Inclusive e-commerce beauty brand thirteen lune, backed by Diddy, Gwyneth Paltrow, and more, has closed a $3 million seed round led by venture capital firm Fearless Fund. “We are delighted to welcome thirteen lune into the Fearless Fund family,” says Arian Simone, President and Chief Executive Officer of Fearless Fund, according to Essence. “Nyakio has created a groundbreaking space to foster inclusivity in the beauty and wellness industries and we are excited to support the brand as they continue to scale over the next few years.” As a Black woman founder, receiving funding does not come easy. In fact, only 93 Black women have received venture capital funding over $1 million as of December 2020. Nyakio Grieco — founder of thirteen lune — learned firsthand how difficult raising money can be as an entrepreneur. She was fortunate to collect funds from friends and family to debut her brand into the market. The new funds marks a hopeful step forward to create a new landscape for more...

The downside to social media, based on feedback from users, has most times been the lack of inclusion and amplification of diverse voices and faces on popular platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and more. On behalf of social media apps, image-sharing platform Pinterest has announced a new content policy that intends to embrace users of all kinds and grow the app to ensure it becomes a more “inclusive, positive and inspiring place,” TechCrunch reports. The outlet shares that Pinterest has formed a $500,000 Creator Fund — which is described as a new content policy called the Creator Code — and announced a slate of new moderation tools to enforce content guidelines that will require its pool of over 450 million Pinterest creators to fact-check their content, practice inclusivity, and ensure any call to action shared on the app will not cause harm to others. The newly-announced fund will specifically focus on uplifting creators from underrepresented communities across the U.S. and offer...

Electrodes weren’t designed with coarse hair in mind – here’s why that’s a problem. On March 11, Science News , an independent American magazine, published an article noting new electrodes technology can now better capture brain waves of people with naturally coarse hair. As innovative as this new technology is, the public response to the announcement revealed a very telling statement about the current state of STEM. The article detailed the design flaws of standard electrodes that exclude people with natural, thick hair and how these flaws pose a threat to proper diagnoses of patients. Engineer Pulkit Grover of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh stated that an electrode redesign was needed. “It’s not intentional. But at the same time, it’s kind of sad,” said Grover. “It’s worth thinking about technology, and about who it has been designed for.” Reactions to the new design across social media included declarations of relief that “finally” this technology exists. However, there...