycott, led by grassroots organization The People’s Union USA, urged consumers to freeze spending for 24 hours in response to rising prices, corporate policies, and economic challenges facing consumers. $220 million decline for Black shoppers The boycott fell on a Friday, and sales decreased by 5.4% and trips fell by 4.1% compared to the average Friday, as stated by Numerator. Household
Yale juniors Nathaneo Johnson and Sean Hargrow have raised $3.1 million in pre-seed funding for their social network platform, Series, which helps users connect with others who offer mutual value. Series, still just a few months old, secured the funding in only 14 days after a trailer posted by Johnson on LinkedIn went viral in the college entrepreneurial community. The buzz attracted strong investor interest, including from former a16z investor Anne Lee Skates, who went on to lead the pre-seed round through her venture fund Parable. Changing the way we
Campus, an online community college, has announced a $46 million Series B investment, bringing its total amount raised to over $100 million. The community college offers students live classes with highly regarded professors who have backgrounds from colleges and universities such as Stanford, UCLA, and Howard. Additionally, students receive wraparound support such as on-demand tutoring and personal success coaching, as stated in a press release. Who founded Campus? Before there was Campus, there was Campuswire, an online learning software Tade Oyerinde founded in 2016. In 2018, Oyerinde conceived the idea for Campus
Five-year-old Maddox Lopez has earned a spot in Mensa, the world’s largest and oldest high-IQ society, joining the ranks of the top two percent of the population with an IQ of 130 or higher. The New Jersey pre-kindergartener already knows his timetables and has a growing passion for coding and problem-solving, even through computer games, ABC7 New York reports. His achievement follows that of his older sister, Declan, who joined Mensa at age six in late 2023. Learning Starts at Home Their father, Delano Lopez, a health and physical education
Kendrick Lamar’s startup pgLang is number 15 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2025. The multidisciplinary creative communications company was founded by Lamar and  filmmaker and record producer Dave Free in 2020. The company establishes itself as a hybrid model in the creative spaces, operating across different industries and platforms such as music, film and live events. This year, they creatively directed and co-produced the Super Bowl halftime show where Lamar performed his number 1 hit “Not Like Us.” pglang’s influence The creative agency has
The Black Economic Alliance Entrepreneurs Fund LP, which is raising $50 million to support young startups, is over halfway towards its goal. As stated in a filing last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the fund has currently raised $28.5 million and is led by venture capitalist Melissa Bradley. The Washington Business Journal reported that she shared that the fund’s investment will focus on young companies that specialize in products or services in four key areas: financial inclusion, health and wellness, sustainable communities, and what she called “narrative change”—companies focused
Kevin Hart is working with the Fifteen Percent Pledge to support Black founders using AI. The AI Illumination Grant will teach Black-owned entrepreneurs how to use AI to expand their businesses. The Fifteen Percent Pledge is partnering with Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz’s (A16z) Cultural Leadership Fund to launch the grant, according to AFROTECH. “We know AI can seem intimidating, but these dynamic webinars will break it down and empower you to embrace this powerful technology with confidence,” the Fifteen Percent Pledge website says. The AI Illumination Grant Qualified
Adeniyi Abiodun, co-founder and CPO at Mysten Labs, announced that he and his wife, Gloria, are launching a $1.3 million endowment fund to help upskill aspiring tech talent in Nigeria. “It’s a milestone we’ve dreamed of, and now it’s real,” he wrote on X. “By 2040, Africa is set to have half the world’s working-age population. To really unleash that power, young people need access to quality training and opportunities, especially in fast-growing fields like AI and blockchain,” he adds. Helping young Nigerians upskill Nigeria is currently experiencing a shortage
Over 400 Hollywood creatives, including actors and directors, have signed an open letter calling for the government not to scale back on copyright laws related to artificial intelligence. Variety reported that the list included names such as Ava Duvernay, Janelle Monáe, Michaela Coel, Ben Stiller, Mark Ruffalo, and hundreds of others. “We firmly believe that America’s global AI leadership must not come at the expense of our essential creative industries,” they said in the letter to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy last week. Why are Hollywood
Google has agreed to pay $28 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging that it favored white and Asian employees over other racial and ethnic groups by offering them higher salaries and placing them on faster career tracks. Reuters reports that the settlement was reached after lawyers agreed to exclude Black workers from the class. A lawyer for the plaintiff told POCIT that a Black employee pursuing a separate pay equity case against Google requested the exclusion so she could pursue those claims independently. The Case Against Google The lawsuit was
