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Virginia Union University (VUU) students can become certified doulas on campus, making it the first historically Black university in the state to offer such a class. On Tuesday, March 18, 2025, the private, Richmond, VA-based HBCU announced a partnership with the birth center Birth In Color and the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) to launch a six-month doula training certification program, according to WRIC Channel 8. VUU’s announcement came just ahead of World Doula Week, which runs from March 22 to March 28, 2025. In an interview with AFROTECH™ , Mama Glow Foundation founder Latham Thomas described a doula as a birth “producer” who provides emotional and physical support, education, and advocacy tools during childbirth. While some people view doulas as less educated or non-compliant, Thomas noted that they are just as important as other healthcare professionals, especially in a society where women, particularly Black women, are expected to advocate for themselves. “Black women...
World Doula Week, from March 22 to March 28, 2025, highlights the vital role of doulas in improving maternal and infant health outcomes. Latham Thomas , founder of Mama Glow and the Mama Glow Foundation , is doing her part to raise awareness. Thomas, also known as Glow Maven , has been involved in women’s health for over two decades. While many doulas enter the field due to their personal and oftentimes negative or traumatic experiences, her journey began positively with the birth of her son, who is now 21 years old. “I would say that having had that experience where I felt very supported, there was safety, I felt dignified, I had a sense of autonomy with the care providers who were present that inspired me, I think, to sort of start this journey, but also I knew that I needed to protect the experience for other people,” Thomas told AFROTECH™. “I [not only] wanted to help reframe [negative perspectives], but also address what was obviously a challenge in our community.” Thomas...
The rhythm of ambition often starts quietly—a hum of potential that builds into a bold symphony. For IntusCare, the journey began in the halls of Brown University, where co-founders Evan Jackson and Robbie Felton turned their vision for eldercare into reality, with Stevie Wonder’s song “Sir Duke,” setting the tone for their path forward. Much like a timeless Stevie Wonder groove that lingers long after the music fades, IntusCare’s journey from pitch competitions to industry innovation has been driven by harmony, persistence, and an unwavering belief in its mission. Rooted In Mission: A Personal Commitment To Equitable Care Founded five years ago, IntusCare set out to disrupt the healthcare status quo and deliver high-quality care to low-income older adults — a population often left behind by systemic inequities. Their mission is deeply anchored in serving diverse, marginalized communities, including Black, Latino, and Asian American populations, who have historically faced...
Editorial Note: Opinions and thoughts are the author’s own and not those of AFROTECH™. “Health is wealth” is a phrase that people have been using for years, and to me, it does not only refer to the health of one’s body but also to the opportunities that I see in health. The category has historically been geared towards products for men and women as a whole — and not focused on the issues that women specifically face. However, in the first half of 2024, digital health startups looking to improve women’s health outcomes saw a 3% increase in capital invested when compared to the first 6 months of 2023, showing a total of $679 million for 2024, according to PitchBook . This increased investment interest, I believe, will not only l ead to better health outcomes for women but present a set of opportunities for people to build their tech careers in this growing sector. The areas within women’s health that tech companies are targeting and show the most promise are companies focused on...
Black woman-owned healthcare startup HUED is getting plenty of community support to bet on its revolutionary mission in the health industry. According to CNBC Make It, HUED — a company that aims to diversify patient-physician experiences with culturally competent providers — has announced the raise of $1.6 million in seed funding that will be used to help address the racial disparities in health plaguing communities of color. Among its investors includes Serena Williams’ venture capital fund Serena Ventures, Black Founders Matter, Female Founders Fund, Osage Venture Partners, Northwestern Mutual, Gingerbread Capital, angel investor and health industry leader, Halle Tecco and others. The idea behind the digital health company — which was founded by ESSENCE senior editor Kimberly Wilson in 2018 — was inspired by Wilson’s own personal experience with the healthcare system after she received an improper fibroid diagnosis in 2017, CNBC Make It reports. With issues of bias and...
The psychedelic medicine industry is expanding rapidly, with areas like Washington, D.C., and Cambridge, Massachusetts decriminalizing magic mushrooms in recent elections. This Black woman-led biotech company recently launched to show how psychedelic medicines can be used for women’s health. Aphrodite Health — a woman-focused biotech company — is introducing psychedelic medicines to address women’s mental and physical health challenges often overlooked by modern medicine. The startup launched on May 31 and is led by CEO Tesla La Touche, a Black woman healthcare professional with 20 years of experience. La Touche is clinically published and brings a wealth of experience in the surgical, biopharmaceutical and advanced, clinical technologies sector to her team. S he was confident in her work as she was launching Aphrodite Health. Still, she takes a lot of pride coming into this space as the first Afro-Indigenous CEO in the psychedelic medicine industry. “I have very intimate knowledge...
This social media influencer turned her followers into customers! Sweet Cookie Jar founder and CEO Starr Dawkins has managed to take her success on social media platforms like Snapchat and YouTube and turn it into a profitable business. Dawkins would take to her social media to give fans tips on vaginal health and recommend what products worked best for her. However, she never realized that she could turn it into a business until her followers encouraged her to do so. “I would love to take credit for it, but I have to give my fans and followers all of the credit,” she said in an exclusive interview with AfroTech. “I was just being confident, fun, and crazy Starr telling them my coochie business all on Snapchat.” Since she was always sharing tips and true knowledge in the vaginal health area, Dawkins’ followers encouraged her to make her own wash. “They were like ‘you’re broke anyways,’ because everybody knew I was broke thanks to my blog where I was sharing my situation at the time...
Raniyah Copeland of the Black AIDS Institute can remember a time when HIV — the virus that causes AIDS — was the scourge of the 1980s. She remembers when the virus wiped out a whole sub-population of Black and Latinx men — she remembers what they faced while they were alive — and she knows that while HIV isn’t the scourge it once was, it’s still a disease that disproportionately affects the Black community…and she knows why. “In the United States, health is driven by inequity,” she told AfroTech. “HIV, as a disease, has a unique stigma in that it’s associated specifically with certain sexuality, a certain race, and a certain socio-economic class. While society isn’t as overt with its racism about AIDS as it once was — there was a time when the CDC would say that being Haitian, for example, made you more susceptible to AIDS — we still have progress that needs to be made.” Progress is, ultimately, the goal of the Black AIDS Institute. Dedicated exclusively to eradicating the disease...
Oprah Winfrey is certainly somewhere, proud as anything, about Lindiwe Tsope. In 2007, the media mogul launched the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls. The South African boarding school, which was founded by Winfrey after an intense conversation with the late Nelson Mandela, was designed to provide opportunities to disadvantaged Black South African girls. The inaugural class of the Academy graduated in 2011. One of those inaugural graduates was a young girl by the name of Lindiwe Tsope. And now, in addition to being a part of history for the Academy, she’s also a part of history as the first graduate to get a Ph.D. After graduating from the Academy, Tsope went on to Rhodes University in South Africa. She recently completed her Ph.D. in sociology, making her the first graduate of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls to get a Ph.D. And Tsope said she couldn’t have done it without the help of the media mogul. “The level of support I received was from the ground up. I...
The singer-songwriter is honoring Mental Health Awareness Month with an all-new meditation program. This week, Forbes reported that Alicia Keys announced a partnership with self-care guru Dr. Deepak Chopra’s Chopra Global to launch an integrated 21-day meditation experience titled, “Activating the Divine Feminine: The Path to Wholeness,” which focuses on “collective healing through accessing The Divine Feminine” and restoring joy in users’ lives. “I believe the Divine Feminine is an extremely powerful force within all of us,” Keys says according to ESSENCE. “It helps you grow, it helps you create, it cultivates who you are. There’s a major imbalance in our world, and we can all feel it. To counteract it, we have to open the door to the Divine Feminine in us and its ability to repair and create.” The outlet shares that Keys’ new free program — which exists within The Chopra App — aims to help listeners find the balance between their feminine and masculine powers and “return to peace...
Louisiana will soon get its first Black-owned birth center! According to KATC News , Baby Catcher Birth Center is on schedule to officially open its doors at the end of July and will become the first Black-owned freestanding birth center in the state. Lafayette native, Shatamia Webb says that one of her biggest fears, when it came time for her to give birth , was arriving at the hospital and not being able to come home so she decided to have both of her children at home. Now, she’s on a mission to help all future parents not only feel more confident when it comes to delivering their bundle of joy but informed about the options they have when it comes time to do so. Webb is currently a midwife and has conducted home births for the last four years. For her and her staff, it’s all about mothers knowing “what to expect going in at every stage of the journey.” Staff at the center will provide insights for mothers on topics that include breastfeeding education, nutrition, labor support,...
Ohio just opened its first Black-owned breast cancer center! According to a press release provided to AfroTech, The Kim Jacobs Breast Cancer Center opened its doors in an emotional grand opening ceremony on May 1, 2021. After the tragic loss of his mother to breast cancer, Lavar Jacobs told WKYC that this has been a dream since his mother passed away in 2009 at the age of 49. “I’ve always had the vision of the Kim Jacobs Breast Cancer Resource Center,” said Jacobs, according to WKYC. “She didn’t get to do everything she had planned. She deserves more of a legacy.” The Akron, Ohio native’s vision for the center also made history as it’s the first-ever Black-owned breast cancer center in the state of Ohio. As he’s also the founder of a nonprofit organization Not Just October — founded in 2014 — Jacobs emphasizes while wearing pink in October brings awareness to breast cancer and is a nice gesture, people are affected by the disease year-round. Courtesy of Lavar Jacobs Lavar witnessed...
Medical physicians have been overworked more than ever this past year, and Dr. Margaret Towolawi took matters into her own hands when the burnout became too real. Dr. Towolawi is a board certified family physician who has been practicing for over a decade in the Seattle area. She cares for children and adults through a variety of services including women’s health , gender affirming care and chronic disease management. Dr. Towolawi previously worked for a large medical group but she left to launch Nurture Wellness Center, her own direct primary care practice which officially opened for business last month. “After close to eight years, I found myself burned out with over 2,000 patients assigned to my patient panel,” Dr. Towolawi told AfroTech in an interview. “Opening a direct primary care practice, with a focus on lifestyle medicine, has been my personal solution to addressing many of the problems within the traditional healthcare setting for physicians and patients alike.” While it...
The players of the WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association) have long since been vocal on behalf of the sports organization, calling attention to social issues that tackle racism, sexism, and more to demand change in the league and beyond. According to NewsOne, the WNBA recently launched an initiative that aims to directly address systemic inequities that contribute to the racial health disparities among Black women and girls. Ahead of the upcoming season, the organization, alongside the WNBPA (Women’s National Basketball Players Association) Social Justice Council — a collective of athletes and activists that was formed following last summer’s Black Lives Matter protest — will use this initiative as a vessel to highlight the socio-economic factors that significantly impact COVID-19 care for Black women and girls and offer educational tools about the vaccines. It will also promote the importance of prioritizing mental health in communities of color. As part of the initiative,...
The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) has announced that it will invest $10 million in venture firms and funds focused on women, people of color and other underrepresented startups and entrepreneurs. CTA’s multi-million dollar fund targets the disproportionate amount of venture capital that women and minority-led companies receive. In 2017, women received nearly 2.2 percent of the available venture capital funding which totaled $85 billion. “To continue to evolve and grow, the tech industry needs more equal access to venture funding,” said CTA President and CEO Gary Shapiro in a press release . “Various research reports indicate diverse teams make better decisions and achieve greater profits. At CTA, this is one more tool we are deploying to help promote diversity in the technology industry.” CTA has previously been criticized for having gender-bias and a lack of diversity at its events. Lora DiCarlo, a women-focused company, was supposed to receive an innovation award at this...