A 17-year-old student at Iowa City West High School has invented color-changing sutures to detect infection and is now set on getting it patented. Working with an eye on equity in global health, Daisy Taylor hopes that the color-changing sutures will someday help patients detect surgical site infections as early as possible so that they can seek medical care when it has the most impact. Daisy began working on the project back in October 2019, after her chemistry teacher shared information about state-wide science fairs including the Science Talent Search
The Black-owned Nourish + Bloom Market is about to disrupt traditional grocery stores as it becomes the first minority-owned autonomous grocery store in the US. It’s set to open on December 17th in Fayetteville, Georgia, featuring “frictionless shopping.” This means that customers will be able to walk in, grab what they need, and leave without waiting in line or stopping to scan and pay, especially helpful in this “new normal” post-pandemic world. They will simply have to scan a QR Code from Nourish + Bloom’s app that connects to their digital wallet
The technology industry’s academic and professional spaces have a long reputation of exclusivity and discrimination that has led to an industry that is predominantly all white and male – but some people are working hard to change this picture. POCIT sat down with Rose Robinson, Executive Director of Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in IT (CMD-IT), for an in-depth conversation on the barriers facing people of color with disabilities in tech. Robinson has more than 25 years under her belt. Her role at CMD-IT means she can use
Black-Owned Chicago AI Startup Lands $100K In Latest ‘Northwestern Mutual Black Founder’ Accelerator
A Chicago startup that uses AI to help people better leverage their professional network is part of the newest cohort of startups selected as part of the Northwestern Mutual’s Black Founder Accelerator program. 4Degrees, led by CEO Ablorde Ashigbi and CTO David Vandegrift, will receive a $100,000 investment as part of the 12-week program. It will also work alongside Northwestern Mutual and its accelerator partner gener8tor to help grow its business. The company, launched by Ashigbi and Vandegrift, two former investors at Pritzker Group Venture Capital, back in 2017 was
The banking institution has pledged $10 million to one of the leading private liberal arts Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the South. According to a press release, the funds are a part of Bank of America’s Mayor’s Racial Equity Initiative in the Charlotte, NC region. It includes a $1.25 billion five-year commitment to create more economic opportunities and push racial equality within local communities. In an official statement, Kieth Cockrell, President of Bank of America Charlotte, said: “Our long-term relationship with JCSU has set the foundation for this critical moment – a
A sequel on the piece of Black founders profitable without Venture capital. Not all startups reach the promised land of VC funding. Not all startups require VC funding to be successful. With the odds stacked against Black and Brown entrepreneurs, they typically need to find other ways to innovate and grow. Money isn’t always easy to come by. Bootstrapping means launching and growing your startup using your personal financial resources. See how these Black women founders left behind the “scale no matter what” mentality. Instead, they built their startups into successful, profitable
Florida A&M University has received a $100,000 grant from Wells Fargo to launch a small business incubator to assist women and minority-owned businesses. The grant will advance hiring initiatives for a program manager to oversee operations of the incubator and modernize an existing location for entrepreneurs to call home. Funding will also enable the incubator’s staff to support program participants in exploring the feasibility of their business concepts, launching, expanding, and scaling their businesses. The remaining funds will support future marketing and promotions throughout the development of the project. The
PNC Financial Services Group Inc.’s charitable foundation has announced a five-year $16.8 million grant to Howard University to build The Howard University and PNC National Center for Entrepreneurship. The center will support expanded opportunities for Black entrepreneurship with enhanced educational, leadership, and capacity-building resources and programs nationwide. As a part of PNC’s wider commitment to providing over $1.5 billion in funds to create “economic empowerment” for Black Americans, this donation is just one of the financial institution’s countless plans to support the community. It plans to provide $88 billion worth of investments,
MPharma, a Ghanaian health tech startup is set to open 100 virtual centers across seven markets in Africa over the next six months. The company, founded by CEO Gregory Rockson, has the goal to deliver quality primary care in the communities they serve by providing medical examinations. MPharma already provides about 10,000 physician consultations to patients at the startup’s network of pharmacies. Its also managed to raise over $50 million since inception; this includes a Series C round of $17 million, led by U.K.’s development arm CDC Group last year. Other existing investors include
Looking back I was generally pretty good at school because to me it was a simple bargain. You go to this location every weekday, listen to someone older than you teach, then on your own time you optionally need to study the concept and apply them to tests. I was a straight-A student and it quickly became a point of pride for me and people who knew me. I was considered “smart”, but looking back I can see that I was mainly regurgitating facts and logic. Lucky for me, this
