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Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce’s “love affair” with hair has led to her next venture. The eight-time Olympic medalist representing Jamaica is preparing to light up the track for the 2024 Olympics. “T his time around… I ‘ve been having a good experience with the Olympic spirit and just meeting people,” Fraser-Pryce told Jamaica Sports Nation. The track-and-field athlete has been known for sporting electrifying hairstyles in colors like orange, pink, and green. “I’ve always been obsessed with hair, from cutting to dyeing to having all-pink hair on my ID in college to being bald to braids, you name it. I’ve done it,” Fraser-Pryce said during an interview shared by women’s sports brand togethxr. “That’s been kind of my love affair with hair.” @togethxr “I’m black, any color fits me” 💅 – Shelly Ann Fraser Pryce #shellyannfraserpryce #worldathletics #hair ♬ original sound – Togethxr As she looks to secure another medal at the 2024 Olympics, Fraser-Pryce took to Instagram to announce a new...
Okay, ladies, let’s get in formation! According to Bleacher Report, the Cleveland Cavaliers have officially promoted Shelly Cayette to both executive vice president and chief operating officer (COO). She will now make history as the first Black woman to serve as COO of an NBA team. “Look, I’ve got to tell you – part of me would like to see the day when I’m not making history,” said Cayette. “It’s nice to know that I’m the first, but hopefully I can open doors so there aren’t any more first. The goal is to do away with firsts.” This isn’t the first time the Cleveland Cavaliers have broken gender-related barriers. In fact, the team hired Lindsay Gottlieb, making her the first woman to join an NBA coaching staff.
When Shellie-Ann Kerns left her home in Jamaica to join her husband in Washington State, she wasn’t sure what to expect. They moved to his family farm in Gray’s Harbor and she immediately began imagining ways to make the land productive. Family Roots “Farming for me, it’s in my blood on my mother’s side, and from her great grandmother, all the way down. My father’s family is also agricultural,” she said. “It’s something that I understand how it works. Something that I’ve just always been passionate about. When I came here, it was winter. And I needed to plant something. I did some research and I saw that, ‘hey, you can plant garlic in the middle of winter.’” Her first batch of garlic did so well that Kerns continued to plant garlic every winter. Now she’s taking her farming up a notch and making it a community affair. For her, farming is about supporting her community on a basic level. Decolonizing The Food System “What’s really driving me is the ability to feed the community,”...
Shelly Bell has done it all. She’s been a high school teacher, computer scientist, CEO, and an entrepreneur at the helm of several businesses. In 2016, she launched Black Girl Ventures, an organization that aims to provide access to capital for Black and Brown women entrepreneurs in the business and tech sectors, using support and training as tools to tackle issues of poverty and wealth building. “We operate under the core values to create social capital, financial literacy, and financial capital for black and brown female founders,” said Bell. One of the organization’s main programs is the Black Girl Ventures Pitch Competition, which makes its way across the East Coast each year. The competition works with local community members and different funders and entrepreneurs, charges a small entry fee, then uses that money to start a micro-fund for the winner. Since its inception, the pitch competition has connected 45 percent of its participants to investors, and half have been accepted...
Last week, Apple announced plans to launch the latest product in their long-running line of budget-friendly phones . The device, which many consumers tentatively titled the iPhone SE 4, is expected to release later this month, with a presale kicking off on Feb. 21. The initial announcement came jam-packed with surprises and updates, leaving Apple loyalists with plenty of new specs to pour over. If you’re interested in learning more about the iPhone SE 4, we’ve got you covered, with a brief but thorough deep dive into the latest Apple announcements , and a look ahead at what we can expect from the actual smartphone hardware. What Is The iPhone SE 4? The iPhone SE series dates back to 2016, when Apple execs decided to offer a budget-friendly alternative to their standard numeric line of smart devices. Unlike its contemporaries, including the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, the SE would offer the latest in iOS services crammed into the outdated body of a previous model. While the device...
Over 123 million people worldwide tuned into Super Bowl LIX this year to see the Kansas City Chiefs face off against the Philadelphia Eagles . Whether you watched from a sports bar, from your couch or from the seats at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, you likely encountered a number of highlights from the game itself, the electrifying halftime performance and the hilarious array of eye-popping ads. It’s long been known that the big game is the premiere advertising event of the year, as brands across the nation have a chance to place their product or service in front of millions of viewers from all over the globe. Many major companies utilize their Super Bowl ad space to launch brand new products, high-ticket expansions or comedic pop culture zingers designed to be dissected by the water cooler the following week. But how much are these companies really paying out to get their ads out there? It seems as though each Super Bowl carries an exponential price tag for air time, even...
Editorial Note: Opinions and thoughts are the author’s own and not those of AFROTECH™. Americans aren’t the only ones prepping for another tedious four years under President-elect Donald Trump. Since the results of the 2024 election projected Donald Trump as the winner, tech leaders from companies like Meta, Amazon, OpenAI, and others have shelled out seven-figure investments to Trump’s inaugural fund. According to CBS News, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has donated $1 million and plans to stream the inauguration on Prime. Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, will donate $1 million, along with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who delivered an optimistic statement about the President-elect’s election win. “President Trump will lead our country into the age of AI, and I am eager to support his efforts to ensure America stays ahead,” Altman said in a statement, per The Associated Press. Elon Musk, CEO of X, Tesla, and SpaceX, and general pop culture menace has been a lurking presence...
Business owners are watching a back-and-forth battle that’s become tougher than playing tennis against Coco Gauff , and neither side is backing down. The two opponents? Business owners (specifically a Texas gun shop, the National Small Business Association and the state of Alabama) versus the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury (USDOT). What are they debating about? Nationwide business owners being required to file the Beneficial Ownership Information Report (BOIR) before January 1, 2025 in order to avoid a $591 fine, criminal penalties of up to two years in prison and repeat offenses that could lead to them owing $10K. What Is The Beneficial Ownership Information Report (BOIR)? Effective January 1, 2024, many companies in the United States must report information about their beneficial owners (the people who own or control their companies) to FinCEN , a bureau of USDOT. Filing is free and a onetime occurrence in order to...
Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign made significant payments to the production companies of Oprah Winfrey and Beyoncé. Campaign finance records from the Federal Election Commission show that Parkwood Production Media LLC, Beyoncé’s production company, received $165,000 on Nov. 19, 2024, according to USA Today. The payment arrived roughly a month after the singer appeared alongside Harris at a campaign event in Houston, TX, her hometown. While Beyoncé did not perform at the Oct. 25, 2024, event at Shell Energy Stadium, she and her Destiny’s Child groupmate Kelly Rowland publicly endorsed Harris in front of the roughly 30,000 attendees. The event focused on reproductive rights , a key issue Harris emphasized on the campaign trail. On Oct. 15, 2024, Harris’ campaign also paid $1 million — split into two $500,000 payments — to Harpo Productions, Winfrey’s media company, USA Today reports. Winfrey explained that the money was for Harpo’s work producing Harris’ “Unite for America”...
A spirit of curiosity has led Chef Andrew Black to become a James Beard Award-winning chef. Black’s journey traces back to his roots in Jamaica. As a child , he assisted his grandmother by creating outdoor clay ovens to bake roti, a staple flatbread in the country, his website mentions. Pursuing a career as a chef, he later worked in various resort kitchens and eventually left Jamaica to work in restaurants across Europe. He would then receive a nudge to make his way to the United States, notes CBS Mornings. “I wanted to try to find myself where would I fit in, and so I got a call to come to Oklahoma City and I said where the heck is that,” he recalled to the outlet. After initially rejecting the idea of moving to Oklahoma City, he eventually had a change of heart. “When someone see you an Oklahoman shake your hand and say, ‘They’re going to be there,’ they mean it. A word is our bond here. It’s absolutely one of the best state and the best place to live in,” Black told CBS...
If you spent any time tuned into the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, you’re likely already familiar with the name Gabby Thomas. The young athlete has been turning heads for a few years now but truly established herself as a force to be reckoned with in the world of athletics by scoring a whopping three gold medals in the sprint and relay categories. Like some of her U.S. Olympic teammates , Thomas serves as the subject of the newly-released Netflix docu-series Sprint: The World’s Fastest Human’s Part 2 . The series, which premiered on the streamer on Nov. 13, showcases a few of the most prolific athletes currently competing for the title of fastest human being of all time as they outline their painstaking training regiment ahead of their Olympic performances. Given that Gabby Thomas is currently such a hot topic in the pop culture zeitgeist, now seems like as good a time as any to take a look at her career history, revenue streams and overall net worth to see what we can...
If you’re a big music fan, you’ve certainly heard your fair share of Babyface tracks over the years. The multi-talented artist , who celebrated his 65th birthday back in April, has released more than two dozen chart-topping R&B classics over the course of his historic career, resulting in a staggering 13 Grammy Award wins. Even with all his success, Babyface’s massive net worth may be quite shocking to some listeners, since many artists from his generation have struggled to flip their musical highs into prudent financial investments . According to Celebrity Net Worth , Babyface touts a staggering nest egg of over $200 million, earned mostly through music royalties, producer credits and a few high-priced real estate ventures. Perhaps the most shocking aspect of Babyface’s massive wealth is the fact that his net worth was once halved following a contentious divorce in 2005. This means that the musician could have stacked millions more if it weren’t for losing a nine-figure sum in the...
TikTok may be hindering its own future as it faces significant challenges that could lead to a ban in the United States . According to Fortune, a recent court hearing highlighted the app’s legal battle against a law requiring the China-based platform to be sold to a non-Chinese entity by Jan. 19, 2025, or risk being banned in America. The U.S. government’s worries center on the possibility of the Chinese government influencing content and accessing user data. During the hearings on Sept. 16, 2024, at the U.S. Court of Appeals, TikTok’s lawyers reasserted that such a sale would be impractical and infringed on the U.S. right to free speech . As AFROTECH™ previously reported, t he Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act — which TikTok is the subject of — is advancing in Congress, which could enforce parent company ByteDance’s sale of the app and restrict TikTok’s operations further in the U.S. A modified version of the bill, which was proposed to “...
Google has pulled a recent 2024 Olympics ad after being accused of promoting the use of AI technology in place of creativity. In an ad titled “Dear Sydney,” a father narrates his journey to using the platform to help his daughter write a letter to U.S. hurdler and sprinter Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who just so happens to be her favorite athlete and inspiration, CNBC reports. While Google maintains that its AI chatbot Gemini is used solely to enhance or even jumpstart its users’ creativity , many social media users dragged the company following the ad’s airing, citing that it promotes too heavy a reliance on technology. “We believe that AI can be a great tool for enhancing human creativity, but can never replace it,” said a spokesperson for Google in an official statement following the incident, per CNBC. “Our goal was to create an authentic story celebrating Team USA.” Shelly Palmer, a professor of advanced media at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications,...