Elijah Muhammad Jr has officially made history as the youngest Black college student in Oklahoma after enrolling in three courses at Oklahoma City Community College as a freshman. According to KFOR News, Muhammed Jr. isn’t the only person in his family beating records. His older sister, Shania Muhammad, also made history this year as the youngest to graduate from college with two associate degrees from Langston University and Oklahoma City College. Elijah Muhammad Sr, the siblings’ father, revealed that Muhammed used his sister’s success to help motivate him to excel further in his
Lagos-based fintech, Duplo, has raised $4.3 million in seed funding. The seed funding round, led by Liquid2 Ventures, Soma Capital, Tribe Capital, Commerce Ventures, Basecamp Fund, and Y Combinator, will help Duplo launch new products and expand its business into new sectors in Nigeria. The fintech platform, founded by Yele Oyekola and Tunde Akinnuwa in September 2021, has become one of Nigeria’s top fintech platforms, helping African organizations seamlessly collect payments from their clients and partners. In February, the startup managed to raise $1.3 million in a pre-seed funding round led by pan-African VC firm
San Francisco-based communications company, Twilio, has announced that they will be cutting 11% workforce to help restructure the company after a period of rapid expansion. In a memo to employees, Twilio CEO, Jeff Lawson, clarified that all staff cuts will be made through an “Anti-Racist” and “Anti-Oppression” lens which took many by surprise. Despite right-wing publications such as Daily Caller, describing the move as “race-based,” Lawson’s actions come at a very critical time for POC workers who more times than not, are forced to suffer the brunt of staff layoffs and redundancies.
Armed with smartphones and armies of faithful fans, social media sensations such as Khaby Lame are building fortunes by redefining the rules of entertainment, advertising, and stardom. The inaugural Forbes Top Creators list highlights the 50 social superstars leveraging a combined 1.9 billion followers across social networks to earn $570 million in 2021 alone. Their average age is just 31. Next year’s windfall is significantly richer as famous personalities shift from influencers to owners, using their massive reach to start their own ventures—clothing lines, beauty empires, TV series, and fast food chains.
Y Combinator’s summer (S22) batch is notably different to its previous ones. Firstly, this batch kicked off with an in-person event – the first since the winter 2020 batch. Secondly, the summer cohort includes 240 companies, significantly fewer than the 414 companies in the winter 2022 cohort. And third, only eight startups in Africa got into the accelerator this summer compared to 24 from the previous batch, representing a 60% reduction. While the region represented about 6% of the entire winter batch, it’s 3% for this batch. When YC went
Winston-Salem State University (WSSU) is the first HBCU to embark on new research programs in partnership with NASA. WSSU’s Astrobotany Lab has signed a four-year agreement with NASA to research food development with a team of aspiring scientists. The lab which is filled with all the materials needed to grow plants, fruits, and vegetables, uses synthetic dirt to figure out how to grow food in Mars. The program is led by Professor Dr. Rafael Loueiro leads and aims to allow students to see the fascinating world of plants as well as the study
Clark Atlanta University has received nearly $10 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to help more underrepresented people get data science credentials. The extra funding, which aims to help diversify the data science sector, is the first time any HBCU has received nearly $10 million from an NSF initiative. NSF’s donation marks a new era for HBCUs and equally marks their commitment to providing more Black people with the chance to succeed. A recent NSF report has revealed only 5.56% of computer/information scientists in 2019 were Black or African American. Additionally,
Video-sharing platform, TikTok, has partnered up with Cyversity to connect underrepresented individuals with more opportunities in the cybersecurity world. TikTok is championing the #SeeYourselfInCyber hashtag as a part of a new HBCU program set to launch later this fall. The program, made up of an online mentoring syllabus, will host in-person events at HBCUs to aid students with the skills needed to work within the cybersecurity sector. The initiative aims to solve the issue of 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs by awarding 50 students a scholarship representing the platform’s ongoing commitment to helping the next
Founded in 2017 by Hilda Moraa, Pezesha is a Kenyan digital lending infrastructure that allows both traditional and non-traditional financial institutions to offer working capital to micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). Now, the startup has secured an $11 million pre-Series A equity-debt round led by Women’s World Banking Capital Partners II with participation from Verdant Frontiers Fintech Fund, cFund and Cardano blockchain builder Input Output Global (IOG). The round also included a $5 million debt from Talanton and Verdant Capital Specialist Funds. Access to finance remains a key growth constraint
Kuda, a digital bank based in Nigeria and the U.K., has confirmed via email to media that it has laid off less than 5% of its 450-strong workforce, equivalent to about 23 people. There have been other startups, especially those that have raised vast sums of venture capital within the last year or two, that have laid off hundreds of staff; for instance, Swvl laid off 400 people; Wave, approximately 300; 54gene, 95; and Vezeeta, 50. The layoffs come a year after Kuda, which provides zero to minimal fees on cards, account maintenance and transfers,
