Meet the Black Professionals in Venture Capital Who Made the Forbes 30 Under 30 List

The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has received clearance to request personal information from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) about undocumented taxpayers. On Monday, April 7, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the IRS filed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, according to The Guardian. The agreement gives immigration enforcement officials unprecedented access to help President Donald Trump fulfill his promise of mass deportations as his administration continues to investigate undocumented immigrants still in the country after receiving a final removal order from a judge. “As laid out in the MOU, DHS can legally request return information relating to individuals under criminal investigation, and the IRS must provide it,” per a court filing, which outlines the procedures for making such requests and specifies the role of each agency in accessing the...

Lewis Hamilton has made it his mission to diversify his sport. Hamilton, raised in North London, England, began racing at 8 years old and experienced a lack of representation in the sport firsthand. However, winning created an opportunity for him to feel accepted, he admits in conversation with GQ. “Being the only Black kid on the circuit, struggling at school, really always my big drive was acceptance — ‘If I win the race, I will receive that acceptance in this world,'” he expressed.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by AFROTECH (@afro.tech) Hamilton began to allocate a lot of his time towards go-karting at a young age with the support of his father, Anthony, who was his mentor and manager, Formula 1 reports. Anthony simultaneously had three jobs at a time to support his son’s driving career. The sacrifice would pay off even within Hamilton’s childhood years. “We won the first six races…Then we just kept going. We kept winning. We kept winning championships,” Hamilton...

Chief Administrative Officer Corenza Townsend has opened a hospital in Louisville, KY. According to CBS News’ “Eye On America,” the idea was first planted eight years ago when Townsend was working as a nurse manager at a hospital in the Norton Healthcare system. She boldly pitched the concept of opening a hospital in Louisville’s majority-Black West End neighborhood to Norton Healthcare’s CEO. “We had this plan,” Townsend explained, according to the outlet. “It wasn’t in writing yet. We happened to see Russ Cox, our CEO, walking to the bathroom. So we stalked him outside the bathroom… Nobody thought he would actually say yes. He said, yes. He just listened to us and he said, ‘Let’s do it. What do you need?'” In late 2024, the Norton West Louisville Hospital reached the finish line after a two-year-long process. Its opening is especially timely, as the area had been without a hospital for over 150 years. “The life expectancy in West Louisville is about 12-and-a-half to 15 years...

The Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurs (RICE), dedicated to expanding opportunities for Black entrepreneurs in Atlanta, GA, and beyond, has received a $2 million donation from The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. According to a news release, Blank’s donation will help the center move forward with RICE 2.0, a hub for innovation, collaboration, and economic empowerment that will provide essential resources for Black business founders, including small business grants, expanded programming, and mentorship opportunities. “This investment reflects our chairman’s entrepreneurial journey and his commitment to giving back to Atlanta, a city that has given him so much,” Blank Foundation President Fay Twersky said. “RICE’s extraordinary work supporting entrepreneurs creates pathways to economic mobility and opportunity. By investing in entrepreneurs at all stages, we’re fostering collective thriving where individual success strengthens entire communities.” In 1978, Arthur Blank...

By now you’re surely aware of generative AI software , since the newly-developed tech has become the hottest craze on the internet in recent years. One of the leading services in this niche, OpenAI’s ChatGPT , has been utilized by millions to create stylized images, videos and text from brief descriptive prompts. Though this technology is quite impressive, it has drawn heavy criticism from those who share concerns about AI’s impact on the environment , its effect on artists and the frequently incorrect information it delivers as fact. Now, OpenAI has released the latest model for their GPT software, titled GPT-4o. The 4o iteration allows GPT users to generate uncanny recreations of specific art styles, including those in the image of a Studio Ghibli film. As you can imagine, this new OS has wrought tons of use from curious users all over the world, and drawn criticism from fans of the Ghibli franchise. If you’re at all active on social media, you’ve no doubt encountered a sudden...

Florida A&M University (FAMU) has lost a significant grant that helped produced 60% of the nation’s Ph.D. graduates in pharmaceutical sciences. According to the Tallahassee Democrat, the Historically Black College and University’s (HBCU) pharmacy school and its Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) program will not receive planned funding because a $16.3 million grant supporting them was terminated on March 21. The grant, awarded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and renewed in 2024, was originally scheduled to run through March 2029. “The funding was awarded to support new faculty hires and enhanced research in key areas such as artificial intelligence, bioinformatics and cancer biology,” FAMU Interim President Timothy Beard said in a statement, according to the outlet. “For nearly 40 years, faculty and graduate students have relied on this center to conduct biomedical and health research.” He also mentioned, “The program is a critical contributor to the...

The 170 million TikTok users in the U.S., according to NBC News, will have access to the app for at least another 75 days. Is TikTok Getting Banned Tomorrow? On Friday, April 4, 2024, President Donald Trump announced plans to sign an executive order giving ByteDance, the China-based owner of TikTok, an additional 75 days to find a non-Chinese buyer. “My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress,” Trump wrote in a TruthSocial post. “The Deal requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed, which is why I am signing an Executive Order to keep TikTok up and running for an additional 75 days.” On April 24, 2024, former President Joe Biden signed a law requiring ByteDance to sell the app to a U.S. company within one year or risk a ban, AFROTECH™ previously reported. Lawmakers and national security experts have expressed concerns over China’s potential access to ByteDance’s U.S. user data and its ability to...

While fans are focused on new music, Cardi B is focused on creating generational wealth. Cardi B has aligned herself with various endorsement deals over the years from Pepsi, Reebok, NYX Professional Makeup, and Fashion Nova, which she worked with earlier on in her career. As AFROTECH previously told you, Fashion Nova paid the rapper $200 for every post back in 2016, two years before the release of her successful debut album “Invasion of Privacy.” That number went as high as $20,000 per month, according to Vox. In April 2024, she revealed she was earning over $5 million from brand deals. Cardi B has proven she is able to bring in the dough for companies, and over the past couple of years she is now doing the same on her own terms. In 2021, Cardi B launched Whipshots in partnership with Starco Brands, which sold 5 million cans within three years, a press release mentions. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Whipshots ™ (@whip_shots) Launching Apparel And Beauty Brands Cardi...