Showing 6 results for:
sierra-leone
Popular topics
All results
Idris Elba has several business moves in the works to advance Africa. As AFROTECH™ previously reported, the English actor has roots that trace back to Sierra Leone, his father’s native country. Elba was also granted citizenship there after he made a visit in 2019, BBC reports. At the time, he said the moment was “ the biggest honour I could get from my country.” “I’m no stranger to Africa: I’ve been in Africa, I’ve made films in Africa, I’ve championed Africa,” Elba explained to BBC. “But Sierra Leone, it’s a very different feeling because it’s my parent’s home. The welcome has been incredible, and I’ve plugged straight into that energy that I think Sierra Leone is rising with. The son of the soil is coming back to fertilise the soil.” Elba also announced plans to invest in the area and surrounding lands with his eyes set on its tourism and entertainment. “America or England cannot house my ambition. Africa can house my ambition, I can create another Disney here [and] I can’t do...
Something new is on the horizon when it comes to investing in companies that are often overlooked and underserved, and these Black founders are helping to lead the charge. According to Forbes , Westbound Equity Partners, a venture capitalist firm spearheaded by former nonprofit director Sean Mendy is on a mission to pour millions into companies led by Black, Latin, and diversity-driven founders. “We aren’t investing in underrepresented founders as this altruistic thing,” Mendy told the outlet. “This fund is about investing in the best companies and performance. Explicit impact is what we’re doing on the foundation side.” Since its inception in 2019, the firm formerly known as Concrete Rose Capital has managed to invest in over 40 startups as well as tap into what Mendy says is “the diversity opportunity,” which provides capital to underrepresented founders, especially Black and Latino companies. What’s more, there is a key focus on startups with goals of serving their communities....
David Moinina Sengeh’s journey is proof that determination always exceeds doubt. Born and raised in Sierra Leone, Sengeh witnessed the traumatic effects of his country’s civil war, which began in March 1991 until January 2002. According to France 24, between 50,000 to 200,000 people lost their lives. In addition to fatalities, many victims became amputees due to the war’s brutality. In 2014, the TED Fellow shared in his TED Talk, “The Sore Problem of Prosthetic Limbs,” that an estimated 8,000 men, women and children had their legs and arms amputated. The alarming number of Sierra Leoneans who had to use prosthetics led Sengeh to learn about the challenges that they were facing with them.
Awarded for their efforts in making the world a better place, two trailblazers have received a global award. Created in 2015, the Global Teacher Prize is a $1 million award granted annually to a teacher who is making a prolific impact in the lives of their students. This year a new sister award was launched to highlight a student who is making a difference for their peers and society. Jeremiah Thoronka — a 21-year-old Durham University student — became the first recipient of the inaugural Chegg.org Global Student Prize receiving $100,000 U.S. dollars. “Words can’t express how I feel about this,” Thoronka said. The master’s student stood out from a selection of over 3,500 nominations across 94 countries due to his work centered on sustainability. Growing up in a slum camp with his mother on the fringes of Freetown, they would burn charcoal and wood to be used for light and heat, SwitSalone reports. Here is where Jeremiah Thoronka’s passion for climate change advocacy was birthed. The...
With the invention of this unique solar car, this 24-year-old from Sierra Leone showed the world how to turn trash into treasure. Face2Face Africa tells the story of Emmanuel Alieu Mansaray, who bills himself as a “self-taught inventor” on his Facebook page. Mansaray said that it took three years to build this unique car, and now, he drives the “Imagination Car” all around town. “Having a solar car like my ‘Imagination Car’ using solar power for transportation will make for a cleaner atmosphere, thereby reducing the risk of dangerous gaseous emissions that have led to the death of thousands of people around the world,” he told the outlet. Mansaray is currently a college student at Fourah Bay College, at the University of Sierra Leone. He’s pursuing a degree in geology, but he says his ultimate goal is to bring the so-called “Imagination Car” to the mass market. The car is painted in his country’s colors — green, blue, white — and has a solar panel on top of it. The car also comes...
Sierra Leone’s presidential elections have made world history, reports OkayAfrica . The latest election is notable because it is the first in the world to use blockchain technology , according to Business Insider . Each paper ballot was announced out loud by election official and then manually logged by Agora, the company that provided the technology. Blockchain is commonly used by cryptocurrency companies to provide transparency in their transactions by storing data in a public record. Sierra Leone used the software for the same purpose. Each vote was stored on a private blockchain that was only accessible by Agora employees and they published their tally results on a website. This reduces the probability of votes being tampered with–thus preventing voter fraud. Citizens of Sierra Leone had to decide between Julius Maada Bio of the Sierra Leone People’s Party and Samura Kamara of All People’s Progress, the party that currently governs the nation. Although Bio and Kamara are...