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A legendary Hip-Hop artist, a force in the community, an entrepreneur , and a professor — it’s no secret that Bun B’s résumé runs deep. At AFROTECH™ 2024 , the Port Arthur, TX, native — born Bernard Freeman — joined Jeff Nelson , co-founder and chief operating officer of Blavity Inc. , for an insightful fireside chat that explored innovation, entrepreneurship, branding, and building wealth and success beyond the music industry . Highlighting his influence as an artist and how it carried over into his success in other business ventures, like his fast-food restaurant Trill Burgers, Bun B shared how he has leveraged his platform to create multiple streams of income and leave a lasting cultural imprint. Purchase your ticket to AFROTECH™ Conference 2025 now! View this post on Instagram A post shared by AFROTECH (@afro.tech) During their conversation, Bun B traced a pivotal turning point in his life back to 10th grade, when a simple journaling assignment revealed his love for writing....
Cliff Worley Sr., head of portfolio marketing at Oakland, CA-based venture firm Kapor Capital, believes artificial intelligence (AI) is going to make us all entrepreneurs. Based on its website, Kapor Capital invests in businesses that improve the lives of low-income communities and communities of color. It was also an early investor in Blavity Inc. At AFROTECH™ Conference 2024, Worley led a dynamic workshop offering a comprehensive overview of the most effective AI tools for founders. The workshop aimed to equip attendees with the knowledge and strategies to streamline workflows, enhance productivity, and optimize budgets using cutting-edge AI innovations for business success. Purchase your ticket to AFROTECH™ Conference 2025 now! “If you’ve ever had that idea that you’ve always wanted to build, now is the time to do it,” Worley said while on stage. View this post on Instagram A post shared by AFROTECH (@afro.tech) Drawing parallels to the internet in 1988 and the release of...
The third annual Black Effect Podcast Festival will take place on Saturday, April 26, 2025, at Pullman Yards in Atlanta, GA. Founder Charlamagne Tha God will join popular personalities from his and iHeartMedia’s Black Effect Podcast Network for the one-day festival — which promises some of the “biggest and best” podcasts — featuring live recordings to amplify Black voices and informative discussions to inspire the next generation of podcasters. The Black Effect Marketplace will also be in full effect, featuring various Black-owned businesses and a lineup of food trucks to keep the energy high throughout the day. “We’re excited to return to Atlanta, building on the incredible momentum of the podcast industry and the growing impact of Black creators in the space,” Charlamagne said in a statement. Mandii B and WeezyWTF, hosts of the “Decisions, Decisions” podcast, will host the festival with sounds by DJ Loui Vee of 105.3 The Beat in Atlanta. Appearances are anticipated by popular...
If it’s one thing that Black founders know how to do, it’s make something out of nothing. During this week’s episode of Black Tech Green Money, viewers get a blast from the past from AfroTech World 2020 with Motley Fool Ventures Managing Partner Ollen Douglass. He gives insight on the keys to fundraising, trends in venture capital (VC) that founders who look like us need to tap into, and more. At Motley Fool, the underlying goal is to help people learn how to invest in the stock market to create generational wealth. “It’s really interesting in the sense that when you think about all the opportunities to create wealth, the stock market, I believe is probably the most democratized access by far,” he explained. “Ameritrade does not care what you look like and they don’t ask. Schwab doesn’t care. There are none of the barriers that you have when [you’re] just like [engaged in] real estate investing and someone has to sell you. I don’t have to call up Tim Cook to buy Apple.”
Bootup has secured new funding. According to a blog post, Bootup — a company that aims to help individuals land jobs in tech — has raised a seed round totaling $2.1 million. The round was led by Kapor Capital, in addition to participation from Lightship Capital, other Black-led funds, investors, and more. “I feel that allocation of capital is the most useful form of activism in a capitalist society,” said Founder and CEO of Bootup, Chandler Malone, in a statement. “This idea was inspired by a conversation with Candice Matthews Brackeen back in 2018 and led to us being intentional about raising from all Black-led funds and angels for our seed round as our work is directly focused on targeting the wealth gap.”
LinkedIn is on a mission to support the Black community. According to information provided exclusively to AfroTech, LinkedIn will distribute $500,000 in grants to digitalundivided and Blavity.org. The contribution will propel LinkedIn’s Black entrepreneurship fellowship programs and provide new economic pathways for the community. LinkedIn will work alongside the selected organizations to uplift the stories of rising entrepreneurs and instill awareness for additional capital and resources year-round. “As a company, we are on a journey to create equal access to opportunity and help drive more equitable outcomes. Our strategic partners are essential in that journey and since 2020, we have donated $5 million in funding and services to organizations that support economic and workforce development within the Black community,” LinkedIn said in an article published. “We selected digitalundivided and Blavity.org because of their holistic approach to developing, supporting and funding...
After nearly two decades at Microsoft, Michelle Bozeman has proven that she gets things done. Since joining Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2019, she’s done just that in her role as a Senior Practice Manager. Officially embracing a new phase of her career, Michelle’s found a role that both challenges and inspires her as she develops consultants at Amazon. “My position today is in professional services. I manage a team of consultants that are early in their careers. I manage a program that is meant to grow them into more senior consultants, and I started doing that with college hires. That led me to a passion that I have mentoring and growing people, which led me to AWS,” Michelle says. Understanding that there’s room for everyone to win, since joining AWS, Michelle says her greatest achievement has been “seeing people grow.” As a manager and mentor, Michelle has been instrumental in developing a new generation of tech professionals . “Watching them come in so unsure of the position,...
Studies show that Black babies are three times more likely to die during childbirth if cared for by White doctors in the United States reports CNN . This shows racial disparities in human health have an effect on a person even in their first few hours of life. Research showed that after Black physicians took charge of the birth, the mortality rate of Black newborns decreased between 39 percent and 58 percent, according to George Mason University Research . On the other hand, that same research revealed mortality rates for White babies wasn’t affected by the doctor’s race on a scale as wide as it is for Black babies. These findings also support prior research that shows that although infant mortality rates have fallen in the past decades, Black children are still more likely to die earlier than their white counterparts. The authors of the study reveal “the findings suggest that Black physicians outperform their White colleagues when caring for Black newborns,” according to CNN . They...
In this day and age of entrepreneurship, seldom do we have voices or representatives that truly encompass building within our communities and providing structure for the next generation to do so. On the inaugural episode of the Black Tech Green Money podcast hosted by Will Lucas, founder and CEO of Blavity Inc., Morgan DeBaun, offers her perspective on having a majority-Black workforce and how, as a people, we should strive to achieve a similar goal within our own startups and businesses. @morgandebaun Instagram In 2014, Morgan DeBaun along with Aaron Samuels and Jeff Nelson founded Blavity Inc. as their solution to the lack of Black millennial representation in media. Under the Blavity Inc. umbrella are the online publications Blavity.com, Shadow & Act, Travel Noire, 21Ninety, and AfroTech. Blavity also launched the AfroTech conference which serves as the largest Black tech conference in the country. “I need people around us, around our mission, around my employees, around my...
The summit focused on how corporations can combat systemic racism in America. Over 450 attendees logged into the Forward From Floyd virtual summit hosted by Blavity and Edelman on Thursday, June 11th. Blavity Founder and CEO Morgan DeBaun moderated the panel-style event with the goal of creating a dialogue around how corporations and institutions can support the fight against systemic racism. In attendance were employees, directors, executives, managers, and all those willing to be instruments of change in the business and non-governmental industries while on the brink of making history. Guests of the panel were: • Shelley Stewart III, a partner of McKinsey & Company • Stan Little, Chief Experience Officer for United Way • Lisa Ross, COO of Edelman U.S., and • Dr. Uche Blackstock, the founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity The guests shared their advice on how businesses, NGOs, nonprofits, media, and medical institutions can spark change internally and fight systemic racism in...
On November 8th during AfroTech in Oakland, Black women techies, entrepreneurs and CEOs gathered together at Scott’s Seafood Pavilion in Jack London Square for the conference’s first annual Women in Leadership Dinner, presented in partnership with Hilton. The event, co-hosted by Morgan DeBaun, CEO and founder of Blavity, Inc., and Andréa Richardson, Head of Multicultural Engagement at Hilton, converged more than 70 women in tech for an inspirational evening of connection, camaraderie and well-deserved commendation. Over an intimate dinner setting, DeBaun and Richardson spoke about the opportunity for women in tech to continue taking on leadership positions and the importance of extending their network. T he dinner provided attendees the chance to connect and celebrate one another and promote even more advancement for women in the field. AfroTech “Hilton, you have been such a huge support to Blavity for so many years, since the beginning,” DeBaun said in her opening speech. “Thank...
Feeling cute? Using that exact caption for your Instagram photo because you can’t come up with anything else? Well, two HBCU grads have the answer for such a cyber woe with the Caption Any Photo app. The app came to fruition after co-founder JaBre’ Jennings eventually came up with the idea for a class project and created a mock-up of the app. After the app was completed, he and his business partner Juwon Nicholson toured the country with it. “We went up and down the East Coast with it,” Jennings told Technical.ly. Both men attended the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and have certainly made their alma mater proud. UMES alumni JaBre’ Jennings & Juwan Nicholson have teamed up to create their app “Caption Any Photo”. The mobile app is designed to help users find the best photo captions for social media post. Try it for yourself! Download here: https://t.co/wrzPIHH18c #UMES #HawkPride pic.twitter.com/02eigXxnFB — UMES (@UMESNews) July 16, 2018 Caption Any Photo makes it easy to...
Rapper Nipsey Hussle’s death profiled his charitable efforts and business endeavors as key elements to the late musician’s legacy. An emotional Instagram post from longtime friend and business associate David Gross revealed Hussle planned to expand his businesses past South Los Angeles and open a resort and casino in Las Vegas in 2020. Gross penned the tribute to his late friend Tuesday, and several photos of the two accompanied the caption that detailed their intentions to open The Virgin Las Vegas. “We always planned to tell the story behind these pictures but didn’t get the chance to because we were busy executing on the next idea, and each successive opportunity got bigger and bigger,” a portion of Gross’ remarks read. View this post on Instagram A post shared by David Gross (@david.a.gross) Per his statement, Gross and Nip were slated to become partial owners of the hotel, which The Star Advisor writes is scheduled to open in November 2020. “This is the meeting a couple months...
Detroit high school senior Michael Love is trying to pick a college and has a bevy of choices. Love applied to about 50 colleges and received acceptance letters from 41 institutions, reports WXYZ. As the acceptances rolled in, so did scholarship offers: the Cornerstone Health and Technology student has amassed more than $300,000 in scholarship money. Love’s mom, Micole Ewing, was initially wary of her son applying to so many schools. “I thought he was crazy when he told me he was applying to so many schools,” said Ewing. She changed her outlook as her son kept receiving good news, however. “Every time I open up a letter I jumped up and down, we praised God and everything. I’m super proud of him,” she said. Love struggled at the beginning of high school but was determined to succeed despite discouraging comments from naysayers. “I got told a lot when I was younger I couldn’t do this, I couldn’t do that,” Love said. “So I just wanted to show people I’m better than what they think I...
Alfred E. Nickson went from growing up on welfare in the rough inner cities of Miami to becoming one of the youngest millionaires in network marketing in the United States. Determined to make a better life for himself and his family, Nickson began his entrepreneurial journey in network marketing at the young age of 19. Within three short years, he became a six figure earner and one of the top sales professionals in his company before building his own brand of nearly 100,000 followers. He specializes in a range of financial services including, but not limited to, credit restoration, credit monitoring, wills and trusts, credit litigation and financial planning. He has proudly helped thousands of people restore their credit, while helping them build financial wealth. In addition to that, Alfred has found tremendous success working as a seven-figure success coach for the last six years, coaching people through workshops and seminars on how to make the most out of their current financial...