DAWN

DAW

Lifestyle/Culture

Agriculture - Business - Commentary - Development - Education - Governance History - Investment - Lifestyle/Culture - Technology/Science

About the Africa Business Association

TheAfricaBusinessAssociationisan independent international business development organization. We offer access to the latest resources, information, and best practices in advocacy and communications for the African Diaspora and the African entrepreneursinAfrica.

We work to help you have access to news and events as starting points for constructive conversations and callstoaction.Weseektocutthrough the froth of the political spin cycle to underlyingtruthsandvalues.Wewant to be so focused on progress that togetherwecanprovideacredibleand constructive generation of Africans that take seriously our previous generations and act upon all their wishes, our hopes and aspirations to make lasting change for all future generations.

Africa Business Association "DAWN"

PUBLISHER/PRESIDENT

Ricky Katsuya

ADVISORY BOARD

Earl 'Skip' Cooper, II, CEO, Black Business Association H.E. Sheila Siwela, Ambassador H.E. Kone L. Tanou, Ambassador

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Ricky Katsuya

LAYOUT/TYPESETTING

Communications

AFRICA BUSINESS ASSOCIATION NEWS

LOISDALE COURT, SUITE 600 SpringÞeld, VA 22150 USA

Copyright © 2022 by Africa Business Association News All Rights Reserved.

The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.

Image credits: https://resources.smartbizloans.com/ blog/business-owners/infographic-august-is-nationalblack-business-month; https://www.bing.com/images/ search

AugustisNationalBlackBusinessMonth

By Suzanne Robertson

AUGUST 1, 2022 MARKS the beginning of National Black Business Month. This observance highlightsthevitalroleofBlack-ownedbusinesses to the overall economy.

Black Business Month was created by two entrepreneurs, John William Templeton and FrederickE.Jordan,in2004whosharedapassion for Black-owned businesses and understood how important those businesses are to economic growth. John William Templeton was an editor of the oldest Black newspaper inAmerica. Frederick E. Jordan didn’t have many financing options when he started his engineering and construction management company in 1969. Today, F.E. JordanAssociatesInc.®hasanimpressiverecord of more than 1,000 completed projects, including the resurfacing of President Obama’s street in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood.

Access to funding is an issue faced by Blackownedbusinessowners.That’swhytheSmartBiz® team is committed to helping underserved business owners. We’re proud that over 60% of the loans funded by our banks have gone to women, minority, or veteran-owned businesses.

Therearetwoeasywaystocelebratethismonth on both social media and in person. First, use the #SupportBlackBusiness hashtag on social media to introduce Black-owned businesses to potential customers and investors online. Second,buyproductsandservicesfromBlack businesses this month to help boost sales and strengthen communities.

RecentstatisticsforBlack-ownedbusinessesare encouraging. In the 18 months between February 2020 and August 2021, Black-owned businesses increased by almost 40%. See more details about Black-owned business growth in our infographic.

https://resources.smartbizloans.com/blog/businessowners/infographic-august-is-national-black-businessmonth

Christian Louboutin Debuts Charitable Shoe Collaboration

Walk a Mile in My Shoes Season 1 © Julien Vallon

THE FIGHT FOR racial equality and social harmony is ongoing, but in the eyes of actor Idris Elba and his wife, SabrinaElba,thereisalwayshope.Thepaircollaborated for the second time on a collection with their longtime friend and legendary designer Christian Louboutin titled Walk a Mile in My Shoes.

While their first collection was born from a unanimous feeling of anxiety, anger, and sadness over the country's racially charged hate crimes, this one came from a place of joy and positivity for the progress we've made and the change that is to come.

"I loved how organic it was," Sabrina tells BAZAAR. com. "It was really three friends coming together to just like, 'What do we do? How do we give back?' It was such abeautifulconversationatatimewhenyoujustwantedall your friends around you having that kind of conversation, because it was hard to talk about it. It was painful to talk about it,and Christianwas so warm at a time when I was feeling really low and Idris was feeling low."

Christian Louboutin, Sabrina and Idris Elba Shot by Adama Jalloh © Adama Jalloh

Collaboration with Idris and Sabrina Elba

By Rosa Sanchez

The capsule collection includes shoes printed with handmade illustrations featuring national flowers that symbolize the Elbas' cultures: the protea flower of Somalia (where Sabrina's family is from), the cotton tree of Sierra Leone, and the desert rose of Ghana (bothplaces whereIdris has roots).

"In the first one, at the time that we started, we wereangry,"Sabrinasays."Ithinkeveryonewasa littlebit angry and felt like something needed to be done andsomechange needed tobemade,andit brought us together to create something beautiful, but it was inspired a little bit by frustration. And I thinkforthisone,it'ssogreattobeabletocelebrate not only the success of thefirst collection, butalso feeling like there's been a little bit of progress."

All proceeds from the collection, which launched June 15, will go to six grassroots organizations from around the world chosen by the designer and the Elbas, related to education, the arts, and youthempowerment.Theyareasfollows:AfriKids, an organization that protects children in northern Ghana; Elman Peace Centre, Somalia's first community-based disarmament and reintegration program for youth being co-opted into armed groups; The Raining Season, which provides resources for vulnerable and orphaned children, as well as impoverished families in Sierra Leone; CASA93,afashionschoolinBrazilthatoffersfree education to teens with few resources; Immediate Theatre, which involves London's communities in creative projects that inspire well-being and positive change; and Art Start, a U.S.-based organization that uses the creative process to nurturethevoices,hearts,andmindsofhistorically marginalized youth.

Withtheirfirstcollection,whichlaunchedin2021, the trio raised almost $2 million.

"It's important to give what you can how you can. Everyone can do something," Sabrina says. "I feel like there has been a trend and a bit of performative activism, unfortunately, so I think

what this collection is doing is hopefully setting a bar—it's not just about righting a tweet, you really need to put the work in."

Idris agrees. "I think there's definitely a consciousness among people that have the platform to say, 'You know what? We're privileged, we have this opportunity, let's do something about it,'" he says.

Sabrina and Idris— "a secret sneaker drawer" who used to sketch out shoe designs as a kid— createdtwooriginalstylesforthecollectioninspired by their backgrounds. The colorful Maryam wrap sandal (which isalso offered in aheel version) is a tribute to Sabrina's mother and Somalianheritage, whilethechunkywhite2002SLsneaker(whichalso comes with a painterly red and blue Celebration print on the sides) is named after Idris's country of origin and his daughter Isan's date of birth.

"I think from a design perspective, we wanted to be positive and shed some light on what we've done and what we've achieved. This felt more celebratoryandnotfromaplaceofdarkness,"Idris tells BAZAAR. "We continued to work with classic Christian Louboutin silhouettes and offered two from-scratch designs that we're very proud of—a littlebitof anexpansionofthe firstcollection—and we thought about summer, we thought about the colors, we thought that we still want people to feel that genuine consumer consciousness of, 'Hey, I would like to contribute,' while at the same time wearing something that makes them feel good."

Thistimearound,theduo,alongwithLouboutin's talented design team, reincorporated the flower motif they introduced in their first collection in a very different way. The first designs showcased theyellowstrelitzia,knownasthe"freedomflower," which from the side can look like a bird taking flight. Sabrina says it was meant to represent "the struggle of the time." But the Season II florals, while still "rooted" the way Idris says the collection "is rooted in the struggle," are sunny and cheerful

with the hope of better days.

"I think Black Lives Matter, the conversations around race, and the inequality that the wholeworldisfeeling are continuing, and theimportancelevels out;westillbelievein the cause, but there is a version of that same storytelling and activation that leans toward the positive, leans toward vibrancy and growth," Idris says. "We want people to remember where this collection came from and where it was born from, but we also want to remind ourselves, 'Hey, man, we can go forward. There's positivity. There's light at the end of the tunnel.'"

BothSabrinaandIdrissayitwasatrulyhumbling experience to work with their friend, and they already can't stop wearing the shoes they created together, but the best part, Idris says, is getting to see what their efforts have produced.

After the launch of their first collection, Sabrina visited an organization they partnered with in SomaliaandIdrisvisitedoneinSyria,theBeRose Foundation. "I called Sabrina and I was like, 'Yo, I 'm in tears,'" Idris recalls. "I literally had 17 women fromthatsmallvillage whobroughttomethe fruits that they had grown in their land that they didn't have before. They said, 'This is for you, Mr. Elba, becausewe'reinabundancenow.Youchangedour lives, thank you so much.'" He said that with their help, the organization also set up a food program to give kids breakfast, "something that you and I may overlook—and these kids were describing to me what it meant to have breakfast, what it meant for their concentration, their grades, their home."

Ultimately,Sabrinasays,it'snotonlypartnerships such as this one that can help make a real

change for struggling communities, it is also us— consumers.

"We need to understand how powerful our decisions are. When you're shopping anything,

it really is like a vote, it's as powerful as a vote," she says. "You need to put your finances and your taste and whatever it is behind things that you support. It's really powerful to be a consumer, and I embrace that power."a conference table at the competitor’s offices; they even placed the competing company’s logo on the conference room wall! Bubbly drinks were passed around and each person was asked to toast the shortcomings of the new product. Instead of ideating how we might beat our competitors, we can simulate it by imagining how they would critique our best work.

abhor isolation. The intended audience for ourideasisseldomjustourselves.Theprocessby which we bring our ideas to life requires hearing from many differing perspectives to give them shape, shine, and shelf life.

Google’sCEO,SundarPichai,Usesthis

ONE OF THE MOST important jobs of every leader is to define how you measure success You’ve probably heard the phrase, you get what youmeasure.Moreimportantly, yougetwhatyou reward.

If you reward your team for success, they will try to do more things like whatever it was that got them the reward. So, be careful about what you measure, and be careful what you reward. Get it wrong, and your team will probably fail.

This all seems obvious, but in truth, it’s pretty complicated. The reason is that the way most leaders define success misses one of the most important points. In an interview at Stanford University’s “View from the Top,”Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, explained it like this: Youhavetoencourageinnovation…Youknow, one of the counterintuitive things is companies becomemoreconservativeastheygrow.Youhave a lot more cash, you have a lot more resources but, you know, companies tend to become more conservative in their decision-making.

As a result, Pichai says his job is “encouraging thecompanytotakerisksandinnovateandbeokay with failure–and rewardeffort,notoutcomes.”

That last part is really important. In fact, those four words are one of the most important lessons for every leader. As Pichai points out, that can be difficult since “people tend to reward outcomes.”

Here’s why it matters:

Ifyouonlymeasurepeopleonoutcomes,theywill do whatever it takes to avoid negative outcomes. They’ll play it safe and fall back on whatever they already know that works. They’ll keep giving you exactly what you’ve always gotten, nothing more or less.

The thing is, avoiding a negative outcome is not a great measure of success. Avoiding negative outcomes doesn’t lead to greatness.

On the other hand, if you want people to work

really hard, reward them for that. If you want people to take risks, try new things, and come up withnewwaysofdoingthings, incentivizethemfor their effort.

Those things don’t always lead to what we think of traditionally as success. Sometimes they are messy. Sometimes they fail. Sometimes the effort will cost you a lot of money. The point is, that’s not necessarily a bad thing if what you’re trying to do is build something new.

If you’re trying to do something worthwhile, you’re going to fail a bunch of times anyway. You’re going to break things and you’re going to figure out how to put them back together. You might as well encourage people to learn from it all and reward them for their effort.

Obviously, this doesn’t mean you don’t expect a lot from your team. It doesn’t mean outcomes don’t matter. It just means that the outcome you’re looking for might be less obvious than a 5% increase in your stock price year over year.

It really comes down to the type of culture–and, ultimately, the type of company you’re trying to build. If what you want are incremental growth and a small but consistent increase in quarterly earnings, that’s fine, but don’t expect anything revolutionary to happen.

If, however, you want to build a team that is willingtodo hard things,reward them for their effort. Reward them when they try and fail, and whentheylearnandsucceed.Ultimately,that’sthe best possible outcome anyway.

Source:

Business

What We Learned in Studying the Most Effective Founders

By Martin Gonzalez, Josh Yellin Source: Google

STARTUPS FACE MANY existential risks, from theirfinancestotheirtechnologies.Butthereisone risk which some research indicates is the biggest of all: 55% of startups fail because of people problems, according to researchers at Harvard, Stanford and the University of Chicago. What do you do when the team argues over the direction of the company, how cash is spent or how much equity is fair? How do you fire a loyal friend who’s not up to par with industry expertise? How do you get your team to work as hard as you do?

We led an effort at Google for Startups to assess the leadership capabilities of more than 900 startup founders, CEOs and CTOs across morethan 40countries to buildoneof thedeepest and broadest sets of data on founder capabilities ever assembled. Our goal: put the most effective entrepreneurs under a microscope to understand their best leadership strategies.

We’ve summarized our findings in The Effective Founders Project report, which contains detailed analysis,referencesfromthemostrobustresearch doneonthesepeopleissuesand,mostimportantly, practical tips. Here are our seven key findings :

Treat people like volunteers.

Whether they’re fresh graduates or experienced, world-class talent, the best people want to do great work for a challenging, meaningful mission. Inspiring your team with purpose gives you a chance to hire and retain the best talent; for example, many talented engineers want a unique challenge, rather than another old project that just wants to crowd out the market.

Protect the team from distractions.

While CEOs are often seen as distracted by

new ideas, the best ones create focus and clarity on what really matters. But we understand this is difficult:whenastartupisfindingitsway,everything can feel like an opportunity, making it hard to keep the team focused. Set clear goals and priorities to build momentum for your team. This in turn fuels better performance and morale. It’s also important tocreatesomekindofclosureritualforwhengreat ideas go to the graveyard.

Minimize unnecessary micromanagement. While our data shows micromanaging can be helpful in certain situations, the most effective leaders aim to delegate work in order to grow both themselves and their businesses. Our data suggests micromanaging can be a major derailer, especially for CEOs. Recognize which teammates need to be closely supervised, and which you can empower to make good decisions and operate independently.

Invite disagreement.

Our data suggests founders consistently undervalue inviting opinions that are different from their own, while cofounders and teammates rate it highly. Yet some studies have shown that though it might not always feel that way, disagreement among diverse teams actually leads to more effective outcomes. In turn, that could mean more innovative and inclusive products.

Preserve interpersonal equity.

Violated expectations are the main source of conflict among cofounders. Our data suggests many founders keep track of their cofounder’s duties, but unknowingly define expectations for themselves more minimally. The most effective

cofounders openly discuss and document what they expect from each other and constantly check for what we call “interpersonal equity.” Do both of youfeelexpectationsarefair?Iswhatyougiveand receiveinreturnfaircomparedtoyourcofounders?

Keep pace with expertise. - While you can’t be an expert in everything, leaders need to know enoughabouteachroletohiretherightpeopleand help develop their team. 93% of the most effective foundershavethetechnicalexpertisetoeffectively manage the work, and make time to stay ahead of their industry.

Overcome discouragement.

Whilemost people would expect self-confidence to grow with time, our data suggests the most effectivefoundersarenotnearlyasconfidentasthe leasteffectivefoundersare.Thisobservationaligns with what is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, where overconfidence at the start of the journey helps founders get started, but discouragement and self-doubt set in soon after. That in turn can give you the inner challenge you need to reach further. For some, that self-doubt comes as a setback. If that’s you, remember it is likely a signal of growth, and not of inevitable failure. Seek out a support system, focus on the positive, and know how to ask for help when they need it.

Head to startup.google.com to download the full Effective Founders Project report—and avoid the pitfalls of the most common people problems. https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/ entrepreneurs/effective-founders-project/ Image credit: purepng.com

African Union Procurement and TradeApps

The African Union (AU) is a steward of public funds and therefore both AU and its suppliers must adhere to the highest ethical standards, both during the bidding process and throughout the execution of a contract.

The AU Procurement Division under the Administration and Human Resource Management(AHRM) is responsible for the for the acquisition of a wide variety of goods, works and services for the AU Headquarters, AU Organ,Peace Support Mission, Regional RepresentativeOffice,SpecialisedandTechnical Agency and Liaison Office etc.

Visit the Bids/Procurement pages of the AU website to review open bids - https://au.int/en/ bids.

Visit Google PlayStore or iPhone xxxx to installtheAUProcurementapponyourdevices.

TheAfCFTAHubbringstogethertheAfCFTA Secretariat, national governments and major private sector innovators in a unified digital framework known as the “AfCFTA Hub Network” (https://www.afcfta.app). Sign up for an account to gain access to a growing range of features, modules and platforms bundled seamlessly into one Super-App. Explore this AfCFTADigital Ecosystem - use what you need togetwhatyouwant.WhereveryouareinAfrica, we have got your back. Register your business to take advantage of access to the 41 countries that have ratified theAfCFTATreaty.

10GoldenRulestoMakingMoneyOnline WithoutRiskingEverything

By Deanna Ritchie

WHETHER YOU WANT to profit off a passion, a side hustle to pay down debt, or make a living without leaving home, there are hundreds of legit ways to make money online. The key, however, is that you need to follow these 10 golden rules to make money online. If you don’t follow a few basic online business rules — you might just risk everything that you’ve built.

1. Online businesses are first and foremost businesses.

Many moons ago, I decided to sell some of my personalpossessions.Iwasplanningtomoveand didn’twanttolugaroundthingsInolongerneeded. So,IlistedthemonsiteslikeeBaytooffloadthem. Anditalsodidn’thurtthatIwasmakingsomeextra cash on the side.

I didn’t realize the amount of work I had to put into this side hustle. I had to take pictures, write clear descriptions, and interact with prospective customers.And, once I made a sale, I had to box theitemsupproperlyandthengotothepostoffice or schedule a pickup.

I eventually dedicated a spare room to this endeavor.Thelisteditemswereallinthisdedicated room, and it was also where I packed these items for shipping.

I’m in no way complaining. But, it taught me the first rule of making money online; it’s a business.

Simply put, having a business — even a “quickselling-items”businessmustbetreatedasanyother business. If a business is going to be profitable, it cannot be a casual venture. Ultimately, websites don’t bring in any revenue. Rather, businesses make the revenue.

2. Know thy customers.

Asurefirewaynottomakemoneyonline?Failing to create customers and failing to give customer service.

Afterall,accordingtoPeterDrucker,“thepurpose of business is to create a customer.”

Businesses exist only if they have customers. The chances of making a living online are slimto-none if you don’t have a business.Accordingly, if you aren’t sure about whom you will serve, you mightattractcustomerswhoaren’treallyinterested in your business.

So,howcanyoudetermineyouridealcustomer? Well, here are some tips that can accomplish just that;

• Put yourself in the customer’s shoes when you define your product or service. For example, how will your product or service improve your customers’lives?

• Define the ideal customer for what you sell. For example, do they have a particular age, education, profession, or business? What is their income or financial status? Do they live or work in a specific location?

• Find out what specific benefits your customer wants from your product. What is the most important benefit that your ideal customer values most out of all the products or services you offer? What are their goals or fears?

• Know where they hang out. Which social channels do they use? What online

groups do they engage with? What are they watching and reading online?

• Establish precisely when your ideal customer will purchase your product or service. For your customer to buy your product, what must occur in his life or at work? Does your customer buy during certain seasons, months, or weeks?

3. Determine your niche.

Markets have niches, but not all niches have markets.With that inmind,youcouldspendyears in a marketless niche, not making a penny. But, on the other hand, if you fall into a niche with a market, you might stumble upon wealth.

Ask yourself the following questions before settling on a niche;

• Have you done any research on your potential niche?

• How much money do people already spend on products and services in that niche?

• How can you differentiate yourself?

• How well does it match your unique abilities and strengths?

• Would people pay you if you filled the gaps they need?

You most likely chose a domain name that you thought was catchy or inspirational to start your blog or site. However, the thing you failed to consider was if it applied to a niche that has a market.

As actor and filmmaker Nate Parker said, “Identify your niche and dominate it. And when I say dominate, I just mean work harder than anyone else could possibly work at it.”

4. Learn how to ethically

monetize.

“If you are in the digital marketing industry, chancesarethatyouheardthewordmonetization,” states the team over at CodeFuel. “Monetization refers to the process of making money from your website or other digital assets.” It doesn’t always mean selling products or services but instead generating revenue through your website.

Your website or app is the ideal place to market products, and there are countless ways to do so. You can monetize it, whether it’s an application, software, or browser extension.

Keep in mind that you don’t have to have a website for selling stuff at first — just use your email and practice your skills until you get better at it. Learn to communicate clearly and get your stuff out on time.

How can you monetize anything? For monetizationtobesuccessful,youneedtoconnect with your target audience and provide them with what they are looking for. Unless you follow these steps, you won’t have problems monetizing a website, application, or extension.

Youcanemployaffiliatemarketing,PPCthrough Google AdSense, sponsored posts, and display adsandbannersforwebsites.Otheroptionswould bepaywallsorcontentlocking,wherevisitorsmust answer a survey to view the content.

As for apps, paying per download or install is viable. But, you could also explore in-app purchases or advertising.

Whatever monetization strategy you use, the key is to be ethical. At the very least, this means earning a trustworthy reputation and working with legitplatformslikeAdSense,CodeFuel,orShopify.

5. Stop chasing quick-rich schemes.

Astheoldsayingwarns,if“somethingsoundstoo good to be true, it probably is.” And this definitely appliestomakingmoneyonline.Afterall,thereare way too many grifters and snake oil salespeople prying on people’s susceptibility.

What’s more, these scams, schemes, and downright bad financial ideas, can be risky. For instance, because there isn’t much public information regarding the company, investing in penny stocks can be unpredictable. The same is

truewithonlinegamblingasmostonlinegamblers; one study found that 89% actually lose money.

But what about the ad your saw on YouTube? I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But that’s trying to get you to waste your money on a multilevel marketing (MLM) scheme or a package that promises more information and excitement.

Look—it’slikelythatSantaClausandtheEaster Bunnydon’texist — this isjusta privatesuspicion — don’t quote me. But we all learn at some point that getting rich quick rarely occurs. As such — brace yourself — it’s going to take months, if not years, before you’re making a consistent and positive cash flow. Just stick with the work and work your plan.

6. Time is money.

Let’s be clear. Not all making money online endeavors are equal. For instance, there is no shortage of online surveys. Even though they’re on the up and up, are they really worth your time? You could spend hours just to make a measly five bucks.

Andcontinuingfromthepreviouspoint,thesame is true with investing in an MLM. No matter how it’s spun, an MLM is a pyramid scheme. Whoever sits at the top makes all the cash, while those in the middle worry about recruiting new people. And even worse, they are encouraged to peddle garbage to their friends and families. In reality, multilevel marketing is arguably one of the worst ways to earn money.

7. Don’t succumb to the dark side of clickbait.

“As its name implies, clickbait is content written specifically to attract as many clicks as possible,” explainsDanShewanforWordStream.“Justabout any type of content can be considered clickbait.” Skipthedarksideclickbaitbecausethereisplenty of really good stuff on the light side of click-worthy information.

You can make any web content clickbait by packaging it specifically — news stories, blog posts, interviews, infographics, and videos. The main characteristics, however, are: • Acompelling and eye-catching headline

• It can easily be skimmed

• Images and videos that are funny or memorable

• Atone that appeals strongly to a specific emotion

• Designed to promote social sharing

Not all clickbait consists of these features, but many of them do. When used correctly, clickbait candrivemoretraffictoyoursiteorsocialchannels and can be used to spread brand awareness. Understand clearly that misleading clickbait will damage your reputation. Additionally, your audience will likely not find sensationalism appealing. Pageviews aren’t really all that importantifnoonebuys.So,forexample,Medium relies on Total Reading Time instead of the click metric model.

8.You absolutely need SEO.

Tosucceedonlinefinancially,youneedmarketing skills in addition to expertise. It’s imperative to be able to market your blog, online store, YouTube videos, e-books, or online courses outside of your business.Toaccomplishthat,youwill needstrong social media skills — particularly with Facebook and a solid understanding of search engine optimization (SEO).

It’s all about quantity and quality in SEO.As you improve the performance of your website’s backend and front-end, you will increase traffic and searchenginerankings.Adata-drivenapproachis usedtocombineSEOelements.Amongthemare:

Keyword analysis. Your words can affect your rankings online, and certain words are more powerful than others. People use keywords often to find what they are looking for, and they can be single words or phrases. To ensure high-quality content while still using frequently searched keywords,itisessentialtoresearchkeywordsand strategically place them throughout your content.

Backlink building. A backlink is a link on your website that links back to another credible, highquality website. You gain credibility by citing relevant sources because you build backlinks to your website.

Content creation. The essence of SEO is in content creation. Direct communication with your existing and prospective customers is possible

through your content. The purpose of keywords is to help you build authority and trust. An effective digitalpresencecanbalancethehumanelementof yourcustomer-drivenbusinesswiththenecessary analytics to optimize it.

9. Protect yourself.

Recently, I had a friend sell their old washer and dryer. So, naturally, they listed these appliances online. However, a red flag was raised when the buyersaidtheypaidviaZelle.But,theyaccidentally overpaid by $100.

Smell that?Yep. That’s fishy.

It’s notjustgarageflipperswhoshouldbe aware of this scam. According to the Better Business Bureau, a fake check or overpayment scam is quite common.

But, in addition to avoiding such scams and securitybreaches,youalsoneedtotakemeasures to legally protect your online business, such as; Take ownership of your business name, like securing a domain name.

Go from being a sole proprietorship to an LLC. Keep tabs on all online actions and affiliations. Consider investing in business insurance.

If you intend to offer goods or services to individuals or to join forces with another business or entity, creating a paper trail is a wise decision. Havingawebsiteisanecessityforonlinebusiness owners. If you collect customer information, such as their email addresses and phone numbers, having legal documents such as privacy policies, disclaimers,andtermsandconditionsisessential.

Become GDPR compliant. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was enacted to protect consumer information. It is anticipated that these regulations will soon be expanded to the United States, even though they are currently enforced primarily in the EU.

10.You need capital, skills, and resources.

Financial resources, time, and skills are needed foreveryformofearning.Inthesameway,making money online involves various skills and a lot of time.Andwhileit’spossibletogetstartedfornextto-nothing,youwillneedsomemoneytopurchase the necessary tools and software.

For instance, to launch a blog, you’ll need to

purchase a domain and hosting. In addition, if you were a freelance graphic designer, you would certainlyneedsoftwarelikePhotoshop.And,ifyou considered dropshipping, you might have to dish out anywhere from $63 to $420 a month.

Beginners often try to make money online. But unfortunately, they lack the necessary capital, skills, or resources, so they fail.

FrequentlyAsked QuestionsAbout Making Money Online

1. Is making money online right for me?

If you have the time, you should definitely try it, aremotivated,andwanttointroduceanewincome stream. Eventually, online income could pay off in the long run.

2. How do I start an online business with no money?

Freelancing is the best option when you have no money to invest in an online business. To start, you will need an email address, an internet connection, and a service you can provide. First, however, it would be wise to consider investing in a website to land more clients.

3. What is the best way to start an online business from home?

If you own your own domain and choose a hosting service for your website, you can start an online business from home. Then, you can start getting clients and customers by promoting your products or services.

4. How long does it take to make money online?

Well, that depends on several factors. However, this can take anywhere from 3-months to 3-years.

5. Can I make money online fast?

These online gigs require some time to develop into revenue-generating machines, even if we all wanttogetrichquickly.But,again,youcanusually start earning good money after a month or so — but give yourself a year.

How much effort should you put into marketing and building your following depends on your success.

What’s the True Value of Mobile Apps?

Krista Thomas, SVP and Global Head of Marketing, InMobi

IS IT VALUABLE or even worthwhile for retailers and quick service restaurant (QSR) brands to have amobileapp?Theanswer may surpriseyou. Throughout 2021, InMobi’s mobile intelligence team poured through the data, looking to see whether app owners (i.e., people who have downloadedabrand’sappontotheirmobiledevice) in key retail and QSR categories visited physical storefronts more or less frequently than non-app owning consumers. With a significant chunk of salesstillhappeningatbrick-and-mortarlocations, especially in retail, it was worthwhile to look into this connection.

Good news if you have been spending money to optimize and build audience for your app: App owners are much more likely to visit a brand’s brick-and-mortar stores as compared to those whohaven’tdownloadedsaidapp—evenduring thepandemic,whichoverall decreasedfoot traffic. But before getting deeper into the results—

why this is the case and which factors are key contributors to app success—let’s first look at the evolution of apps and why this research matters.

Evolution of the app environment

For those of us around when the app stores were firstlaunched,itseemedasthougheveryone createdanapp.Itwasthecoolthingtodoandthere was seemingly unlimited consumer enthusiasm to download and use apps.

Of course, like any bubble, this enthusiasm eventually popped. Companies that released an app for the heck of it saw consumers churn.

But as the mobile space has matured, apps captured consumers’ attention through simplified workflows and ease of use, putting them once again at the top of the heap. In 2022, eMarketer predicts thatover 35% of all time spent with media will be devoted to mobile, and over 80% of all time spent on mobile is devoted to apps.

Still, some retail and QSR brands remain hesitant to launch or invest in their own. Even as timespentonmobileappsrosedramaticallyduring the pandemic—over three and half hours per day is now spent in apps—some retailers and QSR brands think they can solely rely on marketplace apps (like Amazon in retail or Uber Eats on the QSR side, for example) to reach today’s mobilefirst consumer.

Why bother investing both in your own app and user acquisition when you can rely on existing incumbents?

What the study uncovered

It was with these two competing impulses in mind—the growth in app usage vs. the pain of building and growing your own app—that InMobi embarked on the aforementioned study. Here’s a snapshot of what our 2022 research uncovered:

• Retail app owners visit a brand’s physical store locations 37% more frequently than non-app owners do.

• Pharmacy app owners visit a brand’s physical store locations around 27% more frequently than non-app owners do.

• Burger QSR app owners visit a brand’s physical store locations 39% more frequently than nonapp owners do.

• Pizza QSR app owners visit a brand’s physical store locations 17% more frequently than nonapp owners do.

Why is this uplift so noteworthy? It reveals that app owners are more loyal, which is key in an era of declining brand loyalty. And with sales still largelytakingplaceinperson(over80%ofallretail sales occur in brick-and-mortar stores, according to eMarketer), it’s still extremely important for marketers to be able to drive foot traffic.

However, for all the value that apps can provide in boosting foot traffic, awareness and adoption overall remains low. According to subsequent polling completed through InMobi Pulse, our mobile market research solution, app awareness and adoption are still low in the QSR and retail spaces.

For example, fewer than three in 10 consumers knew that brands like Del Taco, Dominos, Papa John’s, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell even had their ownapps;further,overathirdsaidtheyhavenever ordered through these brands’ apps.

The future of retail and QSR apps

It’simportanttoconsiderthesefindingsaspartof the broader picture.

“A mobile usage trend we have noticed is the reemergenceofQRcodes.Whilethistechnology has been around for years, retailers and QSR’s alike are using QR codes to drive more business and customers’ loyalty. Consumers are embracing the ease of use for ordering food at restaurants, discovering new products while shopping in-store and easy checkout from a mobile device. Even scanning codes from an ad for more information. We see this trend continuing in 2022 and beyond,” said Molly Seitel, InMobi’s vertical strategy lead, QSR and retail.

Brands everywhere are facing a loyalty problem and—now more than ever—are coming to understand the need for permissioned first-party customer data. In an era in which consumers can buy from multiple brands through multiple channels at any point in the day or year, why should they purchase from you?

Apps can help address these issues. With consumers spending more time than ever on mobile, apps give brands a direct connection to consumers, allowing them to better understand what their customers want. Going forward, the brands that invest in their own apps (and in-app user acquisition) are the ones that will be in the best position to succeed in 2022 and beyond.

https://www.adweek.com/sponsored/whats-thetrue-value-of-mobile-apps/

Image credit: www.cgap.org/blog/pictures-africashow-how-digital-technology-transforms-lives

A Step-by-Step Guide to Starting an E-Commerce Company

By The Katy News

THESE SEVEN STEPS will teach you how to launch an ecommerce business and sell goods and services online.

Similar to establishing any business, understanding how to start an e-commerce firm canbedifficult;however,settingup,launching,and managing sites where entrepreneurs, designers, and artists of all types can sell their products is now easier than ever.

E-commerce firms, which transport goods, services, and finances via the internet, range in sizeandbreadth,fromretailgiantslike Amazonto artisan sites like Etsy. During the past five years, online shopping is only one of several fields that have experienced rapid expansion. According to a study from the U.S. Census Bureau, e-commerce sales in the United States reached around $154.5 billion in the third quarter of 2019, accounting for 11.2% of total retail sales in the country.

Depending on your objectives, it may be prudent to launch an ecommerce business. In fact, without the necessity for a physical site, e-commerce enterprises offer many entrepreneurs greater freedom,affordability, and potential.

We’llbreakdownhowtoestablishane-commerce business into seven simple stages, so you can get your online business up and operating in no time.

How to establish an online retail business

While there are significant distinctions between launching an e-commerce firm and a brick-andmortar business, there are also many parallels. As we’llsee below, many of theplanning and legal processes you’ll need to take will (more or less) follow the same procedure as any other business. However,onceit’stimetolaunch,you’llrealizehow different it is to launch an e-commerce firm.

Step 1: Conduct e-commerce market research and identify your specialization.

Conducting the appropriate research is the first step in learning how to launch an e-commerce firm. You’ll need to explore the e-commerce niche

you’re interested in and make judgments on your unique business, just like you would if you were opening a restaurant and considering several locations, menu options, and themes.

Consider what your e-commerce firm will specifically provide, for instance. Will you be offering goods or services for sale? Are the items that you sell physical or digital? Where will you obtain your goods?

Additionally, you should consider a larger scope duringthisprocess:Howwillyouritemsorservices be delivered to your customers? What would your initialexpensesentail?Arethereanylegalorother laws pertaining to your product or service that you must consider?

Thesequestions,amongothers,willbeessential to the launch of your firm and will assist you in developing and writing your business plan. This procedurewillprovideyouaclearerunderstanding ofyouruniqueobjectivesandhowtoachievethem.

Althoughtheexpansionofthee-commercesector is advantageous for people who wish to learn how to launch an e-commerce firm, it also increases competition. You will need to conduct competitive analysis and identify a market where you believe you can successfully create your brand and sell items and services.

Step 2: Determine your company’s name and legal structure.

Next, select a name for your e-commerce firm after you’ve finalized your business plan. As with any other business, you will need to select a name that is both distinct and descriptive of your company’s products or services. Check the U.S. Patent and Trademark database to confirm that you are not selecting a business name that is currently in use.

Although you won’t want to spendtoo muchtime onawebsitejustyet,it’sagoodideatoverifyifthe domainnameyou’re considering for yourbusiness is accessible.

Next, select your company’s legal structure. Your choice of company organization will have significant legal and financial repercussions for your e-commerce enterprise. Typically, you will establishasoleproprietorship,generalpartnership, an LLC, or a corporation. There are advantages anddisadvantagestoeachoftheseentitykinds,so youmaychoosetoseekthecounselofanattorney oranotherlegalprofessionaltodeterminethemost advantageous structure for your firm.

If you opt to establish a sole proprietorship or generalpartnership,youarenotrequiredtoregister your business in the state in which you operate. Instead, your firm will be legally connected with your personal name; if you wish to operate under the name you’ve selected, you must file a DBA or “doing business as” application with your local government.

Step 3: Request an EIN

ApplyforanEIN,oremploymentidentification number, for your e-commerce company. Despite the fact that not all company entities are obliged to acquire an EIN, this nine-digit number might be handy for separating your personal and corporate funds. In addition, you may apply for a free EIN from the IRS online, via mail, fax, or phone. Since you’re studying how to establish an e-commerce firm, you’ll almost certainly apply for this business tax ID online, and you’ll receive your number immediately.

Step 4: Obtain business licenses and permissions

After you’ve applied for your EIN, you’ll need to getanylicensesorpermissionsrequiredtolawfully conduct business in your city and state. As stated previously, if you’ve formed your e-commerce

firm as a sole proprietorship or general partnership, you do not need to register your business with the state, unless you’re filing a DBA to operate lawfully under a certain business name. For the other business entity

kinds, state registration and a general operating license are required. Depending on the location of your business, you may additionally be required to get a municipal operating license.

Becausethemajorityofe-commerceenterprises are home-based, they often require fewer businesslicenses andpermissions than traditional storefronts. However, you will need to discover the precise criteria in your location; this information is often available on the websites of state and municipal governments.

Step 5: Choose an e-commerce platform and develop a website

Thus far, the bulk of our actions have paralleled the process of launching a traditional brick-andmortar firm. Now, however, rather than hunting for aplaceandpreparingtoopenaphysicalstore,you willbegindevelopingyourwebsiteandonlinestore.

Your website, like a real shop, will be the public face of your business; it’s what people will use to browse and purchase your items or services. In light of this, designing your website will be one of the most crucial aspects of launching an e-commerce firm.

You should first choose your domain name which should (at least nearly) correspond to your businessname.Choosingane-commerceplatform will likely be your most important choice in this vein. Your e-commerce platform will serve as the foundation upon which you construct and develop your online business. Ultimately, as the backbone of your e-commerce firm, you will want a working system thatenablesyoutogetupandrunningand

manage your operations on a daily basis.

Next, you’ll need to concentrate on modifying and launching your site once you’ve selected the best option. You will need to consider how you want your online store to be structured, how you want ittoappear, whatcolors you wantto use,etc. Depending on your platform and budget, you may opttodesignandpublishyourwebsiteonyourown, or you may decide to hire a professional designer or developer for assistance.

Step 6: Sourcing or creating things (and listing them)

After selecting your e-commerce platform and launchingyourwebsite,youarenearlythroughwith the process. At this point, you will need to source the things that you will sell. In step one, when you conducted your study, you should have already formulated a plan for how you would do this task. If you’re offering your own services, such as as a consultant, you may only need to explain and list them on your business website.

Obviously, if you’re selling things, this phase will be more complicated, as you’ll need to consider the inventory you want to start with as well as the initial costs. You’ll also need to take the time to list your inventory on your online store, keeping in mind the customer experience, search engine optimization, and the procedure from the moment a consumer orders a product to the time they get it.Thereareseveralorderfulfillmentcompanies that work with startups and entrepreneurs. They can advise you on the best methods for shipping, managing your inventory, and can even dropship for you. Today, a customer expects to receive their product fast and you can work with an order fulfillment company to constantly improve order fulfillment and the customer experience.

Step 7: Promote your e-commerce enterprise

You now know how to launch an ecommerce business. Now that your items or services have been produced and posted on your online store, and your website is up, you are set to begin servicing consumers. Obviously, you will need to effectively promote your e-commerce firm in order to do this.

You may leverage a variety of marketing techniques, including Google AdWords, social media ads, and word of mouth. At the most fundamental level, you should improve your businesswebsiteforsearchengineoptimization (SEO) and utilize any online marketing tools provided with your e-commerce platform.

As your e-commerce firm becomes operational and you begin to get orders, you’ll want to monitor which marketing strategies are successful and which are not, especially if you’re investing money in them. As time passes, you will be able to adapt and modify your marketing approach to determine what is most effective for your organization.

The conclusion

There are many advantages to starting an ecommerce business as opposed to a brick-andmortar one: the initial investment is much lower, you can start big or small, and your online store can be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for customers across the country (or the world, if you’re willing to ship that far). Additionally, it is considerablysimplerandlessexpensivetoexpand operationsifnecessary,whichmakeslaunchingan e-commercefirmevenmoreappealingforbudding entrepreneurs.

There are, however, essential measures to take and expenditures to make if you want your firm to become a web-based success story. You should treat your e-commerce website as you would any other business — comply with tax laws, obtain the required permits, invest in customer retention and communication, and don’t forget to create a mobile-friendly platform.

https://thekatynews.com/2022/05/26/a-step-bystep-guide-to-starting-an-e-commerce-company/

Image credit: act-logistics.co.za

Working from Home Damages our Eyes. Here’s How You Can Protect Your Vision

By Shalene Gupta

Ina recent survey, 68% ofremote workers saidthey’ve experienced new eyeproblemssince workingfrom home.

WORKING FROM HOME is here to stay, and the debate over thepros andcons is not likely to end anytime soon, but there’s one factor aboutWFHthatwerarelytalkabout:oureyesight.

All About Vision, a website site devoted to eye care, conducted a survey of 1,000 Americans, a third of whom worked hybrid, a third of whom worked remotely, and a third of whom worked in person.

They found that, on average, 68% of remote workerssaidtheynoticedneweyeproblemssince working from home. On average, remote workers spend 13 hours a day on screen compared to on-

site employees who spend 11 hours on screen. In addition,aquarterofremoteworkerssaytheyfeel unabletostepawayfromtheirscreensbecauseof work pressure.

The study recommended the following to protect your vision:

• Whenever possible, avoid screens.

• If you can’t, take frequent breaks, especially if you’re spending long stretches looking at a screen that is 24 inches away or closer.The 20-20-20 rule means 20-second breaks every 20 minutes to look at an object 20 feet away.

• Use blue-light-blocking glasses.

• Turn on Night Mode on your devices and don’t use them immediately before bedtime.

https://www.fastcompany. com/90770640/working-fromhome-damages-our-eyesheres-how-you-can-protectthem

Image credit: iStock, GOBankingRates

WhyRihanna’sFentyBeautyisExpandingintoAfrica

By Seth Onyango, bird story agency contributor

Rihanna and Lupita Nyong'o

FENTY’S LAUNCH in Africa is perceived as a reaction to the growth of the continent’s beauty and personal care industry which is now valued at over $12 billion.

Latest figures show the market could reach $14 billionin2022,oiledbyasteadyrise indisposable incomes among the continent’s middle class.

According to Brookings Institute, growing discretionary incomes will lead to higher demand

for high-quality, niche, and foreign-produced goods.

“Africa’s emerging economies present exciting opportunities to global businesses for expansion inretailanddistribution,”readsitsanalysisinpart. Africa’s billion dollar beauty market has attracted global brands

“Changing demographics and improving

business environments across the continent will be just two of the factors contributing to rising household consumption, which is predicted to reach $2.5 trillion by 2030.”

It further states that seven countries—Nigeria, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa—hold half of the continent’s population, and 43% of Africans across the continent will belong to the middle or upper classes.

According to the World Bank,Africa’s youngest population make it an attractive region for manufacturers, brands, and retailers.

Fenty’sAfrica launch is highly anticipated

In a release on Tuesday, May 10, the Fenty announced its African launch was a “natural next step” in expanding their ‘Beauty forAll’notion.

“I am a proud Bajan who also feels a close connectiontoAfrica,anditspeople,”Rihannasaid.

“I’ve had the pleasure and the privilege to spend time on the continent and those experiences never leave you. Now,beingableto bring Fenty Beautyand FentySkintoeight African countries and then hopefully more in the future— means so much to me.”

Fenty launched in Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Botswana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Zambia on May 27 (DAWN May-June page 21)

Fenty is perhaps the biggest and most hyped cosmetic brand to launch in Africa, where multinational beauty brands are already making investments in the region.

Both BASF, the largest chemical producer in the world, and Symrise, a major producer of cosmetic activeingredientsandrawmaterials,openedR&D facilitiesinNigeriafocusingontailormadeformulas specifictotheneedsofregionalconsumersinthat market.

Rihanna’s brand might therefore unlock more investments intoAfrica’s beauty industry. https://qz.com/africa/2167514/rihannas-fentybeauty-is-launching-in-8-african-countries

Image credit: Pinterest

The original version of this story was republished with the permission of bird, a story agency underAfrica No Filter.

6 Ways to Engage Your Audience when Speaking Virtually

SPEAKING VIRTUALLY can be an enormous challenge if you want to inspire your audience. After all, listeners don’t receive the usual visual cues from a virtual speaker, nor do they hear the presenter’s voice with the same clarity that characterizes in-person communication.

This has led to what Nick Morgan, in his wellargued book, Can You Hear Me?, describes as “communication [that] is overwhelming, boring, and forgettable.”

But video meetings aren’t going away any time soon. In fact, speaking virtually is fast becoming the new normal. What can you do to be a vibrant speaker who excites—rather than bores—your listeners? Try these six strategies:

1. SET THE STAGE

First, set the stage so that you are the center of attention. Avoid distractions or clutter.

This is such a simple thing to do, yet many speakers fill their backgrounds with everything under the sun. In a recent Zoom call, I found it challengingto stayengagedwith thespeaker,who surrounded herself with wall hangings, stuffed animals,colorfulquilts,anda roomfulloffurniture.

Aclutteredspacetakes attentionawayfrom you. Keep your background clean, with only a vase of flowers or books neatly stacked on shelves.

2. SPEAK WITH YOUR BODY

Second,usestrongbodylanguage.Manypeople when speaking virtually don’t think of what their body is saying. They may turn their cameras off, rather than indicate they are actively listening.

Your audience needs you to be physically engaging. That can’t happen when your webcam is off.

To use the power of your body, begin with eye

contact that’s focused directly on the camera. Don’t drop your eyes or look around the room, or you’llappeardisengaged.Eyecontactisoneofthe best ways to create an emotional connection with your audience.

Be aware of your facial expression. A smile can helpothersconnectwithyouemotionally.Butdon’t smile all the time or put on a big smile. You’ll want a natural smile that flows from your enjoyment of the conversation. And laughter is a great antidote to boredom in an audience.

Check yourself, too, for any telltale signs of negativity in your face. As Patti Sanchez writes in her book, Presenting Virtually: “Be mindful of what your face is conveying. Annoyance, impatience, and other negative feelings have a way of making themselves known if you’re not careful.”

Gesturewarmly.Allyouractionsshouldbeopen, moving in the direction of your audience. Avoid flipper gestures (with elbows locked into your sides). And avoid busy wrist gestures. And never fold or cross your arms, or you’ll be creating an emotional distance between yourself and your audience.

Don’t slouch in your chair. Good posture shows that you are in the “ready” position, receptive to what others are saying.

3. FOCUS ON IDEAS, NOT INFORMATION

When you speak, don’t meander or overload your virtual audience with too much detail. Speak withasharplyfocusedsetofideasthatreflectyour thinking and move as quickly as possible to your conclusion.

Instead of saying, “I was asked to report on Project X, and I looked into X, Y, and Z, and I had five people work with me . . .” Say: “Project X has gone brilliantly, and my conclusion is that the program will attract new customers.”

Studies show that employees prefer meetings that are no more than 15 minutes long. A full 39% ofthosesurveyedinthis2022studyadmittofalling asleep during meetings. So get to your point and keep your remarks short and focused.

4. USE PASSIONATE, COLLABORATIVE LANGUAGE

Drawuponthepoweroflanguagetoconveyclear and compellingmessages about your passionand

collaborative leadership style.

Passionate language like “I’m excited,” “I am confident,” and“Iknow we can makethis happen,” show enthusiasm for projects that are underway. Such verbal energy is contagious.

Collaborative language is also important, becauseitbuildstieswithyourlisteners.Whenyou say “Gerry, let’s hear what you’ve been up to,” or “Somu, tell us how that project is coming along,” or when you refer to “all of us here today,” you are closing the digital divide. Call people by name, recognize them for what they are accomplishing, and show through collaborative language that you are emotionally connected to them.

5. SPEAK WITH ENERGY

As a speaker, your jobis to bringgreat energy to thevirtualroom.Yourenergyiswhatmakespeople want to be around you, work with you, and follow you. So keep your energy at a high level; don’t disengage or fall into silence or long pauses. This study looked at lag time on phone or conferencing systems and found that delays as short as 1.2 seconds made people see the responder as less friendlyorfocused.Silencesinvirtualconversations can seem like you are checking out.

The human ability to perceive nuances in voices isextremelysophisticated,researchshows;infact, thevoiceisevenmorecriticalinevokingaresponse in our audience than our facial expression is.

6. REINFORCE OTHER PARTICIPANTS

Reinforcing the thoughts or opinions of other participants will help others to see you as virtually vibrant.

Use expressions like, “That’s a good point, Abdel. I agree that we should pursue this next opportunity,” or “The team is right, it makes sense torevup oursocialmediaandgiveahigherprofile to our executives.”

You might close a meeting with, “Thank you all for your contributions.” Conclude a one-on-one meeting with next steps, like, “I will follow up with client X, as you’ve suggested, and get back to you with their response.”

https://ralionline.com/newsinsights/6-ways-toengage-your-audience-when-speaking-virtually/

Image credit: https://lattice.com

Seeing More West African Foods in (USA)Grocery Stores?

By DARCEL ROCKETT | CHICAGO TRIBUNE/TNS

THE FROZEN MEALS that AYO Foods creates andmarketssitnexttoP.F.Chang’sfoodinTarget’s freezer section.

But AYO Foods founders, Perteet and Fred Spencer, would prefer their fare be next to Amy’s Kitchen,theorganicpackagedandpreparedfoods giant.

“If you look at our caloric intake, our protein content, our fiber content, it’s very comfortable, if notbetterthansomeoftheotherkindof‘betterfor you’frozenitemsoutthere,”PerteetSpencersaid.

“And I can guarantee you it’s going to be much more flavorful.”

The Spencers launched AYO Foods, an array of West African frozen meals and hot sauces, in July 2020. In two years, they’ve expanded into stores nationwide, including Chicagoland Mariano’s, Heinen’s and The Fresh Market stores.

Frozen options range from jollof rice to cassava leaf stew, egusi seed soup just begging for some doughy fufu to sop up all the rich flavors, and chicken yassa, a popular dish of slow-braised chicken thighs with lemon and caramelized onion.

The couple partnered with “Top Chef” alumnus Eric Adjepong and chef Zoe Adjonyoh — cookbook author and founder of Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen, to promote West African cuisine through the brand. AsthedaughterofaLiberian immigrant, Perteet Spencer said she believes everyone deserves tosee themselves when they walk down the grocery aisle.

“We’re talking about an entire continent not represented in grocery stores,” Perteet Spencer said with an incredulous tone. “It’s not a monolith; we’re talking about 17 different countries (in West Africa). Every tribe, every country, they all have their unique way of doing things.”

The regional cuisines share similar ingredients, and“it’sjusttheprocessofcooking—thedifferent seasoning and flavors that you use — that separates them,” her husband said.

Stores?

Beforemakingfreshegusistewwithegusiseeds, chicken, onions and collards, Perteet makes her way to an African market on Foster Avenue and Broadway to gather dried crawfish and shrimp powder, seeds, and iru, also known as locust beans. Now, a version of the same dish with such hard-to-find ingredients is available at dozens of stores across the country.

“We’re really excited to take people on this journey through West Africa to allow them to experience the flavors and ingredients,” she said. “The common mark that unites the food are these really slow-cooked, layered flavors ... that’s pretty consistent with everything, whether it’s the dough rising on the puff puff, or the stew simmering on the cassava leaf.”

Fred Spencer likens the AYO Foods process to cooking soul food, with big pots, layered flavors and hearty, traditional fare.

But finding ways to retain the depth and quality ofthoseslow-cookeddishesonamassproduction scale took serious effort, Perteet Spencer said. At one point, she brought in her mother so manufacturers could shadow her preparation in order to do it properly and not rush the process.

“We have lots of horror stories early in our journey of partners that didn’t work out because theywantedtospeeduptheprocess,”shesaid.“If you have a pot of greens, the best ones are those

that cook low and slow. We needed to honor that process as we found partners to scale this up.”

The result are ingredient lists that are familiar and alluring: roasted garlic puree made of simply garlic, extra virgin olive oil,andthymeaccents the chicken yassa; just five ingredients comprise the fried puff puff bread.

“We’re using fresh vegetables, we’re doing that slow-cooking process. We’re not cutting corners,” she said. “It was really important for us to honor the process and not short change it as we went through our journey. It’s just how we operate.”

That operation beganthreeyears ago, whenthe Spencers,DePaulUniversitycollegesweethearts, noticed market trends changing.

“Wesawthishugeriseinglobalflavors,amassive gap in flavors of the continent in total,” she said. So she left her corporate job as a brand manager with General Mills to bring joy to the world — ayo means “joy” in Yoruba — full time, with Fred’s urging and support.

While she takes credit for introducing her husband to Liberian food, she said she learned how to cook from her father. He imigrated from Lofa County, the northernmost portion of Liberia, totheTwinCities inMinnesota atage 17,bringing with him cooking that reminded him of home. Her parents would eventually meet in Minnesota.

Perteet and Fred’s large families serve as inspiration to the food brand, but it’s the pair’s love of food that is the nexus of AYO Foods. Fred, a real estate developer, opened a restaurant when he was 24 years old (something he said the couple might get back to someday). With a grandmother fromAlabama, the Roseland native recalls cooking as a childhood chore, because he would get all the tedious food prep duties. But that’s changed since he’s gotten older.

The family affair that cooking has always been is now onetheyoungest Spencers are picking up. Perteet and Fred’s daughters, 11 and 8 years old, like the kitchen so much, sometimes they have to be pushed out of the space. Their oldest tries to get her biscuits as flaky as her father’s, and she’s currently working on perfecting her macaroons, said Perteet Spencer.

“Theylovebeinginvolvedinthekitchenwithus,” she said. “I didn’t start cooking until college, and toseethemstartsoyoung,it’sexcitingtosee.You can’t have family together without a ton of really incredible food.”

The first AYO Foods dishes were those the couplepersonallylove—jollofrice,egusisoupand cassava leaf stew. The couple prides themselves on AYO Foods being rich in nutrients and low in sodium.

“Obesity is at an all-time high, diabetes is at an all-time high, hypertension is at an all-time high. We couldn’t in good conscience put out a product that was a contributor to all of that,” Perteet said. “I think one of the things that AYO does really beautifully is prove that food can be good and tasty,butstillbegoodforyou.Wewantedtoreally be able to set a model for that.”

Theplanforthebrandistoexpandbeyondfrozen foods to bring greater inclusivity and diversity to shelves. AYO Foods already has pepper and shitosauces —theformerishabanero-based,the latter has a seafood base, complemented by hot peppers, tomatoes and caramelized onions.

“We started with frozen primarily because it’s the easiest transition to have authentic ingredients — not adding preservatives or anythinglikethat—tobringthe trueessenceofthefood,”Fred Spencer said. “But we want to make this a broad brand, as opposed to just frozen.”

The self-described “big dreamers” know the platform

AYO Foods allows has a lot of wingspan to make an impact above and beyond celebrating the culture through packaged foods. The Moonboi Project is the Spencers philanthropic effort born from that platform — one that enriches the West African culture.

In December, AYO Foods partnered with Girl PowerAfrica,anonprofitcommittedtoempowering women and children impacted by civil war and Ebola in Liberia through entrepreneurship.AYO is supporting the cultivation of 15 acres of Liberian farmland, the Spencers said.

“Part of what we’re doing with these dishes is bringing awareness to these crops, to this food, which we hope in turn creates increased demand andeconomicchangeinWestAfrica,”Perteetsaid. “Already we’ve built three homes, fully cleared the land,(and)we’restartingtoseethefirstcropyield. And the yield of that is actually being used to give back to women who were victims of either Ebola or the Liberian civil war as seed capital to start businesses of their own.”

Seeing the impact the food brand is providing in such a short time has the Spencers excited about the potential of AYO Foods to not only change the lives of their immediate families, but other communities in desperate need of help, as well.

“If anything can get across from any of this is that,AYO wascreatedas afamilycompany,”Fred Spencersaid.“We’redoingthisasafamilytogether, and that’s what’s going to make it successful.”

https://www.arcamax.com/homeandleisure/recipes/ varietymenu/s-2687955 ©2022 ChicagoTribune. Visit at chicagotribune.com

Image credit: linkedin.com, cuisinenoirmag.com

Ditching the OfÞce for Good: How to Build a Successful Remote Workplace

By Owen Hughes, Senior Editor

David DeSanto, VP of product at GitLab, knows a thing or two about operating a successful remote-first model.

DevOps platform GitLab has been operating as a fully remote company since 2011. Today, the company has an 1800-strong team spread all over the world that has managed to amass some 100,000 customers, without ever having required their employees to work behind a desk.

In May, GitLab published its 2022 Remote Playbook, which serves as a best practice guide for sustaining and scaling a remote workforce.

DeSanto believes almost any company can be all-remote provided they fully commit to doing so, which includes investing in the key pillars of asynchronous working, communication, culture, and management, and focusing on inclusion aboveallelse."Youneedtobepurposefulabout what you're doing," he tells ZDNet.

"Inclusionsoundslikesuchasimpleword,butit's reallythatdecisionthatyou'regoingtodoyourwork transparently, collaboratively, asynchronously, and not rely on Zoom as the only way you talk to someone."

The unmoored workplace

According to data from Owl Labs, 16% of companies globally are now fully remote. This means that, on average, more than one in 10 companiesoperatewithout anyphysicalpresence whatsoever,bethatanoffice,headquartersorany other form of workspace.

There are many reasons why a business might want to unmoor itself from a physical location, with cost incentives being the most obvious: an organization can cut significant overheads by not having to pay rent, upkeep, energy and staffing costs that come with owning an office.

But as the pandemic taught us, effective remote working isn't just closing the office and sending

everyone home with a laptop. To make a success of a fully-remote model, employers need to treat it with all the deliberation and planning of any other strategic investment designed to reap rewards over the long term.

This begins with redesigning the virtual workspace to be more collaborative, says DeSanto, who stresses the importance of moving to "asynchronous communication" so that employees working in different time zones aren't excluded from important meetings, decisions or updates.

"If you're going to be all-remote, the assumption that someone can go into the office and read something that someone posted on the billboard in the kitchen doesn't really work," DeSanto adds. "You need to be able to make everyone feel included regardless of if they can make it on the call."

Asynchronous communications needn't be complex: it can include recording a Zoom meeting and making it available for employees afterwards, or sending out important company updates via email.Themainthingisthatemployeesarekeptin the loop with everything going on at the company.

"Finding ways to communicate asynchronously where possible and limit synch meetings was something that we learned early on," says DeSanto.

"We did that because it allows employees to be

better connected to the company and feel more included."

Document everything

Remote companies must be equally proactive when it comes to documentation. This doesn't just mean taking notes in meetings and providing transcripts of Zoom calls (which DeSanto encourages),butalsobeingdiligentindocumenting organizational process, culture and solutions.

Where possible, some employees may wish to work together from co-working spaces a few days each week, he adds.

Time for a Head of Remote?

But what does it take to effectively lead a fullyremote workforce? Management means different things to different leaders, and those accustomed to having direct oversight of their reports might struggletograspthenuancesofmanagingateam from afar.

If this is the case, DeSanto suggests hiring a Head of Remote to act as a steward for the company's remote working strategy, operations and employee experience. "What we've found was, heaving the Head of Remote, [meant] there issomeone therewho isconstantlylooking out for those pitfalls [of remote working] as we grew," he explains.

"Having a head of remote enables the company to essentially have that [person] who's looking out forthecompanyasa whole,and moreimportantly the employees of the company - making sure that they are getting what they need."

DeSanto encourages creating company handbooks that enable employees, regardless of location or time zone, to have access to the most criticalcompanyinformationwhentheyneedit.Ad hoc chats and 'watercooler' conversations should also be recorded to increase transparency within the company.

Social interactions tend to be harder to come by in a remote environment, meaning companies that are all-remote need to be more purposeful and deliberate in creating opportunities for connection.

GitLab navigates this by coordinating virtual coffee chats, whereby anyone can invite a colleague or peer for an informal, 25-minute conversation. "That's allowed us to have a much more inclusive environment, and it's allowed everyone to feel more engaged," says DeSanto. In-person connections are also important. DeSanto – who recognizes the pitfalls of work relationships built entirely through computer screens – recommends all-remote companies organizelocalcompanyeventssothatemployees can still meet, interact and socialize in person.

A Head of Remote should be someone with a strong "people-first background", says DeSanto. Whetherthatpersonhasatechbackgroundisless important than having a people-first mentality and the ability to think outside the box, making them empathetic and innovative leaders.

ThisbringsDeSantotohisfinalrecommendation for fully-remote employers – putting employee needs first, and leading by example. "Look at the organization and ask yourself, can you be more transparent with your team members?" he says.

"WhatI'veseeninsomecompaniesisthey'llsay they're going to do hybrid or remote, and then the leadership still goes into the office. This sets the expectation that they probably need to be in the office too.

"Asaleaderhere,I'mmoretransparentherethan Ieverwasinmycareer.BecauseIwanteveryone, regardless of where they are, to be aware of what I'mdoing,thatrequiresmetobeawareofwhatI'm doing."

https://www.zdnet.com/article/ditching-the-office-forgood-how-to-build-a-successful-remote-workplace

credit: Freepik

Small Business Cybersecurity: Avoid These 8 Basic Mistakes That Could Let Hackers In

By Danny Palmer, Senior Reporter

easy-to-guess password.

The shift towards cloud-based office applications and remote working has also provided cyber criminals with additional opportunities for attacks.

FOR SMALL BUSINESSES, cyberattacks might sound like something they don't need to think about. Because cyber criminals only go after big, lucrative targets, right? Why would they target a small business?

The unfortunate truth is that small businesses can make very tempting targets for malicious hackers and cyber criminals because they hold thesamekindsofdatathatlargebusinesseshave, such as personal information, credit card details, passwords, and more.

But the nature of small business means that the information could be held less securely than it is withinalargeorganisation,particularlyifthereisn't aspecialistinformationsecurityemployeeonstaff.

Small businesses can also prove tempting to hackers looking to gain access to a bigger company as part of a supply chain attack – by compromising a small business that might be a suppliertoalargerorganisation,theattackercould use that access to help infiltrate the network of a larger business partner.

No matter what kind of cyberattack a small business falls victim to the results can potentially be devastating. In some cases, the cost of falling victim to a cyberattack has even forced organisations to close permanently.

Fortunately, it's possible to help keep your business and employees secure online. Here are some basic cybersecurity pitfalls that you should try to avoid.

1. Don't use weak passwords to secure online accounts

Cyber criminals don't need to be super-skilled to break into business email accounts and other applications. In many cases, they're able to get in because the account owner is using a weak or

Remembering many different passwords can be difficult, which can lead to people using simple passwords across multiple accounts. This leaves accounts and businesses vulnerable to cyberattacks, particularly if cyber criminals can use brute-force attacks to quickly run through a list of commonly used or simple passwords.

You should also never base your passwords around easy-to-discover information, such as your favourite sports team or your pet's name, because clues on your public social media profiles could give this information away.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) suggests using a password made up of three randomwords,atacticthatshouldmakepasswords difficult to guess.

A different password should be used to secure each account – a password manager can help users by removing the need to remember every password.

2. Don't ignore multi-factor authentication

It's not impossible that even a strong password can end up in the wrong hands. Cyber criminals can use tricks, such as phishing attacks, to steal login details from users.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) provides an additional barrier to account compromise, by requiringtheusertorespondtoanalert–oftenvia a specially designed MFA application – to confirm that it really is them attempting to log in to the account.

That extra layer means that, even if a cyber criminal has the correct password, they can't use the account without the account owner approving access. If a user gets an unexpected alert saying they've attempted to log in to their account, they should report it to their IT or security team and reset their password immediately, so cyber criminalscan'tcontinueattemptstoabuseastolen password.

Despite calls for the use of multi-factor authentication – also known as two-factor authentication (2FA) – being among the most commonly issued cybersecurity advice, many businesses still aren't using the technique – and that's something that needs to change.

3. Don't put off applying security patches and updates

One of the most common techniques cyber criminalsusetobreachandmovearoundnetworks is taking advantageof cybersecurity vulnerabilities in applications and software. When these security vulnerabilities are disclosed, the vendors who make operating systems will usually release a security update to fix them.

Thesecuritypatchwillfixtheflaw,thusprotecting the system from cyber criminals attempting to exploit it – but only if the update is applied.

Unfortunately, many businesses are slow to roll out security patches and updates, leaving their networks and systems vulnerable to hackers. Sometimes, these vulnerabilities can be left unpatched for years, putting the business – and potentially their customers – at risk from cyber incidents that could easily have been prevented.

Therefore,oneofthekeythingsasmallbusiness can do to improve cybersecurity is to set out a strategy for applying critical security updates as quickly as possible.

This approach can be achieved by setting up the network so that software updates are applied automatically, or they can be dealt with on a caseby-case basis. However, what's vital to recognise is that critical security updates – often detailed by cybersecurity agencies like CISA – should be applied as soon as possible.

4. Don't forget about antivirus software or firewalls

Antivirus software is there to help protect computers – and people – from cyber threats includingmalwareandransomware,butthesetools can't help anyone if they're not installed or active. Toimprovecybersecurity,smallbusinessesshould install antivirus software across all computers and laptops on the network.

Nowadays, antivirus software is often bundled for free within popular operating systems, but there's also the option of installing a product from a dedicated antivirus software vendor.

However, you can't just ignore antivirus software after installing it. As with other software, it's important to prevent antivirus tools from becoming obsolete against evolving cyber threats, so you'll need to install updates and patches as required.

Installing spam filters and firewalls can also help employees stay protected against cyberattacks –and likeantivirus,it's important to havethesetools turned onand keptupdatedinorderforthem tobe effective.

5. Don't leave employees without cybersecurity training

Even if your small business only has a handful of employees, it's important to provide tools and trainingaroundcybersecurityawareness,because all it can take to provide malicious hackers with a way into the network is one person inadvertently making an error.

For example, they could mistakenly click on a link in a phishing email and install malware on the network, or they could fall victim to a business email compromise scam and transfer a large sum of money to someone claiming to be a business partner – or even their boss.

Therefore, providing education and advice to employees on how to recognise phishing emails, suspicious links and other potential methods of attack is vital for helping to keep data, money, personnel and customers secure. It's also important that employees know who they should reportpotentialsuspiciousactivityto,sosuspected cybersecurity incidents can be prevented.

6. Don't ignore backups

Evenifthere'sonlyahandfulofcomputersonyour network,oneofthekeythingsyoushouldbedoing to make systems more resilient to cyberattacks is producing regular backups of your data.

This strategy means that in the event of an incident encrypting, wiping or otherwise bringing thenetworkdown,therewillbearecentcopyofall ofyourdatathatcanberestored–andthatmeans a relatively quick return to normal.

The backups should be updated regularly, so that the data stored within them is as recent as possible,andthebackupsshouldbestoredoffline, preventing any attackers who get in the network from accessing and wiping them.

7. Don't leave your network unmonitored

Setting up the network with controls to help preventcyberattacksisuseful,butsmallbusinesses shouldn't install tools and then just ignore them and hope for the best. Someone in your business should have responsibility for monitoring activity on the network for potential harmful behaviour.

This approach starts with knowing what computers and other internet-connected devices actually make up your network – because you can't defend what you don't know about. Then, you'll need to ensure these devices are protected with the right updates.

Identifying internet-connected devices on the network might sound like a simple task, but it can get complicated quickly. These devices don't just include computers: there's also IoT devices, pointof-salemachines,securitycameras,andpotentially much more. All these devices could potentially be exploitedandabusedbycybercriminalsiftheyare not managed correctly.

Therefore, taking the time to audit your network and fully understand what's on it is vital. It's also

important to be aware of what consists of regular behaviour on the network and what could count as suspicious or irregular. If your small business is suddenly seeing logins from the other side of the world, for example, then that could be a sign that something is wrong and needs investigating.

8. Don't end up facing a cybersecurity incident without a plan

Even if you have a solid cybersecurity strategy, there's still a chance that cyber criminals could

breach the network and use their access for nefarious means, whether that's installing ransomware,conductingespionage,stealingcredit card information or focusing on countless other malicious attacks.

In the event of one of these events happening, it's helpful to have a plan that can be put in place – and it should be accessible even if the network ends up offline.

Havingaplaninplace–aroundhowthebusiness willrespondtoacyberattack,howitcouldcontinue operating and which cybersecurity agencies and investigators should be contacted – will help your business to deal with a stressful situation with some semblance of strategy and calm.

If you are looking for more advice, the NSA and FBI has a list of 10 cybersecurity errors that let hackers into your systems.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/small-businesscybersecurity-avoid-these-8-basic-mistakes-thatcould-let-hackers-in/

Image credits: techjan.com, webntechnewcastle.uk, SysTools

Scientists Found a Low-cost Way to Make Clean Drinking Water from Air in the Desert

By Adele Peters

IN ETHIOPIA, where an ongoing drought is the worst in 40 years, getting drinking water for the day can involve walking for eight hours. Some wells are dryingup.Asclimatechangeprogresses, water scarcity keeps getting worse. But new technology in development at the University of Texas at Austin could help: Using simple, low-cost materials, it harvests water from the air, even in the driest climates

“The advantage of taking water moisturefromtheairisthatit’snotlimited geographically,” says Youhong “Nancy” Guo,leadauthorofanewstudyinNature Communications that describes the technology.

Taking water from the air, or “atmospheric water harvesting,” isn’t new. But in arid environments, it’s difficult to capture much moisture, and it’s also energy intensive. The researchers changed the process by using different materials. One component is konjac gum, a powder made from an Asian root vegetable that’s sometimes used as a dietary supplement to add fiber. The open pores in the material help expose it to air, and when it’s combined with a type of salt, it naturally absorbs moisture. (It’s the same basic process that makes salt orsugar clump up if it’s left open and exposed to air.) The scientists added the ingredients to a plant-based polymer that’s designed to quickly capturewater andthen releaseitwhen it’s heated.

“It’s the salt that actually wants the water, but the whole polymer ‘mattress’ is helping it perform better,”saysGuo.“Ifyoujustusethesalt,it’sgoing totake10hourstoabsorbandreleasethewater— it’sreallyslow.But ifwe’re usingour polymerfilms, absorbing only takes an hour, and [releasing the water] only takes 10 minutes. We speed up the

kinetics, so more cycles can be done each day.” The prototype the researchers made can produce more than sixliters of clean drinking water per day in very dry climates—places with less than 15% relative humidity—and 13 liters a day in areas with up to 30% relative humidity, enough for a small family. (The U.S. Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, which funded the work, is interested in using it to make water for soldiers in deserts.)

As the material is optimized, it could produce more water. It could also potentially be scaled up forlargerapplications,likeirrigatingcrops.Inareas that havemorehumidity but contaminated water, it could be used as a source of safe drinking water. The need is huge: Globally, one in three people don’t have access to clean drinking water.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/ scientists-found-a-low-cost-way-to-make-cleandrinking-water-from-air-in-the-desert/ar-AAXMQc Image credit: https://www.nature.com/articles/

Tesla is Killing Coal and Gas Plants with Megapack Batteries

By Nicolás Rivero

IN 2019, TESLA introduced the Megapack, a battery the size of a shipping container designed to kill coal- and gas-fired “peaker” power plants.

Peaker plants sit idle for most of the day, but fire up to provide extra energy whenever demand for electricity spikes and the power grid can’t keep up. Tesla pitched Megapack batteries as a more climate-friendly alternative to peaker plants because they can store renewable energy when electricity demand is low, and then pump power back onto the grid when demand peaks.

Overthepastyear,Teslahassteppedupthepace of its big battery projects—and the Megapack is startingtoliveuptoitspeaker-plant-killingpromise.

Tesla built its biggest battery installation ever in April,whichwillhelpCaliforniapowerutilityPacific Gas and Electric replace natural gas plants it planstophaseoutstartingin2023.Laterthisyear, Tesla will build its second and third biggest-ever battery projects to shut down the last coal plant in Hawaii and help replace one of the most carbonpolluting coal plants in New Mexico.

Tesla is accelerating utility-scale battery construction

Megapacks are utility-scale batteries, meaning a powercompanycanusethemasabackuptostore

electricityforhundredsorthousandsofcustomers. EachMegapackbatterycanstorethreemegawatthours (MWh) of electricity, enough to power about 100 US homes for a day. Tesla’s biggest battery installation involves 256 Megapack battery units with a combined storage capacity of 730 MWh, enough to power about 25,000 US homes for a day or nearly 600,000 homes for an hour.

Tesla’s pace of utility-scale battery construction increased nearly 10-fold in 2021, according to the Tesla Megapack Tracker, an independent databaserunbysoftwareengineerLorenzGruber, who monitors battery projects with at least five megawatt-hours of storage capacity. If Tesla’s Hawaii and New Mexico battery projects come online later this year as expected, Tesla will break last year’s installation record by at least 50%.

Tesla isn’t the only company building utility-scale batteries. Rival battery makers including LG and Samsung, along with local power utilities, have built energy storage projects at similar scale. Meanwhile, Chinese firms are ramping up battery construction, and the country’s dominant utility, State Grid, has set aggressive goals to surpass the US in battery storage by 2030.

The race to build big batteries could build fortunes for the companies that come to dominate the industry—and will play a crucial role in weaning the world off of fossil fuels.

https://www.msn.com/ en-us/news/technology/ tesla-is-killing-coaland-gas-plants-withmegapack-batteries/arAAYZnFS

Source: https:// qz.com/2182975/tesla-iskilling-coal-and-gas-plantswith-megapack-batteries/

New Kind of 'Solar' Cell Shows We Can Generate Electricity Even at Night

By Mike McRae

CONVENTIONAL SOLAR TECHNOLOGY

soaks up rays of incoming sunlight to bump out a voltage. Strange as it seems, some materials are capable of running in reverse, producing power as they radiate heat back into the cold night sky.

A team of engineers in Australia has now demonstrated the theory in action, using the kind of technology commonly found in night-vision goggles to generate power.

So far, the prototype only generates a small amount of power, and is probably unlikely to become a competitive source of renewable power onitsown–butcoupledwithexistingphotovoltaics technology, it could harness the small amount of energy provided by solar cells cooling after a long, hot day's work

"Photovoltaics, the direct conversion of sunlight into electricity, is an artificial process that humans havedevelopedinordertoconvertthesolarenergy into power," says Phoebe Pearce, a physicist from the University of New South Wales.

"In that sense, the thermoradiative process is similar; we are diverting energy flowing in the

infraredfromawarm EarthintothecoldUniverse."

By setting atoms in any material jiggling with heat,you'reforcingtheirelectronstogeneratelowenergy ripples of electromagnetic radiation in the form of infrared light.

As lackluster as this electron-shimmy might be, it still has the potential to kick off a slow current of electricity. All that's needed is a one-way electron traffic signal called a diode.

Made of the right combination of elements, a diode can shuffle electrons down the street as it slowly loses its heat to a cooler environment.

In this case, the diode is made of mercury cadmium telluride (MCT). Already used in devices that detect infrared light, MCT's ability to absorb mid-and long-range infrared light and turn it into a current is well understood.

What hasn't been entirely clear is how this particular trick might be used efficiently as an actual power source.

Warmed to around 20 degrees Celsius (nearly 70 degrees Fahrenheit), one of the tested MCT photovoltaic detectors generated a power density

of 2.26 milliwatts per square meter.

Granted, it's not exactly enough to boil a jug of waterforyourmorningcoffee.You'dprobablyneed enough MCT panels to cover a few city blocks for that small task.

Butthat'snotreallythepoint,either,givenit'sstill very early days in the field, and there's potential for the technology to develop significantly further in the future.

"Right now, the demonstration we have with the thermoradiative diode is relatively very low power. One of the challenges was actually detecting it," says the study's lead researcher, Ned EkinsDaukes.

"But the theory says it is possible for this technology to ultimately produce about 1/10th of the power of a solar cell."

At those kinds of efficiencies, it might be worth the effort weaving MCT diodes into more typical photovoltaic networks so that they continue to top up batteries long after the Sun sets.

To be clear, the idea of using the planet's cooling as a source of low-energy radiation is one engineers have been entertaining for a while now. Different methods have seen different results, all with their own costs and benefits.

Yet by testing the limits of each and fine-tuning their abilities to soak up more of the infrared bandwidth, we can come up with a suite of technologies capable of wringing every drop of power out of just about any kind of waste heat.

"Down the line, this technology could potentially harvest that energy and remove the need for batteries in certain devices – or help to recharge them," says Ekins-Daukes.

"That isn't something where conventional solar power would necessarily be a viable option."

https://www.sciencealert.com/engineersmeasure-the-potential-of-a-new-kind-of-solar-cellfueled-by-the-night?

This research was published in ACS Photonics

The UNSW ‘night-time solar’team captured via infrared camera. They used the same kind of semiconductor technology to produce power for the first ever time from the emission of light.

Development

A new Australian High-rise will be Covered in 1,182 Solar Panels

By Adele Peters

WHEN A NEW HIGH-RISE officebuildingisbuilt in Melbourne, Australia, next year, its facade will include 1,182 solar panels. Along with extra solar powerontheroof,thebuildingwillbeabletopower itself completely.

“The building is designed to be self-sustainable,” says architect Pete Kennon, who led the design. “We can harness electricity on-site and use it immediately. This is very different to buildings that are offsetting their on-site power with remote solar or wind farms.” One advantage: Because the electricity doesn’t have to travel hundreds or thousands of miles, it’s more efficient and helps reduce strain on the grid.

The design will be the latest to use panels from a German company called Avancis, which

makes each glass panel in the same thickness as an ordinary facade; thin film solar cells are built into each panel. The product doesn’t look like typical rooftopsolarpanels—anditisn’t even apparent that the facades include solar at all. The panels come in a variety of colors, from a dark gray used on a municipal buildinginAmsterdamtoadeep blue on a building in Berlin.

InMelbourne,wherethebiggest source of energy consumption is often air-conditioning, Kennon used a solid version of the panelsononewalltohelpshade it from heat, saving the amount of energy needed for cooling. Both the building’s heating and cooling systems will run on electricity from the solar panels. The tower will be the first in

Australiatousethetechnology;theprojectisgoing through the final stages of getting approval from regulators now.

Building materials like cement and steel, and the construction process, create a large amount of “embedded emissions” for any building. But as the new tower generates more renewable power than it needs—eliminating around 70 metric tons ofCO2emissions ayear—Kennon saysthatitcan payoff itscarbon debt and trulybe carbon neutral, without offsets, in a few years.

This type of solar facade should be used on more buildings, Kennon argues. “It feels urgent to innovate our building technologies to more sustainable methods,” he says. “Collecting solar is a natural trajectory on our large-scale projects, particularly in locations that have great access to sunlight.”

Floating Solar FarmsCould beWorth $10 Billion by 2030, but they have a Dirty Secret

By Elissaveta M. Brandon

EVER SINCE THE FIRST solar power plant was built in the 1960s, solar arrays have become a familiar sight on mountains, in deserts, and even onrooftops.Butinthepastdecade,anewbreedof solar farms has been cropping up in large bodies of water.

Knownasfloatingsolarfarms,theseinstallations are about 10% to 15% more expensive than traditional farms, but they’re full of perks: They don’t use up any land; they’re up to 16% more efficient because the water helps keep them cool; and, when installed on hydroelectric dams, they help limit evaporation, saving more water for

hydropower.

Still, they have a dirty secret: The panels sit on thousands of floating modules made of virgin plastic.

This isn’t the case with Alqueva, a new floating solar farm taking shape in southern Portugal. But let’s back up a little. Floating farms work just like land-basedsolar farms;however,instead ofbeing mounted on metal racks, the panels are attached to hollow plastic buoys anchored to the bottom of a lake, dam, or water reservoir.

Typically,thesebuoysaremade ofvirginplastic, whichrequiresnaturalgasorcrudeoiltoproduce.

[Photo: courtesy EDP]

New Paper

But in Alqueva, the panels sit on thousands of floaters made from recycled plastic and cork. The composite material was developed by Amorim, a cork-processing group that has used cork composites as a thermal isolator for NASA space shuttles. At Alqueva, it has reduced the farm’s carbon footprint by 30%.

In 2021, the global floating solar market was valued at $2.5 billion. It’s estimated to surpass $10 billion by 2030. In 2020 alone, there were more than 300 floating solar farms, all of which used virgin HDPE, the kind of plastic found in milk jugs, detergent, and shampoo bottles. HDPE is highly durable and lightweight, and doesn’t absorb moisture easily, all of which makes it a perfect contender for a material designed to float on water for decades.And yes, itcan be recycled. But research shows that recycling won’t solve the problem of plastic pollution.

That’swhereAlquevacomesin.Thefloatingsolar farm was developed by EDP, a Portuguese utility company that also built Portugal’s first floating wind farm. WhenAlqueva officially kicks into gear at the end of June, EDP estimates it will generate enough energy to supply 30% of the homes in the

region,orabout1,500families.With12,000panels covering the equivalent of four soccer fields, it’s set to become the biggest floating solar farm on a hydrodam in Europe.

Allofthosepanelsaresittingonafloatingnetwork of modules connected to one another like puzzle pieces. Like other floating farms, these modules were designed to last at least 30 years. But unlike otherfarms,whenit’stimetoreplacethem,nogas oroilwillbeusedtoproducethenewsetofmodules (provided,ofcourse,they’rereplacedwithanother set made of cork and recycled plastic).

According to Miguel Patena, a group director at EDP who’s in charge of the solar farm, this is the first time the material is being used for this kind ofapplication.Theexactformularemains asecret for now.

Considering the U.S. has just set out to build the country’s biggest floating solar farm, in New Jersey, a more sustainable alternative to virgin plastic floaters couldn’t come any sooner..

By Adele Peters

A CENTURY AGO, a large wooden cargo schooner called Vega sailed up and down the Swedish coast making zero-carbon deliveries, before the concept of carbon footprints existed. Now, the fully restored ship is sailing across the Atlantic to begin a new life delivering cargo for companies that are trying to cut emissions.

“Our mission is to prove the value of clean shipping,” says Danielle Doggett, CEO and cofounder of Sailcargo, the company that now ownstheshipandwillsoonbeginoperatingroutes between North and South America. It’s starting with deliveries of speciality coffee from Columbia to New Jersey for Café William, a roaster that wants to sell the first emissions-free coffee.

Doggett, who started sailing on tall ships as a 13-year-old, started thinking about the potential to revive traditional cargo shipping more than a decade ago. In 2014, she and two partners launched the company and later began working onbuildingatraditionalvesselfromscratch.While traveling, Doggett had also run across the Vega. The ship, built in 1909, had been retired in the 1960s, as fossil-fueled container ships started to dominate trade routes. It was headed for the scrapyard when a family of Swedish shipbuilders rescued it and spent years restoring it; Doggett, who loved the design, stayed in touch with them and eventually made a deal to buy it.

Ships transport more than 10 billion metric

tons of cargo a year, and are responsible for more emissions than the airline industry. While shipping companies are working on less polluting technology, progress is slow. “They have massive fleets, and filling stations, and all of these very real, tangible assets that take a very long time to transition,” Doggett says.Acontainership running on fossil fuels might cost $100 million and last 25 years. Some companies are in the early stages of introducing new designs, like the shipping giant Maersk, which plans to launch a carbon-neutral vessel in 2023. Others are experimenting with retrofitting technology on older ships to reduce, but not eliminate, emissions. And a handful of startups, like Sailcargo, are turning to traditional sailing to offer an alternative on some routes. Sailcargo doesn’t expect to replace the massive industry.Butascompanieslookforwaystoreduce emissions, it can offer a solution that works now. Because it doesn’t use shipping containers— goods are loaded on pallets—it also has some logisticaladvantages.“Someofthesefastvessels havetowaitatportoftenuptotwoweeks,because

they’redependentontheportinfrastructure,” says Doggett. “They need the big crane to unload the container. We do not—we can unload ourselves.”

As standard cargo ships idle, they keep burning fuel,sendingpollution intonearby neighborhoods. Theships alsohavewait inline torefuel (and also often wait for days at a port for fuel prices to drop when prices are high). “In the end, I’m actually hoping that our ships will be faster in terms of actual delivery turnaround, depending on which routewe’relookingat,”shesays.Theshipcanalso accommodate unusually-sized loads, including cargo that’s so much smaller than a shipping container that it would normally travel by plane.

WhenItalkedto Doggett, Vega was in theBaltic Sea, beginning the trip across the ocean. By July, the crew expects to land in the Bahamas and do some work on the ship. Then the company will begin making its first trips between Colombia and New Jersey. The next ship, being constructed at the company’s headquarters in Costa Rica, is expected to begin sailing in a year and a half.

Themodelcanbefinanciallysuccessful,Doggett says. “We want to be a for-profit company that operates emission-free,or even maybe becarbon positive,” she says. “But we can also be paying fair wages and have a return on investment to our shareholders.“

https://www.fastcompany.com/90753617/thiscargo-ship-from-1909-is-starting-to-make-zeroemissions-deliveries-again

Image credit: Sailcargo

HowTechfromSlacktoDiscordcanPrepare StudentsfortheFutureofWork

By Kavitta Ghai, CEO and cofounder of Nectir

MOST OF THE WORLD thinks of college as a bridge to a better future and, more specifically, a better career. We are willing to go into debt and put our life on pause for years with the promise that we will come out the other side with the skills necessary to both enter the workforce and thrive within it. However, the American Association of Colleges and Universities reported in 2021 that, while most employers view liberal education as essential for workforce readiness, fewer than 50% of employers are ‘very satisfied’ with graduates’ actual preparation for the workforce. They highlighted that the expectation is for higher education to prepare students not only with the technical expertise they will need, but also the ability to think for themselves and solve new problems.

When the world looks like a completely different placethanitdidafewyearsago,weneedtoensure that our ability to prepare students for it scales at the same rate. Therein lies the challenge: Are we doing enough to prepare the next generation of this country to take on a world where they will need both the social skills and the critical thinking ability to solve global issues that affect our very existence? If the answer is no, how can we begin to shift into the future of workforce readiness through tangible solutions that any classroom can adopt today?

SETTING EXPECTATIONS FOR THE FUTURE

It’s nosecretto anyonethat,whenwetalk about the future of the workforce, we typically mean it in terms oftechnology.Technological advancements likeAIandmachinelearningaregoingtopermeate everyindustryouttherewithinthenextdecade,and students today need to be learning how to build a career in a world that will be mostly automated.

Experts at Dell and the Institute of the Future predict that up to 85% of the jobs that today’s college students will have in 11 years haven’t

been invented yet So how do we prepare students for jobs that we don’t even know about yet? The answer is in the soft skills thatamachineorrobotwillnotbeabletoreplicate. Whether someone decides to go into computer scienceorconstruction,theywillneedtohaverealworld skills that allow them to work productively with others in a constantly evolving world. This is no secret to the incoming generation—81% of students said they thought school should focus most closely on developing real-world skills, such as problem-solving and collaboration, rather than focusing so much on specific academic-subjectmatterexpertise.Thebestwaytopreparestudents for an unknown future is to equip them with skills that willnever go out of style.

SOLUTIONS WE HAVE NOW

The arbiters of this change are going to be those that students trust most—their teachers. However, to put this burden on a group that is already stressed and overworked is unfair without providing a thoughtful solution that also accounts fortheinstructor’sneeds.Thesweetspotistofind asolutionthatmeetseveryonewheretheyalready aresothatthechangefeelsasnaturalaspossible, and istherefore easyto adopt.Iftechnology isthe future, then students need to be experiencing it in the classroom as early as possible. However, it needs to be implemented in a way that doesn’t add more work to the teacher’s plate and thus is purpose-built for the classroom.

While there are emerging ed-tech tools that are bringing these specific solutions to the classroom, social tools that are already on most students’ phonesarealsoagreatplacetostart.Researchers at the University of California found that teachers whoutilizesocial toolslike Snapchatwereableto connectwiththeirstudentsfasterthaneverbefore. Students beginusing theseappsinmiddleor high

school,sotomeetthemwheretheyareallowsthe flow of conversation to happen instantaneously. Biology professor Kelly Thomasson remarked that all but one of her students had already been using Snapchat. “Our class was more connected socially because they could respond to the feed.

.

. . Everybody in the class always came to office hours and lab time,” Thomasson says. Starting with familiar modes of digital communication can make the transition to a tech-friendly classroom easier for both the student and instructor.

The social media boom of the last decade laid thegroundworkforhowcommunicationasawhole hasevolvedinallareasoflife,butespeciallyinthe workplace. Almost every single company today uses some sort of communication infrastructure like Slack or Microsoft Teams, with the purpose being to make digital communication as seamless and synchronous as possible. Similarly, students arealreadyfamiliarwithusingparalleltechnologies like GroupMe and WhatsApp to communicate in theirdaytodaylife.However,withintheclassroom, email is the standard–even when we know we have far better options.

Some teachers, like Ryan Cordell, are already bridging the gap by building social tools into their instruction like Discord that students know and love.Thegeneraluseofthesetypesoftechnology will only grow as time passes, so we need to build digital literacy into the classroom as early as possible. Students will need to learn from an early age how to communicate effectively online in both a professional and social environment. A research study on using Facebook in the classroom published by the Canadian Center of Science and Education found that students “will take responsibility for their [posts on social tools usedintheclassroom]becausetheyhavealarger audience when they use social networks.This will empower them and their work and lead to selfdirected learning.”

The same study also noted that it can be timeconsuming or frustrating for instructors to find the correct technology to use, but that the benefits for both parties ultimately outweigh the time costs. Communication infrastructure that is built into the classroom and the campus as a whole can solve for a breadth of issues: Students learn how

to collaborate effectively online, create solutions within a team setting, engage with others to build their network, and be digitally literate relative to today’s standards. If they will without a doubt be using these communication tools within any industry they enter, it is imperative that students be exposed to them as early as possible.

SETTING THEM UPFOR SUCCESS

The current most prevalent education technologies like the LMS allow students to communicateprimarilywiththeirinstructors,yetnot oneanother,whichcansetthemupforfailurewhen it comes to effective workplace communication. Studies show that managers use about 45% of their time for communication in discussions with colleagues at their own hierarchical level, but only 10% to communicate with superiors.

Students need to become literate at in-group collaboration to understand how to work inside of a team. Not only does implementing modern collaboration tools give them real-life skills for the workforce, it also has compounding effects on their education itself. In these class group chats, studentsshouldbeencouragedtoaskandanswer each other’s questions just like they would in a Slack chat for work, which then takes much of the burden off of the instructors to be omni-available. The goal here is to take students from passive learners to active knowledge creators for one another, very similar to what they will inevitably have to do within their careers.

We will soon reach a point where prospective students and their parents will search specifically for schools that provide modern communication infrastructure so that they can rest assured that the next generationwillbeready forthe workforce of the future. When these solutions are purposebuilt for education and readily available to use today, it’s a no-brainer that they must be adopted swiftly across the entire nation. The future of our education system and our workforce as a whole depends on forward-thinking educators and administrators to be the trailblazers that usher in this necessary change.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90754321/how-tech-fromslack-to-discord-can-prepare-students-for-the-future-ofwork

Which Countries Have Rolled Out 5G in Africa?

By Faustine Ngila

WHEN ETHIOPIA ANNOUNCED on May 9 that itwaslaunchingtrialsforitsfirst5Gmobilenetwork in its capital, it joined more than a dozen African countries that are either testing or have rolled out the next-gen network. But just as for its 5G peers, the journey isn’t going to be smooth.

GovernmentsinAfricaareoptimisticthattheywill one day use 5G to do large-scale farming using drones, introduce autonomous cars into roads, plugintothemetaverse,activatesmarthomesand improvecyber security.Someanalysts predictthat 5G will add an additional $2.2 trillion to Africa’s economy by 2034.

But Africa’s 5G first movers are facing teething problems that stand to delay their 5G goals. The challenges have revolved around spectrum regulation clarity, commercial viability, deployment deadlines, andlow citizenpurchasingpower of 5G enabled smartphones, and expensive internet.

Where things stand for Africa’s 5G pioneers

Ethiopia is joining Botswana, Egypt, Gabon, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mauritius, Nigeria, Senegal, Seychelles, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, when it comes to testing or deploying 5G.Butmanyofthesecountriesare facing delays.

BOTSWANA: On Feb. 25, Botswana’s Mascom

unveiled 5G to residents of the capital Gaborone. It started with four sites in the city, with a plan to lay more than 100 base stations by the end of 2022.

EGYPT: Last February, Orange received spectrum from the Egyptian government that now allows it to test 5G networks just like Vodafone Egypt, Egypt Telecom and Etisalat Egypt. Though promising, Egyptians will have to wait for 5G services.

GABON: Since it started testing the technology in November 2019, Gabon’s Gabon Telecom isyet to go commercial. Its CEO is targeting 2023.

KENYA: Ethiopia’s southern neighbor, has been testing the technology for a year now, but internet subscriberswillhavetowaittilltheendoftheyear, when the country’s telecoms regulator is expected to have issued mobile operators with 5G licenses. The country is expected to account for more than half of the continent’s tiny number of 5G mobile subscriptions in 2026.

LESOTHO: Since Vodacom was given a temporary spectrum by the Lesotho government in 2018 to experiment with 5G technology, it has been a journey of pain. Wrangles between

Vodacom,Econet andtheregulator havehindered any meaningful 5G roll-out.

MADAGASCAR: In July 2020, Madagascar’s TelmafollowedSouthAfricatolaunchacommercial

5G but three weeks later, the country’s regulator told the company to halt its plans.

MAURITIUS: On July 30 last year, the government of Mauritius announced the country’s first 5G network deployment to cover four zones

November 2021. In March, the country earned nearly$1billionfromitslong-awaited5Gspectrum auction

UGANDA: In January 2020, Uganda became thefirsteast African nationto testthepossibility of launching a 5G network with ZTE and MTN. But a commercial launch is yet to happen.

ZIMBABWE: On Feb. 24, Zimbabwe’s Econet announced that it had launched the country’s first 5G network and would activate two dozen sites by this month.

Expensive 5G smartphones slow adoption

Safaricom, the operator leading 5G adoption in Kenya, this month said that the high cost of 5G-enabled smartphones is slowing down the company’s ambition to offer mobile 5G services. The cheapest smartphone with a 5G smartphone in the continent goes for about $300, which is very expensive for the average African. One study in Kenya revealed that 94% of the population owns devices costing less than $200.

“That’s one of the reasons why we are focusing more on the 4G side and leaving 5G to serve the homes,” he told the Business Daily newspaper.

but didn’t share plans for a fully commercial rollout.

NIGERIA: The continent’s largest economy, issued spectrum licenses in March, and is hoping to possess the widest 5G network in the continent this year. It is looking at August for commercial deployment.

SENEGAl:Sincetheirfirst5GtestsinNovember 2020, Senegal’s Sonatel and Orange continue to do a number of trials in Dakar but the network still remains largely unoperational.

SEYCHELLES: Citizens greeted the country’s 5G launch in 2020 with mistrust, expressing concern over health hazards. A year later, citizens in sixregions aregettingfaster speeds of 1.2Gbps from Cable and Wireless Seychelles, for up to 100GB of use.

SOUTH AFRICA: The continent’s earliest adopter of 5G rolled out the technology on a temporary spectrum, but amid heavy strain on networks during the pandemic, Vodacom, Rain, and MTN were ordered to suspend that use from

Africa needs to work hard on 4G first

The desire to catch up with the rest of the world hasseenimprovementsintheexisting4Gnetworks on which most countries plan to switch on 5G. As of 2019, 4G internetsignals covered about halfthe continent, according to the industry body GSMA. Yet only 10% of Africa’s population presently uses 4G, a recent report from telecom firm Vodacom said.

Even more detrimental to the 5G dream is the fact that 4G network services in Africa are only available in urban and peri-urban areas as many providers try to deploy internet in areas with high usage to remain profitable, leaving villages years away from experiencing higher speed internet.

For now, 3G is still adding users. And the reality is that 42 African states are yet to start thinking about 5G.

https://qz.com/africa/2168658/which-countrieshave-rolled-out-5g-in-africa/?

Image credit: Pew Research Center

CameroonReceives

US$41mfromAfDB toImproveAccessto IndustrialandPortArea

ByNickThomas

INDUSTRIAL-PORT COMPLEX DEVELOPMENT IN KRIBI, CAMEROON

THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS of the African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved a €39.62 million (US$41.73m) loan to Cameroon to improve road accesstotheindustrialandportareasof Kribi, in the south of the country.

Designedforimplementationofthesecondphase oftheKribiIndustrialand PortAreaAccess Roads Development Project, the funds will complement the €114.33 million (US$120.42m) loan granted in October 2021 for the first phase.

The Cameroonian Government built a deepwater port backing onto an industrial zone called ‘Kribi Industrial and Port Complex’ to address congestion in the port of Douala, which cannot accommodate deep-draft vessels, due to its proximity to the coastal town of Kribi.

The complex is equipped with ultra-modern machinery and large storage and work areas. Access roads to the complex have deteriorated over time due to increasing usage by heavy-duty vehicles amid increased industrial activity at the site.

The loan for the project’s second phase will complementfundingforrehabilitationworksonthe 110-kilometerEdea-Kribiroadandtheconstruction of an additional 39 km-road between the Lolabé à Campo community and the bridge over the Ntem River, on the border with Equatorial Guinea.

These future road links will make the Kribi Industrial and Port Complex more accessible. It will reduce transportation times and costs and generally, help improve livelihoods, particularly in the local communities.

The project will help interlink production, processing and consumption centers, easing the movement of raw materials and other goods

across the subregion: Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of Congo.

In deploying socio-economic activities on the site, the project considered gender and youth employment issues so that all may equitably benefit from its socio-economic impact.

“This additional loan, coming after the October2021approval,willimproveaccessto theKribiIndustrialandPortComplex,soonto become the largest economic hub in Central Africa,” Solomone Koné, the Bank Group’s Deputy Director General for CentralAfrica, said.

“It reinforces the Bank’s commitment to strengthening the complementarity of production systems for infrastructure developmenttostimulateintra-regionaltrade.”

“This financing also strengthens our leadership in the infrastructure sector in Cameroon and CentralAfrica, where the Bank mainly operates in theroadssubsector,particularlycontributingtothe development of road networks and refurbishment programs and projects, as well as strategic and technical studies.”

Since1972,whentheAfricanDevelopmentBank began operations in Cameroon, it has contributed to financing 28 operations in the transport sector, including transnational projects.

https://ceobusinessafrica.com/cameroonreceives-us41m-from-afdb-to-improve-access-toindustrial-and-port-area/

By Kaamil Ahmed

WITH SWEEPS OF HIS ARM, Jean-Pierre Kamara showers handfuls of tiny seeds over the freshly ploughed land near his village in Senegal’s southern foothills. A team of young men ahead of him loosen more of the clay soil forsowing,whileoldervillagerstrailbehind,raking the earth back over the seeds.

Only breaking at midday to refuel on peanuts and palm wine, the village works methodically as a unit to grow fonio – a precious grain crucial to their diets that only takes days to germinate and can be harvested in as little as six weeks. Though laborious, growing fonio, one of Africa’s oldestcultivatedgrains,issimpleandreliable,say Kamara’s Bedik people.

It grows naturally, they insist, where mainstream crops such as wheat and rice are harder to cultivate. It is also well adapted to the climate, nutritious,tastesgoodandcanbestoredfarlonger than other grains.

“If you put in front of me some fonio and also somethingmadeofmaize,I’llpushasidetheother because the fonio is much healthier. There are no chemicalsused;itjustgrowsnaturallyandthenwe harvest it. We don’t add anything,” says Kamara.

The benefits of fonio are so marked that academics and policymakers are now calling for the grain – alongside other indigenous foods, such as Ethiopia’s teff, as well as cassava and various millets and legumes – to be embraced morewidelyacrossAfricatoimprovefoodsecurity.

ThemovecomesastheUNwarnsthatcountries in the Horn of Africa are facing severe hunger, while many others have been hugely affected by risingwheatpricescausedbyRussia’sinvasionof Ukraine.

Makhtar Diop, managing director of the International Finance Corporation, an arm oftheWorldBank,saidlastmonththatthese crops were being under-utilised and needed greater investment, research and marketing.

These ancient foods, with their greater nutritional benefits and resilience to drought, could break the continent’s reliance on imported wheat, rice and maize, which often do notgrow easily inAfrica but now dominate people’s diets.

The African Development Bank’s proposaltoimprovefoodsecuritybyinvesting $1bn (£840m) in growing wheat inAfrica has been met with scepticism because so little of the continent is suited to growing the crop.

Senegal imports about 70% of its rice, which is a key ingredient of the nation’s modern diet. The 436,000 tonnes produced domestically are grown in only four regions. Wheat, which is not grown in Senegal, made up 2% of its imports in 2020.

Senegal produced only 5,100 tonnes of fonio in 2019,accordingtotheUN’sFoodandAgriculture Organization, with most of it growing around the south-eastern Kédougou region. However, there are moves to increase production, and neighbouring Guinea produced 530,000 tonnes of the grain.

Michel Ghanem,an agronomist who co-founded the Forgotten Crops Society, is calling for more

Jeane-Pierre Kamara, 49, sows Fonio seeds in Neneficha, Senegal. PhotoAndy Hall/The Observer

glycemicindexratings than refined flours and white rice, while also having important micronutrients. Research in the 1990s into neglected African crops by the US National Research Council found that fonio and finger millet were rich in the essential amino acid methionine, which is often lacking inwesterndiets,whileteffwashigh in protein, amino acids and iron.

Farmers plough the fields and prepare the soil for sowing fonio seeds, which can be grown in rough, dry soil

Fonio has long been misunderstood by western researchers,wholabelledit“hungry rice” because it was eaten more during periods of food scarcity due to its quick and dependable growth.

However, Kamara says fonio not only satisfies hunger much more than the dominant grains but also has a nuttier flavour and texture that they savour.

“During festivals, when we have lots of guests and want to honour someone, we give them fonio – it’s a privilege,” says Kamara.

Edie Mukiibi, vice-president of Slow Food International, which campaigns to protect threatened local food cultures, says imperialism imposed “monoculture” farming on Africa and other colonised regions of the world, destroying biodiversity in agriculture.

Women prepare the evening meal, with fonio as the main ingredient.

investment in these neglected foods.

“Insub-SaharanAfrica,thedietswerenotwheatbased. They’re shifting; they’re becoming wheatbased, unfortunately, which is leading to noncommunicable diseases, obesity and all sorts,” says Ghanem.

“You have lots of indigenous crops – like teff, fonio, sorghum – that people still eat today but have been neglected by funding agencies, the internationalresearch organisations, but definitely not by consumers. And it’s now that we should invest in these because they could close that [food] gap.”

Researchers say these neglected foods have several nutritional benefits, often with lower

Mukiibisaysthatundercolonialism,largetractsof land were taken over for plantations growing cash crops for export, such as sugar, tea and cocoa, while in the 20th century the “green revolution” promoted the idea of farming high-yield grains to tackle hunger.

“The plantations kept on growing, supported by the colonial governments in the global south, and they did not contribute to biodiversity. They cleared large areas of diverse land, which initially wascoveredbythetraditionalintercroppedAfrican farming systems or the ‘milpa’ systems in Latin America, like in Mexico,” he says.

This, Mukiibi adds, changed diets because people could no longer forage on land cleared for the plantations.

He says the indigenous grains are far better

Sifting

Fonio as part of preparing a meal.

suitedtosurvivingwhengrowntogetherwithother crops, unlike mainstream imports, which require the ecosystem to be adapted to ensure the right conditions.

Fonio has recently become more fashionable, appearing on restaurant menus in the wealthier neighbourhoods of Senegal’s capital, Dakar. It is being recommended by doctors for diabetes patients, and also being promoted by aid organisations and health food brands. Advocates for export hope it will encourage farmers to grow more fonio by making it more profitable.

The New York-based Senegalese chef Pierre Thiamhasbeenoneofthemostvocalproponents of fonio, co-founding the brand Yolélé to buy from smallholder farmers and market the grain as a “superfood” in the west. Yolélé works with SOS

Sahel, an aid organisation that tackles unemployment in the region by helping farmersimprovetheirlandandincrease fonio production. The NGO wants to increase production by 900 tonnes by 2024.

Aissatou Ndiaye, 75, who grows fonio on 50 hectares (124 acres) of land near Kédougou and imports it from neighbouring Mali and Guinea to sell on, says she has benefited from NGO support and financing but she is concernedthatsomeofthenewinterest is taking the crop away from people in the region.

“ThereisaEuropeanbuyerwhocomesherewith big containers, fills it with the harvest from their local partners and sells it all abroad. It should be feeding the population here. I can’t support them taking everything and selling it outside. That’s not fair. It’s not helping the farmers,” says Ndiaye.

“There isbigpotential for foniogrowing, youcan growasmuchasyouwant,theyieldismuchbetter than rice or maize – the only problem is that we need help improving the processing for harvest.

Kriengkrai Chanpeng from Warin Chamrap district - with John Vidal rice story

The miracle method for sustainable rice – and bigger harvests

“I would like to grow more than I do, but I don’t have the machinery to harvest any more,” she says.

Ndiaye recognises that research will be needed into how technology can reduce the manual toll of cutting the fonio grass and removing the husks. But she is concerned that researchers might also focus on modifying the grain to ensure higher yields.

“We need more research, but they shouldn’t spoil it or damage it; they shouldn’t add anything to it,” she says. “It might seem good to increase the yield but it’s not good for the nutrition. Fonio is natural – I want it to be protected and not to be spoiled so it becomes like other foods.”

https://www.theguardian.com/globaldevelopment/2022/jul/07/fonio-indigenous-cropsafrica-food-security

FarmerAissatou Ndiye 75, grows Fonio alongside other crops on her 50-hectare farm that she sells from local shops in Kédougou

Vertical Farms Attract V.C. Dollars

By Andrew Ross Sorkin

Greens on vertical racks at Plenty in South San Francisco, Calif. Jim Wilson/The New YorkTimes

The fragility of the world’s food supply has been in the spotlight, as the war in Ukraine traps millions of tons of grain that are desperately needed in Egypt, Yemen and elsewhere. This has helped supercharge interest in agricultural technology, or agtech.

“Record high fertilizer prices, war-borne grain shortages and poor weather have created extraordinarily challenging conditions to meet growing global food demand,” the investment research firm PitchBook wrote in a recent report. “Biofertilizers, field robotics and indoor farming technologieswillbe essentialinovercomingthese challenges.”

There was record investment in agtech last year, and the deals keep coming. V.C.s invested $10.5 billion across 751 deals in agtech start-ups in 2021, a deal value increase of more than 58 percent over 2020, PitchBook says. That uptick came as climate extremes hurt farming yields, and as awareness of scarcity grew because of pandemic-related supply chain issues. This year, the pressure to find new, sustainable growing methods has intensified, so vertical farming startups — mostly indoor operations that grow crops in stacked racks instead of fields — are finding funding.

Vertical farms solve some but not all agricultural problems. They save space, can be built almost anywhere, are climate-controlled and easy to automate, and they require less water, nutrients andsoilthanatraditionalfield.Buthigh-techfarms cost a lot to build, consume huge amounts of energyif poorly designed andcan’taccommodate all crops. Perishable produce like leafy greens, berries, and tomatoes flourish in vertical farms, while the grains the world relies upon don’t grow well indoors.

Analysts suspect that rising food prices may nonetheless make vertical farming increasingly attractive and profitable, which is why V.C.s are intrigued and agtech executives are optimistic. “Agricultureisreallyattheepicenterrightnowofso manyoftheglobalchallengeswe’reexperiencing, andit’sbeenattheepicenteroftheclimatecrisis,” Irving Fain, founder and C.E.O. of the vertical grower Bowery Farming, told DealBook. “When you look at Russia, Ukraine, what you’re seeing is the world awakening to the reality that food is national security, and food is sovereignty.”

https://www.nytimes.com/section/business/ dealbook

The Surprising Afterlife of Used Hotel Soap

By Zachary Crockett

ONE OF THE FIRST things many of us do when wesettleintoahotelroomisreachforthepackaged bar of soap on the bathroom counter.

Thesesoapsarethesinglemost-utilizedamenity at hotel chains: 86% of guests who stay at a hotel for 1-2 nights use it, handily outranking other popular offerings like the in-room TV (84%), hair dryer (36%), and valet parking (28%).

Hotelstakegreatprideinselectingtheirtoiletries, and invest a tremendous amount of time and money into finding the right brand partners.

But these tiny bars come with a big problem. While some of us smuggle home every bar we can get our hands on (a totally acceptable move, according to hoteliers), most guests leave behind sizable, half-used hunks of soap.

At scale, this is a big deal:

• There are ~5m hotel rooms in the US alone.

• Pre-pandemic, the average occupancy rate was ~66%.

• That means that, in normal times, hotels go through ~3.3m bars of soap every day.

Every year, it has been estimated that the hospitality industry generates ~440B pounds of solid waste — much of it soap and bottled amenities. That’s the equivalent weight of 2m blue whales.

What happens to all that leftover soap?

Fourteen years ago, one man asked that very question.Andtheanswerledhimdownapaththat has since saved tens of thousands of lives all over the world.

One man, a pickle bucket, and a potato peeler

The thought first struck Shawn Seipler in 2008 while staying at a hotel in Minneapolis. Seipler was a road dog. A technology executive, he spent 150 days per year in hotels on business trips. And one night, after a few room service cocktails, he wondered what became of unused hotel room soap.

So, he called the front desk and asked.

• “Excuseme,whatdo you dowithall that leftover soap?”

• “Sir, wouldyoulikeanother cocktail?

• “Absolutely…but also, what happens toall that soap?”

• “Well,we throw it away.”

• “Do allhotelsthrow it away?”

• “Yes, sir, it all goes to a landfill.”

Seipler did some back-of-the-napkin math and realized that millions of bars of perfectly salvageable soap were going to waste.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about that,” Seipler told The Hustle. “And I decided I had to do something about it.”

A few weeks later, in his hometown of Orlando, hewalkedinto aHolidayInnandaskedifthey’dbe willing to part with their unused soap. The general manager happily complied, and Seipler left with a giant bag of half-used toiletries.

“I went to 6 other hotels that same day and they all said the same thing,” recalled Seipler: “‘Yes! Yes! Yes!Yes! Yes!Yes!’”

Armed with thousands of bars of soap, Seipler and a few friends set up a small “workshop” in a single-car garage in downtown Orlando.

The group sat on upside-down pickle buckets and scraped the outside of the soap bars off by hand with potato peelers, pulverized them in a meat grinder, melted them down in Kenmore slow cookers,pouredthemixtureintosoapmolds,dried it overnight, and cut it up into new bars.

At his best, Seipler could churn out ~500 new soap bars per day.

The next question was what he was going to do with it all.

He laid out a bunch of stats and came to a realization:

Hotels were wasting millions of bars of soap

Atthetime,~9kchildrenundertheageof 5were dying from hygiene-related illnesses every day

globally.

Studiesshowedthatregularhand-washingcould cut those deaths in half.

Seipler launched Clean the World and set out on a mission of getting those millions of bars of wasted soap to children in need.

To do that, the first thing he’d have to do is scale his operation. But getting monetary support for a real facility proved to be difficult.

“I put together a grant application for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, imagining that Bill would walk up our driveway and hand us a check for $1m,” said Seipler. “We got a rejection notice within 8hours of submission, witha notethat said, ‘Please do not reapply for 3 years.’”

Donated hotel soap was piling up. The economy was in a bad spot. And if Seipler didn’t figure out a solution, the whole idea would die.

So, Seipler came up with an annuity model:

• Hotels pay a small fee ($0.50 to $1 per room, per month) to participate in a soap recycling program.

• They’re provided with everything they need to streamline donations and get rid of their waste: storage bins, shipping, staff training.

• They also get impact reports detailing the social and environmental impact of their donations.

For hotels, this serves 2 purposes: 1) It was a relativelyaffordablewaytogetridofalltheirwaste,

and 2) it helped them meet sustainability goals.

How the hotel soap recycling process works

Today, Clean the World partners with more than 8k hotels — roughly 1.4m rooms in total — around the world.

Its clients include major chains like Hyatt, Marriott, InterContinental, Walt Disney Resorts, and Hilton, in addition to cruise ship lines, casinos, and airlines.

Since 2009, the company has:

• Collected 13m pounds of discarded soap from hotels

• Distributed 68m bars of reprocessed soap to 127 countries

• Diverted 23m pounds of plastic and soap waste from landfills

• Its biggest partner, Hilton, which signed on all of its worldwide locations in 2019, has contributed 14.5m bars of soap in less than 3 years.

To recycle all of this soap, Clean the World has a$750k productionfacilityinOrlando,andsatellite facilities in Las Vegas, Hong Kong, the Dominican Republic, Montreal, and Amsterdam.

“It’s a much more professional operation now,” said Seipler. “No more potato peelers or meat grinders.”

The process to convert hotel soap into new bars works like so:

1. Clean the World provides a participating hotel with storage bins; when full, they’re shipped to a Clean the World facility

2. Soap goes into a giant refining machine, which filters out hair, dirt, and other debris, and churns out “soap noodles”

3. Soap goes into a mixer and is sterilized with diluted bleach

4. Soap goes into a duplex plodder, where it’s pummeled into a powdery substance and compressed into long solid blocks

Used Soap

5. Soap is cut into bars, stamped, and packed into boxes

6. Soap is sent to countries in need

Hotelsallusedifferenttypesofsoap,andthere’s a whole science to mixing the right bars together. Holiday Inn Macau’s oatmeal bars, for instance, pair well with Aloft Taipei’s Bliss bars. Clean the World relies on 20k+ volunteers to determine the

• The number of refugees the soap directly impacted

• Water and energy use reduction

Once the soap is repurposed and ready for its secondlife,CleantheWorldworkswithhumanitarian partners like UNICEF, United Nations High CommissionerforRefugees,WorldVision,and Children International to determine where it’s most needed around the world.

With these partners, they’re able to work with local clinics and schools, where they teach kids hygieneprotocolsandmonitor effectiveness.

The organization played a big role in providing soap to Syrian and Somalian refugees, and Haitian residents in the wake of the 2010 earthquake.

By volume, the largest amount of soap has gone to countrieslikethePhilippines, Zambia, and Honduras.

But in recent times, another country has been added to the list: the US.

A pandemic pivot

In 2020, Clean the World faced a frustrating problem:

• Supply was crimped by massive hotel closures

• Demand for soap in the US was at an all-time high

right sorting process.

EverydonatedbinisweighedsoCleantheWorld can give hotels detailed impact reports chronicling things like:

• The number of new bars contributed

• The total pounds of landfill waste diverted

• Carbon footprint reduction (in kg of CO2)

“Wewerenearlyonthebrink of extinction at a time when people needed soap more than ever,” Christina Flores, Clean the World’s marketing director, told The Hustle. “We had to let 80% of our staff go.”

When hotels began to slowly open back up, manybigchains—includingMarriottandIHG(the parent company of Holiday Inn) — also pivoted from packaged soaps to big refillable dispensers.

Facing a diminished supply, Clean the World launched a new arm that provides at-home kits

The

consumers can fill up with unused soap and other toiletries at home.

To date, the organization has distributed 5m+ of these kits to US homeless shelters and other countriesfacingsanitationsupplychainshortages.

These initiatives have had a considerable global impact.

As the largest hotel soap recycler in the world, Clean the World has helped lead to a 60%+ reduction in the number of children who die from diarrheal diseases each year.

One 3-ounce bar of soap is good for 100 handwashings — enough to significantly cut down the risk of contracting such illnesses.

Abigproblemstilllooms:worldwide,anestimated 3B people still don’t have access to hand-washing facilities with soap. And thousands of hotels still throw away their soap waste.

Luckily,CleantheWorldisn’ttheonlyorganization working on solving this problem:

• EcoSoap partners with 1k+ hotels and has provided 250k+ pounds of soap to children in 10 countries

• Diversey, a leading provider of hotel hygiene products, has repurposed 25m bars of soap since 2013

Thanks to these efforts, hotel toiletries that otherwisewould’veendedupinlandfillshavebeen given a second use case.

Seipler has seen mothers cry with joy when they’re given soap. The small, commonplace thingsweoftentakeforgranted,hesaid,canmake a world of difference when reallocated.

“I know it sounds funny,” he said, “but that little bar of soap on the counter in your hotel room — that thing can literally save a life.”

https://thehustle.co/the-surprising-afterlife-ofused-hotel-soap

Image credit: Clean the World

TheAfricanExport-ImportBank(Afreximbank), Export Barbados (BIDC) and Invest Barbados invite you to the inaugural AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF), taking place from September 1-3, 2022 in Bridgetown, Barbados. The theme is – ‘One People. One Destiny. Uniting and Reimagining Our Future'.

The Forum will strengthen relations between the privatesectorsofthetworegionstoadvancetrade and investment.

The Forum will focus on business-to-business

engagementsandpaneldiscussionsonkeytopics, including:

• improving infrastructure, financing and trade logistics, including regional integration;

• creating the conditions to accelerate private sector investment;

• promoting trade and tourism; and

• improving agricultural productivity and expanding agribusiness opportunities and food security.

Register here byAugust 30th!

The First CRISPR Gene-editing Drug is Coming— Possibly as Soon as Next Year

By Sy Mukherjee

UNTIL RECENTLY, CRISPR—the gene-editing technologythatwonscientistsJenniferDoudnaand Emmanuelle Charpentier the 2020 Nobel Prize in chemistry—soundedmorelikesciencefictionthan medicine;lab-createdmolecular scissorsareused tosnip out problematicDNAsectionsinapatient’s cells to cure them of disease. But soon we could see regulators approve the very first treatment using this gene-editing technology in an effort to combat rare inherited blood disorders that affect millions across the globe.

In a $900 million collaboration, rare disease specialist Vertex and CRISPR Therapeutics developed the therapy, dubbed exa-cel (short for exagamglogene autotemcel). It has already amassed promising evidence that it can help patients with beta thalassemia and sickle cell disease (SCD), both of which are genetic blood diseases that are relatively rare in the U.S. but somewhat more common inherited conditions globally.

Betathalassemiaischaracterizedbydamagedor missinggenesthatcausethebodytoproduceless hemoglobin (an essential protein that transports oxygen), potentially leading to enlargement of the liver, spleen, or heart, and malformed or brittle

bones. It is estimated to afflict 1 in 100,000peopleintheworld,andregular blood transfusions are necessary to stave off its most serious effects.

Whiletheexactstatisticsareunknown, SCD is estimated to affect 100,000 people in the U.S. and millions around the world; it is attributed to a defective genethatcausesmalformedhemoglobin that are stiff, sticky, and sickle-shaped (hence the name) and can thus block healthy blood cells from transporting oxygen around the body.

Exa-cel reportedly slashed the need for blood transfusions or incidence of serious, lifethreatening medical events for months to years after patients received the treatment. New and impressive clinical trial results were announced at a major international medical conference in June and bolstered the companies’ prospect of producing the first gene-editing therapy of its kind to reach the broader market and patients.

The drug makers say they intend to submit exacel for regulatory approval in the U.S., U.K., and Europe by the end of this year, meaning the drug could receive marketing authorization sometime in 2023 as more and more biopharma companies pursue novel gene therapies.

Vertex and CRISPR Therapeutics’ therapy uses what’s called an “ex-vivo” application of CRISPR gene editing (one done outside the actual body): The patient’s stem cells are extracted, the cellular DNA is modified by exa-cel to spur the production of a type of hemoglobin that the body usually makes only in infancy, and the modified cells are put back into the patient in order to boost healthy

hemoglobin and red blood cell production.

The latest exa-cel clinical data, unveiled during the 2022 European Hematology Association Congress in Switzerland, found that all 75 patients with either beta thalassemia or SCD given the gene-editing therapy showed zero or a greatly reducedneedforbloodtransfusions(inthecaseof beta thalassemia) or incidences of life-threatening blockages (in the case of SCD). All but 2 of the 44 patients with thalassemia hadn’t needed a single blood transfusion in the 1 to 37 months of followup after the treatment’s administration, and the remaining 2 had 75% and 89% reduction in how much blood they needed transfused.

Similarlyimpressive,all31patientswithasevere and life-threatening form of SCD experienced no vaso-occlusive crises (the life-threatening incidents in which healthy blood is blocked from moving freely) in anywhere from 2 to 32 months of posttreatment follow-up. Those same patients usually experienced, on average, nearly four of thesecrises per year for the twoyears beforethey received exa-cel.

CRISPR isn’t the only type of gene therapy that’s made waves in just the past few weeks. Earlier in June, a group of advisers to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave unanimous recommendationsforapairofnon-CRISPR-based genetherapiesfromBluebirdBio.Thetreatments targetgenesassociatedwithbetathalassemiaand a rare disorder afflicting children called cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy (CALD). The latter is a disease that eats away at white brain matter in children as young as 4, has few treatments, and usually leads to death within 5 to 10 years.

Bluebird’s eli-cel therapy has faced clinical setbacksbecauseofitsassociationwithhigherrisk of a type of cancer, but the independent advisers decided its benefits still outweighed the risks for some patients with few other options. The FDA doesn’t have to follow the recommendations of its advisory panels, but typically does.

There are about 20 cell and gene therapies (thoughnonebasedon CRISPR gene editing)that have received FDA approval to date. According to MIT’s NEWDIGS drug development program, more than 60 gene and cell therapies could be on the U.S. market by 2030. That could lead to a transformation in how we think about incurable conditions, with gene and cell therapies potentially being used to treat everything from rare diseases to HIV to heart disease.

Drug discovery is a long and unpredictable process.Buttheimpactthatgeneeditingcanmake indrugdevelopmentandhowwethinkofdiseaseis already clear.As Jon Moore,chief scientific officer at biotechnology company Horizon Discovery, said in 2016, “The targets we’re finding with CRISPR . . . are going to guide the drugs coming out in the 2020s.”

The early potential of exa-cel just six years later would suggest that’s a reasonable bet.

https://www.afdb.org/en/news-and-events/pressreleases/african-development-banks-boardapproves-landmark-institution-establishmentafrican-pharmaceutical-technology-foundationtransform-africas-pharmaceutical-industry-52727 Image credit; explorebiotech.com, appadvice. com, cbi.mit.edu

African Development Bank’s Board Approves Landmark Institution:

Establishment of African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation to Transform Africa’s Pharmaceutical Industry

THE AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK’SBoard of Directors has approved the establishment of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation, a new groundbreaking institution that will significantly enhance Africa’s access to the technologies that underpin the manufacture of medicines, vaccines, and other pharmaceutical products.

African Development Bank Group President, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina said: “This is a great development for Africa. Africa must have a health defense system, which must include three major areas: revamping Africa’s pharmaceutical industry, building Africa’s vaccine manufacturing capacity, and building Africa’s quality healthcare infrastructure.”

During the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa in February 2022, the continent’s leaders calledontheAfricanDevelopmentBanktofacilitate the establishment of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation. Adesina, who presented the case for the institution to the African Union said: “Africa can no longer outsource the healthcare security of its 1.3 billion citizens to the benevolenceofothers.”Withthisboldinitiative,the AfricanDevelopmentBankhasmadegoodonthat commitment.

The decision is a major boost to the health prospects of a continent that has been battered for decades by the burden of several diseases and pandemics such as Covid19, but with very limited capacity to produce its own medicines and vaccines. Africa imports more than 70% of all the medicines it needs, gulping $14 billion per year. Globaleffortstorapidlyexpandthemanufacturing

of essential pharmaceutical products including vaccines in developing countries, particularly in Africa, to assure greater access, have been hampered by intellectual property rights protection and patents on technologies, know-how, manufacturing processes and trade secrets.

African pharmaceutical companies do not have the scouting and negotiation capacity, and bandwidth to engage with global pharmaceutical companies. They have been marginalized and left behind in complex global pharmaceutical innovations. Recently, 35 companies signed a license with America’s Merck to produce Nirmatrelvir, a Covid-19 drug. Noneof them was African.

No institution exists on the ground in Africa to support the practical implementation of Trade RelatedIntellectualPropertyRights(TRIPs) on non-exclusive or exclusive licensing of proprietary technologies, know-how and processes.

The African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation will fill this important and glaring gap. Whenfullyestablished,itwillbestaffedwithworldclass experts on pharmaceutical innovation and development, intellectual property rights, and healthpolicy;actingasatransparentintermediator advancing and brokering the interests of the Africanpharmaceuticalsectorwithglobalandother Southern pharmaceutical companies to share IPprotected technologies, know-how and patented processes.

Adesina said “Even with the decision of the TRIPS Waiver at the World Trade Organization (WTO), millions are dying -and will most likely continuetodie-fromlackofvaccinesandeffective

protection.TheAfricanPharmaceuticalTechnology Foundation provides a practical solution and will help to tilt the access to proprietary technologies, knowledge, know-how and processes in favor of Africa”.

The World Trade Organization and the World HealthOrganization,respectively,welcomedand laudedtheAfricanDevelopmentBank’sdecisionto establish the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation.

The Director-General of the World Trade Organization, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said “The African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation is innovative thinking and action by the African Development Bank. It provides part of the infrastructure needed to assure an emergent pharmaceutical industry in Africa”.

The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, said “Establishing the African Pharmaceutical TechnologyFoundation,bytheAfricanDevelopment Bank, is a game changer on accelerating the access of African pharmaceutical companies to IP-protectedtechnologiesandknow-howinAfrica”.

The African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation will prioritize technologies, products and processes focused primarily on diseases that are widely prevalent in Africa, including current and future pandemics. It will also build human and professional skills, the research and development ecosystem,andsupportupgradingofmanufacturing plant capacities and regulatory quality to meet World Health Organization standards.

While the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundationisbeingestablishedundertheauspices of the African Development Bank, it will operate independently and raise funds from various stakeholders including governments, development finance institutions, philanthropic organizations among others.

The Foundation will boost the African Development Bank’s commitment to spend at least $3 billion over the next 10 years to support the pharmaceutical and vaccine manufacturing

sector under its Vision 2030 Pharmaceutical Action Plan. The Foundation’s areas of work will also be an asset to all other current investments into pharmaceutical production in Africa.

Rwanda will host the African Pharmaceutical TechnologyFoundation.Acommonbenefitsentity, the Foundation will have its own governance and operational structures. It will promote and broker alliances between foreign and African pharmaceutical companies.

The African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation will strengthen local pharmaceutical companies toengage inlocalproductioninitiatives withsystematictechnologylearningandtechnology upgrading at the plant level.

The Foundation will work with African governments, research and development centers of excellence to strengthen the regional pharmaceutical andvaccineinnovation ecosystem forAfricaandbuildskillsofthekindneededforthe pharmaceutical sector to flourish.

It will also promote closer coordination of the various ongoing medicines and vaccines’ manufacturing initiatives at the regional level to increasecollaborativelinkages,leveragesynergies and partnerships in a pan-African context.

The African Pharmaceutical Technology FoundationwillworkcloselywiththeAfricanUnion Commission, European Union Commission, the World Health Organization, the Medicines Patent Pool, the World Trade Organization, philanthropic organizations, bilateral and multilateral agencies and institutions, and will foster collaboration betweenthepublicandprivatesectorsindeveloped countries and developing countries.

https://www.afdb.org/en/news-and-events/pressreleases/african-development-banks-boardapproves-landmark-institution-establishmentafrican-pharmaceutical-technology-foundationtransform-africas-pharmaceutical-industry-52727

https://www.afdb.org/en/news-keywords/africanpharmaceutical-technology-foundation

Image credit: regtechafrica.com

Governance

EPA: ‘Forever Chemicals’ Pose Risk Even at Very Low Levels

By Matthew Daly

THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

AGENCY is warning that two nonstick and stainresistant compounds found in drinking water are more dangerous than previously thought and pose health risks even at levels so low they cannot currently be detected.

The two compounds, known as PFOA and PFOS, have been voluntarily phased out by U.S. manufacturers, but there are a limited number of ongoing uses and the chemicals remain in the environment because they do not degrade over time. The compounds are part of a larger cluster of “forever chemicals” known as PFAS that have been used in consumer products and industry since the 1940s.

The EPA recently issued nonbinding health advisories that set health risk thresholds for PFOA and PFOS to near zero, replacing 2016 guidelinesthathadsetthemat70partspertrillion. The chemicals are found in products including cardboard packaging, carpets and firefighting foam.

At the same time, the agency is inviting states and territories to apply for $1 billion under the new bipartisan infrastructure law to address PFAS and othercontaminantsindrinkingwater.Moneycanbe usedfortechnicalassistance,waterqualitytesting, contractor training and installation of centralized treatment, officials said.

Several states have set their own drinking water limits to address PFAS contamination that are far tougher than the federal guidance. The toxic industrial compounds are associated with serious health conditions, including cancer and reduced birth weight.

“Peopleonthefront-linesofPFAScontamination have suffered for far too long,” EPA Administrator MichaelRegansaidinastatement.“That’swhyEPA is taking aggressive action as part of a whole-ofgovernment approach to prevent these chemicals from entering the environment and to help protect concerned families from this pervasive challenge.”

Radhika Fox, EPA’s Assistant Administrator for water, announced the actions at a national PFAS Conference in Wilmington, North Carolina, where PFAS contamination was discovered in the Cape Fear River watershed.

PFAS is short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which are used in nonstick frying pans, water-repellent sports gear, stain-resistant rugs, cosmetics and countless other consumer products. The chemical bonds are so strong that they do not degrade or do so only slowly in the environmentandremaininaperson’sbloodstream indefinitely.

The revised health guidelines are based on new science and consider lifetime exposure to the chemicals, the EPA said. Officials are no longer confident that PFAS levelsallowed under the2016 guidelines “do not have adverse health impacts,″ an EPA spokesman said.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File) Sawasawa)

While the new guidelines set acceptable risk below levels that can currently be measured, as a practical matter the EPA recommends that utilities takeactionagainstthechemicalswhentheyreach levelsthatcanbemeasured—currentlyaboutfour partspertrillion,asenioradministrationofficialtold reporters Tuesday night.

The EPA said it expects to propose national drinking water regulations for PFOA and PFOS later this year, with a final rule expected in 2023.

In a related development, the EPA said that for the first time it is issuing final health advisories for two chemicals that are considered replacements forPFOAandPFOS.OnegroupisknownasGenX chemicals, while the other is known as PFBS. Health advisories for GenX chemicals were set at 10 parts per trillion, while PFBS was set at 2,000 parts per trillion.

Theagencysaidtheadvisoriesprovidetechnical information that federal, state and local agencies can use to address PFAS in drinking water, including water quality monitoring, use of filters and other technologies that reduce PFAS, and strategies to reduce exposure to the substances.

Environmental and public health groups hailed the announcement as a good first step. Advocates have long urged action on PFAS after thousands of communities detected PFAS chemicals in their water. PFAS chemicals have been confirmed at nearly 400 military installations and at least 200 million people in the United States are drinking water contaminated with PFAS, according to the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization.

“EPA hadthe courageto follow thescience.This is a step in the right direction,″ said Stel Bailey, co-facilitator of the National PFAS Contamination Coalition.

ErikOlson,seniorstrategicdirectorforhealthand food at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said “the science is clear: These chemicals are shockingly toxic at extremely low doses.” He called on the EPA to regulate all PFAS chemicals “with enforceable standards as a single class of chemicals.”

Melanie Benesh, legislative attorney for the Environmental Working Group, said EPA’s announcement “should set off alarm bells for consumers and regulators” alike.

The American Chemistry Council which represents major chemical companies, said EPA’s announcement “reflects a failure of the agency to follow its accepted practice for ensuring the scientific integrity of its process.”

While the advisories are nonbinding, “they will havesweepingimplicationsforpoliciesatthestate and federal levels,″ the group said. “These new levels cannot be achieved with existing treatment technology and, in fact, are below levels that can be reliably detected using existing EPA methods.”

The Chemours Co., a DuPont spinoff that uses GenX chemicals to produce fluoropolymers used in semiconductors, mobile phones, hospital ventilators and other products, called the EPA’s announcement “fundamentally flawed.′ It said the agency “disregarded relevant data and issued a health advisory contrary to the agency’s own standards and this administration’s commitment to scientific integrity.”

The company said it is evaluating next steps, “including potential legal action, to address the EPA’s scientifically unsound action.″

An investigation by the state of North Carolina found that Chemours had discharged GenX from its Fayetteville Works plant into the Cape Fear River for years. EPA chief Regan was the state’s top environmental official when the investigation began and led negotiations that resulted in cleanup of the river. Gov. Roy Cooper and his current environmental chief unveiled a threepronged strategy last week address further efforts to reduce a broad category of PFAS chemicals in water sources.

Legislation passed by the House would set a national drinking water standard for PFAS and direct the EPA to develop discharge limits for a range of industries suspected of releasing PFAS intothewater.ThebillhasstalledintheSenate. https://qz.com/africa/2147718/the-drc-is-nowofficially-part-of-the-east-africa-community/

Top Producer Russia Thwarts Move to RedeÞne 'Conßict Diamonds'

By Helen Reid

RUSSIA, SUPPORTED BYBelarus, Central African Republic, Kyrgyzstan and Mali, has torpedoed a Western-backed proposal to discuss whether its diamonds are funding war ahead of an international conflict diamond meeting in Botswana, letters seen by Reuters show.

The rift in the Kimberley Process (KP), which certifies rough diamond exports, risks paralyzing the body which makes decisions by consensus.

The letters, which have not been previously reported, show a dispute over a proposal by Ukraine, the European Union, Australia, Britain, Canada,andtheUnitedStatestodiscussRussia's invasion of Ukraine and whether to broaden the KP'sdefinitionofconflictdiamondstoincludestate actors at its June 20-24 meeting in Botswana.

The United States and Britain have already placed sanctions on Russia's Alrosa (ALRS.MM), the world's largest producer of rough diamonds, which accounted for around 30% of global output last year, and is partly state-owned. read more

A draft agenda dated May 20 included an hourlong slot to discuss the issue, but the item was removed after objections from Russia, Belarus, Central African Republic (CAR), Kyrgyzstan, and Mali.

"We find ourselves at an impasse," Botswana's KP chair Jacob Thamage told participants - who include 85 nations, industry representatives, and civilsocietyorganisations-inaJune9letterurging them to find common ground.

The KP defines conflict diamonds as gems used to fund rebel movements seeking to undermine legitimate governments.

Officially labelling Russian diamonds "conflict diamonds" would require widening the definition. The KP CivilSociety Coalition has been calling for such a change for years, along with some KP member countries.

The certification scheme, designed to eliminate the trade in so-called "blood diamonds", was set up in 2003 in the wake of devastating civil wars in Angola, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, which were largely financed by the illicit diamond trade.

Russia's KP delegate said in a May 20 letter that the situation in Ukraine has "no implications" for the Kimberley Process and is "absolutely beyond the scope" of its certification scheme.

Belarus, CAR, Kyrgyzstan and Mali all similarly argued that the proposal was "political" or outside the scope of the KP, and that its inclusion on the agenda was inappropriate. All four countries have backed Russia in recent United Nations General Assembly votes.

War-torn CAR is the only country in the world currently under a partial KP embargo for rough diamond exports. Russia, with which it has close trade and security ties, has worked to lift those restrictions.

Mali also has close ties with Russia. Hundreds of Russian military contractors have deployed there since the beginning of this year to help the government fight insurgents.

"If the Kimberley Process is to be a credible guarantor that diamonds exported with a KP certificateareactuallyconflict-free,itcannotrefuse to consider the valid questions that have been raised about whether rough diamonds exported by Russia are financing its invasion of Ukraine," Canada's Ioanna Sahas Martin wrote to the KP chair earlier this month.

In a letter to the chair on Monday, Ukraine KP representative Andrii Tkalenko proposed two amendments tothecertificationscheme:Towiden the definition to include government actors, and

▲ Polished colorless and yellow diamonds produced at "Diamonds of ALROSA" factory in Moscow, Russia April 30, 2021. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva/File Photo

◄ A rough diamond, from the Boda region, is displayed for sale in Bangui May 1, 2014. REUTERS/Emmanuel Braun/File Photo

to allow KP countries, by a majority vote, to expel a country that infringes on another KP member's sovereignty.

Britain, the European Union and the United StatesalsosaidRussiashouldstepdownfromthe KP committees it currently chairs. read more

"Inaction would undermine the credibility and integrity of the Kimberley Process not only as a conflict prevention mechanism but also as a trade regulation mechanism," the European Commission's Marika Lautso-Mousnier said in a letter.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/04/04/ it-s-not-too-late-to-fix-the-climate-crisis-5-otherthings-to-know-about-today-s-ipcc-repo

Belgium is Returning Patrice Lumumba’s Tooth 60 Years after his Assassination

By Faustine Ngila

ATOOTH.ASTATEFUNERAL.Anapology.About 61yearsaftertheassassinationofDRC’sfreedom

Therewillbethreedaysofofficial

hero

Patrice Lumumba underthebackingofthe country’s colonial master Belgium,preparations areunderwayforhisofficialfuneralinKinshasa.

Allthatremainsofthecountry’sheroisagolden toothafterhismutilatedbodywasdissolvedin sulfuricacidandthetoothkeptasa“huntingtrophy.”

InJanuary1961, Belgian police commissioner GerardSoeteorderedafiringsquadtokillLumumba andtwoofhiscabinetministersandensurethatno evidencewouldbefoundforthecrime.Hetooka decisiontomakethebodiesdisappearonceandfor all.Hewouldlaterdescribetheordealastraveling “tothedepthsofhell”ina1999documentary.

Lumumba’sbodywasfirstburiedinashallow grave,exhumed,transported200km,hackedinto pieces,andfinally dissolved in acid butthetooth waskeptasa“huntingtrophy”bySoete.Therewere reportsofasecondtoothandtwoofLumumba’s fingersbuttheyhaveneverbeentraced.Itremains unclearonwhatSoetedidwiththetoothfor56 years.

“Thisisareminderofwhathappenedwiththe Nazis,takingpiecesofpeople—andthat’sacrime againsthumanity,”Lumumba’sdaughterwho receivedthetoothinBrussels,Juliana,toldthe BBC.

CongolesewanttohonorLumumbawitha burialworthyofhim

Lumumba’sfamily received a bright blue box containingthetoothinBrusselsonJune20,with Belgiumsayingthelegalroutetheyfollowedtogetit hadfinallyledthemto‘justice.’Theboxwasplaced inacasketandflowntoDRConJune21.Itwillbe takenroundthecountryforpublicviewingbefore beingburied.

nationalmourning—fromJune27toJune 30—wherecitizenswillberemindedof Belgium’scolonialdarkpastthatcaused theirfirstprimeminister’skillingonJan. 171961agedonly35inthesouthern regionofKatanga.Acondolencebook hasbeenopenedinBrussels.

Belgium is returning assassination. ©

OnJune22,thecasketandtheentire delegationleftKinshasatoLumumbaville— namedafterLumumba—inthecentral provinceofSankuruwherehewasbornin 1925.Thisiswherethefamilywillleadthe mourning.TheywillalsotraveltoKisangani, northeastoftheDRCwherehissupporters heldprotestsfollowinghisdeath.Afterthat, thecoffinwillbetakentothesiteofhis assassination—Lubumbashiinthesouthern provinceofHaut-KatangaonJune26.

ThetoothwillreturntoKinshasaonJune 27,andflagswillbeflownathalf-mastduring themourningperiodtillJune30,DRC’s IndependenceDay.Astateburialceremony willbeconductedonthesamedayatthe PatriceEmeryLumumbaMemorialin Kinshasa.

Belgium is returning assassination.

AshorrificasLumumba’smurderandthe desecrationofhiscorpsewas,theywerenot isolatedincidentsduringtheoppressiveyearsof colonialruleinAfrica.Itwasonlyin1985thatthe remainsof King Gungunhana,thelastemperorof theGazaempireinMozambiquewerereturnedto hispeople.In1895hewasexiledaloneinisolation intheislandofAzoresinthemiddleoftheAtlantic oceanforfightingagainstPortuguesecolonialrule. Hedied11yearslater.

In2019,theBritishmuseumreturnedtwostolen

locksofhairtoEthiopiabelongingto Emperor Tewodros II,whokilledhimselfratherthanface capturebyBritishforcesin1868.Thetroopstook hisseven-year-oldsonPrinceAlemayehutotheUK alongwiththelootedtreasures.

The groundbreaking 2018 report bySenegalese economistFelwineSarrandFrenchhistorian BénédicteSavoycallsfortherestitutionofAfrica’s lootedassets—includinghumanremainsthatare stillondisplayinEuropeanmuseums.Upto90% ofsub-SaharanAfrica’smaterialculturallegacyis

outsideofthecontinent,accordingtothereport.

Belgium’sapologyfortheiratrocitiesinthe DRC

TheBelgiangovernmentseizedthetoothin 2016afterLumumba’sfamilyfiledalawsuit.

Belgium’sKingPhilippethismonthtraveled toKinshasa to apologize foratrocitiesunder Belgianracistandbrutalrulethatledtodeaths andmutilationsofmillionsofpeople.

“Itisn’tnormalthatBelgiansheldontothe remainsofoneofthefoundingfathersofthe Congolesenationforsixdecades,”Belgian primeministerAlexanderDeCroosaid during a speech onJune20.Hesaidhiscountrybearsa moralresponsibilityoverthekilling.

“Iwouldlike,inthepresenceofhisfamily,to presentinmyturntheapologiesoftheBelgian government.Amanwasmurderedforhispolitical convictions,hiswords,hisideals.”

Ashamedbyitscallouscolonialactions, Belgium named a square inBrusselsafter Lumumbain2018hopingitwouldhelpimprove relationsbetweenthetwocountries.

CurrentDRCprimeministerJean-MichelSama LukondesaidLumumba’sdeathandsuppressionof hissupportershurtnotonlyvictims’familiesbutthe countryasawhole.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/belgium-isreturning-patrice-lumumba-s-tooth-60-years-afterhis-assassination/ar-AAYJAPM

Source: https://qz.com/africa/2180562/belgium-isreturning-patrice-lumumbas-tooth-60-years-afterhis-assassination

Related video: Patrice Lumumba, uncompromising independence fighter - https://www.msn.com/en-za/ video/other/patrice-lumumba-uncompromisingindependence-fighter/vi-AAYE6Uq

returning Patrice Lumumba’s tooth 60 years after his

Provided by Quartz

returning Patrice Lumumba’s tooth 60 years after his

Provided by Quartz

RwandaAmongCountriesChosenforAfCFTAPilotTrading

By Alice Kagina

Commission, in a cheerful mood during the launch AfCFTA in Kigali on March 21, 2018.

RWANDA HAS BEEN picked among countries set to start trading under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) framework in a pilot phase that also involves six other countries.

The move seeks to test the environmental, legal and trade policy basis for intra-African trade, accordingtotheGhana-basedAfCFTAsecretariat.

Countries picked to participate in what’s known as the AfCFTA Initiative on Guided Trade were announced during the 9th meeting of the AfCFTA Council of Ministers in the Ghanaian capital of Accra on Monday, July 25.

The other pilot countries include Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius and Tanzania. The seven countries were selected from 36

countries that had expressed interest in trading under the pilot phase. Each of the applicants had submitted its tariff schedule.

AccordingtotheAfCFTASecretariat,theinitiative seeks to demonstrate that AfCFTA is functioning and send a political message to countries that are yet to submit their provisional schedules of tariff concessionsinaccordancewithagreedmodalities.

The initiative will identify companies, products, customs procedures, and logistics processes required to enable trade to happen under the AfCFTA, officials said.

AntoineKajangwe,DirectorGeneralofTradeand Investment at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, said Rwanda will now begin to access markets in

Moussa Faki Mahamat, the Chairperson of the African Union

launch of

westandcentralAfricaonpreferentialrates,witha reduction in duties having begun in 2021.

“Over time, this will increase Rwanda’s intraAfrican exports, spur industrialisation through economies of scale, increase employment in productivejobs,andleadtostructuraltransformation of Rwanda’s economy,” he said.

Western African countries such as Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, Chad, and Benin are said to presentgreatpotential fortradeandinvestmentfor Rwanda’s private sector.

Rwanda will trade identified products across agro-processing, manufacturing and construction materials. These include pesticides; insecticides; telephones;textiles;processedfoodssuchasflour, milk, cheeses, vegetables, and other horticulture products, Kajangwe said.

“We will be working with the private sector to encourage many economic players to take advantage of this initiative and trade,” he added.

According to the AfCFTA modalities, 90% tariff offer fall under category A, which covers products thatwereliberalisedin2021.Thiswillprogressively be reduced over 10 years.

Sevenpercentgetliberalisedover15yearswhile 3% of products are excluded from tax exemption.

Kajangwe noted that Rwanda had reached this threshold and it was technically verified by the AfCFTA Secretariat.

Recently, the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) launched a comprehensive tool that measures how easy, or hard, it is to do business between African countries.

Known as the AfCFTA Country Business Index (ACBI),itisexpectedtoassesstheperceivedimpact ofthecontinentaltradeareaontheprivatesector’s ability to trade and invest across African borders once the free-trade framework is operational.

AfCFTA, the largest free trade zone in the world, covers 54 African countries, 43 of which have alreadyratifiedtheagreement,with39stateparties officially recognised, including Rwanda.

The landmark agreement, signed in Kigali in March 2018, envisions a continental market of 1.2 billion people, with a combined Gross Domestic Product of more than $3.4 trillion.e markets where the calling app is widely used. https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/rwandaamong-countries-chosen-afcfta-pilot-trading

Image credit: constitutionnet.org, nationalpedia. com, Wallpaper Cave, https://www.ebay.com, flagz.co.nz, EWN Sport

Cameroon

Kenya

Mauritius Rwanda

Tanzania

Egypt

Ghana

Central African Republic to Create its Own Digital Currency After Becoming the First to Adopt Bitcoin in Africa

By Ngozi Nwanji

INAPRIL,theCentralAfrican Republicbecamethefirstin thecontinenttoadoptBitcoin. Now,thecountryhasitsowndigitalcurrencyinthe works,accordingto Bloomberg

TheCentralAfricanRepublic'sDigitalCoinIs OnTheWay

Theupcomingcurrency— Sango Coin —is aimingtohelptheCentralAfricanRepublic(CAR) furtherbuildoutitsfinancialindustry.Duringavirtual briefing,PresidentFaustin-ArchangeTouadera statedthatthenewdigitalcoin“willbethecurrency forthenextgeneration,”pertheoutlet.

Earlierthisyear,CARbecamethesecondcountry toadoptBitcoin,followingElSalvador.

Itsexpectedreleasedatemaybeinthethird quarterandtheCAR’snation’streasurywill reportedlyhold20%oftheSangoCoin.

ConcernsAroundTheSangoCoin

Whilethepotentialrollouttimeframehasbeen shared,nofurtherdetailshavebeengivenby Touaderaquiteyet.Thelackofinformationis similartowhenthenewsbrokeoutofCARadopting Bitcoin.Thecountry’splanaheadhasbroughtforth concernssince“it’soneoftheworld’spoorest countrieswithsignificantinfrastructuregaps.”

“TheCentralAfricanRepublicsitsonamountain ofresources—gold,diamonds,rareminerals, unexploitedresources.SangoCoinwillenablethe directaccesstoourresourcesforthewholeworld,”

Touaderasaidinresponsetotheraisedconcerns.

However,it’sreportedthatmajorityofCAR’s budgetcomesfromdonors,aswellasonly557,000 ofitspopulationhaveaccesstotheInternet.

Ghana'sDigitalCurrency

PreviouslyinJune2021,AfroTechreported onGhanalaunchinganewdigitalcurrency— e-cedi.Thefirst-of-its-kinddigitalcurrencyinAfrica wasproposedtohavethreepilotstagesbefore confirmationofitbeingapositiveforthelocal economy,accordingtoDr.ErnestAddison.Also,the missionbehinditistomoveconsumersawayfrom decentralizedcryptocurrencieslikeBitcoin—that waytheycanhaveamoresecureoption.

“TheBankofGhanawasoneofthefirstAfrican CentralBankstodeclarethatwewereworkingona digitalcurrencylookingattheconceptofane-cedi,” Dr.AddisonsaidatanewsconferenceinAccra,at thetime.

Headded:“Fromthatpilot,wewillbeableto determinewhetherthisisfeasibleandwhatsort ofthingsneedtobetweakedtomakeitwork effectively.”

https://afrotech.com/central-african-republicsango-coin-digital-currency?item=3

Image credit: mitsoftware.com

By Andrew Jeong

LT.GEN.MICHAELE.LANGLEYwillbecomethe firstBlackfour-stargeneralintheMarines’246-year history,afterthe Senate confirmed hispromotion onAugust1st,theMarineCorps saidTuesday.

Langley willformallyattainhisnewrankata ceremonyinD.C.thisweekend,theMarinessaid. HewillthenbecomethenewheadofU.S.Africa CommandatitsheadquartersinStuttgart,Germany. There,hewilloverseeabout6,000troops.President BidennominatedhiminJune.

Inhisconfirmationhearinglastmonth,Langley thankedhisfather—whohadservedintheAirForce for25years—aswellashisstepmotherandtwo sisters.“Asmanynomineeshavesaidintestimony beforeme,militaryfamiliesformthebedrockupon whichourJointForcereadinessstands,”hesaid. “Withouttheirsupport,Iwouldnotbeheretoday.”

TheMarineCorpshashadahandfulofBlack three-stargenerals,includingLangley,whowas promoted to that rank lastyear.OtherAfrican Americanshavealsoearnedfour-starranksin otherbranches,includingDefenseSecretaryLloyd Austin,aretiredArmygeneral.

AnativeofShreveport,La.,Langleyhasserved for37years,withtoursofdutyinJapan,Afghanistan andSomalia.HewascommissionedasaMarine artilleryofficerin1985andhascommandedatevery level—fromplatoons,whichcanhaveafewdozen members,toregiments,whichcanhaveseveral thousandtroops.Hisintellectualandphysical prowess,combinedwithhismediationskills,has impressed his superiors overtheyears.

RetiredGen.RobertNeller,theformerMarine commandantfrom2015to2019,summedup Langley’sreputationintheMarinesinaninterview withTheWashingtonPostbeforehisconfirmation: “Hegetsstuffdone,andpeopletendtolikeworking forhim.”

Athisnewdutystation,Langleywillcomeup againstconventionalandunconventionalmilitary challenges.

InAfrica,theU.S.militaryisinasupportingrole, helpingAfricancountriesbuilduptheirforcesand monitoringRussianandChineseactivities.Direct combatisuncommon.Butresurgentterroristgroups suchasal-Shababarenationalsecuritythreatsto theUnitedStates,whileAmericantroopshavealso suffereddeadlyattacksinrecentyearsinNigerand Kenya.

LangleywillalsobetaskedwithhelpingAfrican partnerscombatclimatechange,populationgrowth andpoliticalinstability.

Langleyacknowledgedthehybridnatureofhis missioninhisconfirmationhearing,tellingsenators that“militarypoweralone”wouldnotbeenough. “Theyrequireanintegrationofdiplomaticefforts fromDepartmentofState,developmentendeavors fromUSAID,andcomprehensivestrategiesfrom otheralliesandpartnersoperatinginAfrica,”he said

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nationalsecurity/2022/08/03/michael-langley-first-blackfour-star-marine-general/

Big Tech Companies in the Spotlight as South Africa Investigates Dominance Abuse

By Annie Njanja

BIGTECHCOMPANIESarefacingincreased scrutinyinSouthAfricafordominanceabuseand anti-competitivebehavior,justmonthsafterthe country’scompetitionregulator,the Competition Commission (CompCom),startedaninquiryinto theconductofonlineintermediation(b2c)platforms.

Initsinitialfindings,theregulatorhasestablished thatApple,Google,UberEats,Airbnb,Booking. com,andSouthAfrica’sMrDelivery;afoodordering anddeliveryplatform,Takealot;ane-commerce site,PrivatePropertyandProperty24;bothreal estateclassifieds,andcarclassifiedsAutotrader andCars.co.za;haveanunfairadvantageas marketleaders,andareoperatinginwaysthat impedecompetition.

Theinquiryteamisseekingfurtherevidence,if any,frompartiesaffectedbythe“competition… conductormarketfeature”oftheseplatforms.Itis alsoseekingcommentsregardingfindingsinthe report,asitmovesintothefinalphaseoftheinquiry, whichwillincluderemedialaction.

GoogleandApple

NotingGoogle’smonopoly,theregulatorstated thedefaultpositioningofitssearchengineon androidandiOSmobiledeviceswasproblematic. Thestudyalsotookissuewiththeprominenceof paidsearchresults(thosethatappearatthetopof thepage),indicatingalackofcleardistinctionfrom organicsearchfindings.

Thereportrecommendedthatthetopsearch resultsbeorganicallygenerated,advertsdistinctly shadedorlabeled,andpaidresultspositionedat thebottomoftheresultspage.

ItfurthercalledforanendtoGoogle’spreference foritsownspecialist(shopping,travelandlocal) searchtools,sayingthattheybarcompetitionfrom aggregators,comparatorsitesandonlinetravel

agencies.

“Googlemustaffordcompetingmetasearchor specialistsearch(includingtravel,localandother), comparatorsites(shoppingorother)andonline travelagentsthesameopportunitytoprovidecontent andvisualrichimpressionsorunitsthatitaffords itsownspecialistshopping,travelandlocalsearch units.Googlemaynolongerimposeminimumbid thresholdsforpaidresults,”CompComsaidinits provisionalremedies.

Italsorecommended“anendtodefault arrangementsforGoogleSearchoniOSand AndroiddevicessoldinSouthAfrica.”

In-appstores,itnoted,“completeexclusionof competingsoftwareappstoresandside-loading byApplewhichimpedeseffectivecompetitionfor commissionfees.”Thedefaultarrangementsof GooglePlayonandroiddevices,theCommission said,hasaffectedcompetitionfromotherandroid softwareappstores.

TheregulatoralsofingeredtheGooglePlayPoints loyaltyscheme,whichitsays,isfundedbyextracting discountsfromappdevelopers,astrategyitfound

tohinder competition fromsmaller players.

“Alackof competition hasresulted inexcessive commissionfees tothedetriment ofSouthAfrican appdevelopers, publishersand consumersofapps acquiredthroughtheSA storefrontrequiringin-app payments,”

“…giventhatApplewill notallowcompetitionand refusestocompromiseon security,andGooglePlay hasbecomeentrenched, thereneedstobearemedy thateitherregulatesthese platformsorsuccessfully takestransactionsoffthe storesaltogethersothey cannotbemonitoredandtaxed.Forthisreason, theInquiryisoftheviewthateitherthereisprice regulationoracompleteendtoanti-steering provisionswhichwererecommendedbythecourtin theEpic-Applecase,”saidCompCominthereport.

Initsprovisionalrecommendations,the Commissioncalledforanendtoanti-steering provisionsforallappsandfrontedtheendof exclusionaryloyaltyschemes,aswellasthedefault arrangementoftheGooglePlaystoreonandroid devices.

“Intermsofanendtoanti-steeringprovisions,the inquiryexpectsthatthiswouldinvolvetheability forappstocommunicateanalternativeexternal paymentmechanismandprovideaclickablelinkto makeapayment.”

Fooddeliveryplatforms

CompComalsorecommendedanendtothe restrictionsimposedonfranchiseesbyinternational restaurantchains,especiallyintheselectionof

fooddeliverypartners.Othersuggestionsincluded theremovalofpriceparityclauses(whichrequire suppliersnottoofferbetterorlowerpricesin otherortheirownplatforms)fromcontracts,end ofpredatorypricing,andfortransparencywith consumers–especiallyonthesurchargesforeach restaurant.

Additionally,itproposedtheremovaland prohibitionofpriceparityclausesusedbytravel andaccommodationplatforms,Booking.comand Airbnb,whichwerefoundtoimpedecompetition throughlowercommissionsandpricesthatinturn increaseconsumerdependency.

Theseplatformswerealsofoundtoleverage “importantvisibilityontheirplatform”togetdiscounts fromaccommodationandtravelproviderstofund theirownloyaltyschemes.CompComfoundthe practiceunfairtosmallplayersthatcannotleverage thesame.Itwentontorecommendtheremoval ofexclusionaryloyaltyschemes,sayingsuch programsshouldbefully-fundedbythecompanies. E-commerceandclassifieds E-commerceplatformswerefoundtostifle competitionastheydisincentivizedsellersfromprice differentiationacrossplatformsanddistortedpricing inthemarketthroughsubsidization.CompCom suggestedthatTakealot,amarketleader,removes priceparityclausesandendpredatoryconduct, “oralternativelytheCommissiontoconsider investigationandprosecutionofpredatoryconduct asasuitabledeterrent.”

Forlistingplatforms,theinquiryfaultedthelack ofinteroperabilityofthelistingenginesoftware usedbySouthAfrica’stopclassifiedsplatforms (Property24,PrivateProperty,AutotraderandCars. co.za)impededcompetition.Interoperabilityand thescrappingoffees,toincludethird-partylisting platformswererecommended.

https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/16/big-techcompanies-in-the-spotlight-as-south-africainvestigates-dominance-abuse

Image credit: blogspot.com, Deccan Chronicle, pinterest.com, besthotelshome. com, adsoftheworld.com,TechCentral, indianamortgage76.blogspot.com, youthvillage.co.za, abdussamad.co.uk, cars.co.za

African Stock Exchange/Bourse

•Algeria

Algiers Stock Market

•Angola Angola Stock Exchange and Derivatives

•Botswana Botswana Stock Exchange

•Cameroon Douala Stock Exchange

•Cape Verde Islands Bolsa de Valores of Cape Verde (in Portuguese)

•Cote de Ivoire Bourse Regionale des Valeurs Mobilieres - UEMOA (Abidjan)

•Egypt

The Egyptian Exchange

•Ethiopia Ethiopia Commodity Exchange

•Ghana Ghana Stock Exchange

•Kenya Nairobi Stock Exchange

•Libya Libyan Stock Market

•Malawi Malawi Stock Exchange

•Mauritius Stock Exchange of Mauritius

•Morocco Casablanca Stock Exchange

•Mozambique Bolsa Valores de Mocambique

•Namibia Namibian Stock Exchange

•Nigeria Nigerian Stock Exchange Nigerian Stock Exchange

•Rwanda Rwanda Stock Exchange

•Seychelles Seychelles Securities Exchange

•Somalia Somali Stock Exchange

•South Africa Bond Exchange of South Africa Johannesburg Stock Exchange Johannesburg Stock Exchange

•South Sudan Khartoum Stock Exchange

•Swaziland Swaziland Stock Exchange

•Tanzania Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange

•Tunisia Tunisia Stock Exchange

•Uganda Uganda Securities Exchange

•Zambia Lusaka Stock Exchange

•Zimbabwe Victoria Falls Stock Exchange

•Zimbabwe Zimbabwe Stock Exchange

Port Louis, Mauritius blog.travelcenter.uk

Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson Acquires Sports Metaverse Teams, Joins

SimWin Sports as Owner, Investor & Advisor

By Derek Major

BASKETBALL HALL OF FAMER and business titan Earvin ‘Magic” Johnson announced his acquisition of football and basketball franchises in SIMWin Sports.

SimWin Sports is the first professional sports league where virtual teams and athletes compete 24/7/365 to fuel on-demand fantasy sports contests. The teams are all owned by sports figures, celebrities, and investors.

Businesswire reports that SimWin Sports is built on proprietary Web3 technology and each player ownershippresentsauniquebusinessopportunity, sharing in multiple league revenue streams, earning salaries, performance bonuses, fantasy sports, and secondary marketplace revenues.

“I’msoexcitedtobeinvolvedwithSimWin,which isblazingatrailinoneofthehottestnewbusiness sectorsandhas a great team leading the charge,” Johnson told Businesswire. “This multibilliondollarbusinessisabouttotakeoffandtheSimWin model is an excellent way for sports fans to get involved in this groundbreaking opportunity. I look forward to contributing to its growth and success.

Get ready for the Inaugural Draft Class NFT player drop coming soon. I might just draft one of your players for my team.”

Johnson joins an impressive group of SimWim franchiseownersthatincludesNFLHallofFamers JerryRice,MarshallFaulk,andMikeSingletary. Basketball legends Tracy McGrady and Penny Hardaway as well as current NBAplayer LaMelo Ball, are also franchise owners.

The gaming industry, both virtual and traditional, has seen a significant boom in recent years as video games have become more popular with kids and the COVID-19 pandemic forcing many to connect with friends and family through online gaming. The industry generated more than $180 billion last year according to NewZoo.

SimWin sports games run on an innovative AI player performance model that allows each digital athlete to develop throughout the season with atrophy and hot and cold streaks. This will help generate the most accurate simulation and data oftraditional sports,unlockingreal-money gaming opportunities for fans.

“From every stage of his career, Magic has inspiredasatranscendentsuperheroforpeopleof all races, but particularly as a Black entrepreneur. His transformation from one of the most impactful careers in the history of sport, to an even more successful business leader has inspired generations ofminorityentrepreneurslike me.We at SimWin strive to follow in his steps as we build this incredibly innovative sports Metaverse.” said DavidJOrtiz,founderandCEOofSimWinSports. “From his first game to his last, Magic crafted the modern NBA into must-watch TV. With his help, SimWinSportsiscreatingasportsMetaversethat will deliver Showtime to sports fans 24/7/365, so they never miss out on the action.”

https://www.blackenterprise.com/earvin-magicjohnson-acquires-sports-metaverse-teams-joinssimwin-sports-as-owner-investor-and-advisor image credit: Getty Images/Emma McIntyre

Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe sold for an all-time record price of 135 million EUR to establish “Mercedes-Benz Fund”

A MERCEDES-BENZ300 SLR Uhlenhaut

Coupe from 1955 has been sold at auction for a recordpriceof135millionEURtoaprivatecollector.

This icon of automotive history is an absolute rarity – one of justtwo prototypes built at the time.

Namedafter its creatorand chief engineer, Rudolf Uhlenhaut, it is considered to be one of the finest examples of automotive engineering and design byautomotiveexpertsand enthusiasts worldwide.

"The300SLRUhlenhautCoupesaremilestones in sports car development and key historical elements that have shaped our brand. The decision to sell one of these two unique sports cars was taken with very sound reasoning – to benefit a good cause. The proceeds from the auction will fund a global scholarship program. With the "Mercedes-Benz Fund" we would like to encourage a new generation to follow in Rudolf Uhlenhaut's innovative footsteps and develop amazing new technologies, particularly those that

supportthecriticalgoalofdecarbonizationand resourcepreservation,"saysOlaKällenius,CEO of Mercedes-Benz Group AG. "At the same time, achieving the highest price ever paid for a vehicle is extraordinary and humbling: A Mercedes-Benz is by far the most valuable car in the world."

"As a global company and as a luxury brand we bear a great level of responsibility towards society," says Renata Jungo Brüngger, Member of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG for Integrity and Legal Affairs, who is responsible for the governance of the "MercedesBenz Fund". "The proceeds from the sale of the 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe provide us with a unique opportunity to strengthen our commitment with a long-term flagship project: Wewill establish the global scholarship program "MercedesBenz Fund" supporting young people in their studies, commitment and actions towards a more sustainable future. We are convinced that access

to education in these areas will be crucial in encountering the great challenges of our time and contribute to greater stability, prosperity and social cohesion."

Seed capital for scholarship program from proceeds

The proceeds from the auction of the 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe serve as seed capital for the global initiative. Mercedes-Benz is committed to investing additional resources in the coming years. The "Mercedes-Benz Fund" will be divided into two sub-categories: University Scholarships in order to connect, educate and encourage students to realize/conduct research on environmental science projects and School Scholarships focusing on pupils to realize local environmental projects in their communities. The program funds will be directed to individuals who otherwise do not have the financial meansfortheirprojectsandcareerpaths. The program will go beyond financially supporting the youngpeopleandincludeextracurricularelements like Mercedes-Benz mentorships opening up new career prospects. The "Mercedes-Benz Fund" will be jointly developed with and managed by an experienced partner which is currently being evaluated. The detailed set-up and roll-out planning as well as the partner organization will be announced later this year.

History and auction of 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe

The sale of the 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe took place on May 5th at an auction held at the

Mercedes-Benz Museum in cooperation with renowned auctioneer RM Sotheby's. The invitees were among selected Mercedes-Benz customers and international collectors of cars and art, who share the corporate values of Mercedes-Benz. The 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe sold at auction was part of the non-public vehicle collection belonging to Mercedes- Benz Classic, comprising more than 1100 automobiles from the invention of the automobile in 1886 until today.

"We are proud that we can contribute with our historical collection to this initiative connecting the past with the future of engineering and decarbonization technology", says Marcus Breitschwerdt, Head of Mercedes-Benz Heritage. "The private buyer has agreed that the 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupewillremain accessible for public display on special occasions, while the second original 300 SLR Coupe remains in company ownership and will continue to be displayed at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart."

Thespecialcircumstancesbehinditscreation,its unique design and its innovative technology have endowed the 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe with a remarkable level of mystique that endures to this day.The design of the 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe setbenchmarksthatputitamongtheworld'smost significantautomotiveicons–notleastonaccount of its distinctive "gullwing" doors. Added to this is the outstanding performance delivered by its thoroughbred racing technology. Together, both have secured the 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe its acclaimed position in sports car mythology and a very special place in the hearts of Mercedes fans around the world.

More information about the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe is available in our web special

https://media.mbusa.com/releases/the-mostvaluable-car-in-the-world-mercedes-benz-300slr-uhlenhaut-coupe-sold-for-an-all-time-recordprice-of-135-million-eur-to-establish-mercedesbenz-fund

Image credit: topgear.com.sg

Pharrell Williams, Contemporary Artist Nina Chanel Abney and Brand-Builder Shaun Neff Announce Launch of GameChanging NFT Platform

By Dan Bova

WHEN CONTEMPORARY artist Nina Chanel Abney, branding guru Shaun Neff and gallerist ToddKramerstarteddiscussingconceptsforNina’s first step into NFTs, they discovered something all great entrepreneurs are in search of: a problem.

“We felt there was a huge miss in the current market for an artist-trusted platform that’s highly curated,” Neff told Entrepreneur. “There are so many projects out there — from the super-legit to the infamous rug pulls — and it’s hard to seek out what is good and bad.”

And so Neff quickly did what he does best. He pulled together a super-team of talented and passionate artists and business leaders to build thethingtheyneededthatdidn’texist.Theresultis GODA(Gallery of DigitalAssets),a highly-curated NFTmintingplatformforsuccessfulandrespected contemporaryartists.“Thegoalistobuildatrusted art community within this new digital world,” says Neff.

Among the founding members of the GODA team is 13-time GrammyAward-winning visionary Pharrell Williams. “To me, with GODA we are building a bridge,” he explains. “It's effectively a bridge that gives world-class artists a clear, accommodating path to harness this new digital opportunity. Artists have traditionally relied on a centuries-old model, often exclusively. Done right, this is a new frontier.”

Nina Chanel Abney, whose large and vibrant works can be seen in museums around the world, says she is thrilled by the possibilities that GODA canbringto artists.“Iam alwayslookingtogointo

newplacesinwhichcontemporaryartistsorartists from underrepresented communities are not widely represented,” she explains. “I am entering a completely new territory, and while it was a bit overwhelming in the beginning by virtue of all of the new information I had to learn and process, it hasbeenextremelyexciting.Ihavebeenhavinga ton of fun learning and exploring this space.”

There’snoquestionthatNFTs havetransformed the art world, says Neff. The artistic and financial possibilities are limitless. “NFTs allow the artist to receive majority compensation for their work and a better way to build community. And the space opens up the door for more collectors and allows unique utility and benefits that traditional art can’t offer. Also, the ability to trade and sell direct is game-changing for art collectors.”

“WithGODA,we’remakingart–classicandnew age – much more accessible, more valuable, and opentomoreartists.Smartcontractshaveenabled a new level of empowerment,” adds Pharrell.

Despite the newness of the space and the still-

unknown possibilities that Web3 affords, the heart of this company remains within the passion and handsoftheartists.“Visually,thecreationprocess hasnotbeenmuchdifferentforme,”explainsNina.

“For my upcoming NFT project, I created traits by hand and then vectorized everything to further alter them.ThisisessentiallythesameapproachI take when creating many of my other projects like murals, commercial products and animation.”

For Pharrell, the process of collaborating on NFTs is no different than on other mediums.

“Whether you can make art on canvas or make

artonadigitalplatform,itstillrequiresthetalentto create something beautiful,” he says. “What I love aboutthisprojectishowmuchfurtherthatpieceof art can go.”

GODA, whose team also includes innovators EasyOtabor,J1mmy.ethandNickAdler,isgearing up to launch Nina’s NFT soon and while they wouldn’t share any details, Pharrell is confident it “is going to blow people’s minds.” Head to GODA for updates regarding the project, and to win a GODA Mint Pass that will allow you access to all future art drops.

“Iam hoping to beabletousemyNFTprojectto engagethesupportersofmyworkoutsideofsocial mediaandcreateabridgebetweenthedigitalNFT spaceandthephysicalartworld,”saysNina.“And I am looking forward to using the resources we’ve put together at GODAtosupport the endeavors of artists from underrepresented communities.” https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/428184 Image credit: youthfulinvestor.com

▲ Nina Chanel Abney Todd Midler

Pharrell Williams

Tiffany James used Investing to turn $10,000 into $2 Million, now she wants to help Black Girls Do The Same

By Derek Major

LIKE MOST COLLEGE graduates, Tiffany James left school with a degree and student loan debt which had her struggling.

However, in 2019, a coworker suggested she buystockinacompanynamedTeslawhenshares were between $60 and $70. Since then, James has turned her initial investment of $10,000 into more than $2 million by adding several long-term growth companies, semiconductor chip stocks and other investments.

Now, James is working to help other Black girls achieve their financial dreams through Modern BLK Girl, a wealth-building platform for women of color. Despite her success in the stock market, James told CNBC that she still sees herself as an outsider in a world of White men with “fancy degrees.”

Millions of new investors used the COVID-19 pandemic to get into the stock market as stock trading apps such as Robinhood took off. However, 59% of women and 48% of Hispanic women don’t own stocks, mutual funds, bonds, cryptocurrency or real estate.

James and a group of millennialwomenareworkingto changethatbysharinginvesting advice in a way that’s engaging and accessible, or what James refers to as “girlfriend talk but learning stocks.”

The approach is also catching on quickly as ModenBLKGirlhasmorethan220,000members. The site also hosts classes including its “1k to 100,000Kin1yr”atjustunder$100andamonthly subscription of about $130. Some classes are available for free for those who cannot afford the classes.

Jamessaidshe ishappytogiveother Blackand minority women advice on investing and the stock market, to give them financial freedom.

“Ifyoueducateawoman,youeducateavillage,” James said. “If a mom starts investing, she tells her kids.”.

https://www.blackenterprise.com/tiffany-jamesused-investing-to-turn-10000-into-2-million-nowshe-wants-to-help-black-girls-do-the-same/

Tiffany James, founder of Modern Black Girl (Image via Tiffany James)

‘They Have Shattered Barriers’: OnWallStreet,the NewBiggestPrivateEquityFirmsarerunbyBlack andLatinoBillionaires,andPeopleofColor.

By Steve Gelsi

IN FEBRUARY,

private equity firm Clearlake Capital Group purchased Endurance Internationalfor $3 billion and merged it with Web.com, which had been bought for $2 billion by another private equity firm, Siris Capital. On the surface, the resulting internet technology platform, Newfold Digital , was just another roll up of the Wall Street machine and immediately startedgobblingup other companies.

But the deal underscored a quiet shift that has been taking place in the $6 trillion private equity industry. BoththefirmsbackingNewfoldDigital were built by people of color. Clearlake is run out of Santa Monica, Calif., by José E. Feliciano,

who was born and raised in Puerto Rico, and Behdad Eghbali, who showed up in the U.S. as a child on a tourist visa with his family that was escaping Iran. Siris Capital’s main owner and chiefisFrankBaker,whoisAfricanAmericanand based in southern Florida.

BothfirmshavetakenWallStreetbystorm.Inthe last two years, Clearlake has nearly quadrupled its assets under management to $72 billion and is arguably the fastest-growing big firm in the industry. Clearlake was uniquely built in 2006 to focus on technology companies, and the oil and gas sector. It recently teamed up with billionaire Todd Boehly to buy the English Premier League’s Chelsea FC. Siris targets legacy technology companies and manages a sizable $7 billion. For decades, private equity has been atop the Wall Street food chain, run by billionaires who are sometimes referred to as “the Masters of the Universe.” They established firms like KKR Blackstone Group, the Carlyle Group and Apollo Global Management and their founders were almost always white. But a rapid change has come to the private equity industry as a group of racially diverse financial entrepreneurs have built the biggest and best new firms in the business. Their rise has been fast and stunning.

Orlando Bravo, who lives in Miami, became the first Puerto Rican billionaire as founder of Thoma Bravo, a private equity firm that now boasts $103 billionin assets under management,while Robert Smith became the nation’s wealthiest Black person by founding and running Vista Equity Partners, which oversees $93 billion. Adebayo “Bayo” Ogunlesi, a Nigerian who now calls New

York home, is the founder and chairman of Global InfrastructurePartners,whichmanages$81billion. BillionaireRamziMusallam,aPalestinianwhowas born in Jordan, controls Veritas Capital in New Yorkwith$40billion.CombinedwithClearlakeand Siris, these American firms manage nearly $400 billionandrepresentthemostpowerfulinvestment operations to emerge on the private equity stage over the last decade.

“They have shattered barriers,” said David Fann, vice chairman of Aksia, a firm that advises institutional investors on the alternative sector.

These firms, led by people of color, succeeded by mastering new investment areas, like software orinfrastructure,thatpreviousprivateequitytitans ignored or missed. “The ability to feel a little bit different is very motivating,” Bravo has said “Maybethat’swhatallowedustothinkasateama bitdifferentlyabout softwareinthe year2000,and think about it as a cash flow and growth business, not just a venture business.”

In an interview, Siris’ Baker said many of the successful private equity firms built by people of color operate in industries that have more racial diversity and outpaced the roots of private equity in the industrial sector. He said it’s more common for a tech CEO in Silicon Valley to be a child of immigrants who felt a bit out of place at school andbattledthroughadversitytobuildasuccessful business.

“Private equity has been largely driven by white menbuyingbusinessesthatwerealsoledbywhite men. This made a lot of sense given their shared experiencesfacilitatedstrongrelationships,”Baker said,addingthatatechCEOismorelikelytohave shared experiences with private equity investors who are people of color. “If you think about why the scaled PE firms led by people of color are in technology, I don’t think it’s complicated.”

How They Beat the Odds

Overall,mostofthepeoplewhorunandworkfor Wall Street investment firms and private market businesses are white. While some change has taken place, there has not been a large increase in racial diversity, according to the 2021 annual

investment consultant survey conducted by the nonprofit DiverseAsset Managers Initiative.

“Whiletherehavebeencommitmentstodiversify, the actual demographic figures have barely budged,” said Robert Raben, executive director of the Diverse Asset Managers Initiative. “What’s more, research shows that most asset owners believe they must choose between financial gains and incorporating diversity — a misconception that has been debunked by studies time and time again.”

While Black people comprised 12.4% of the U.S. population in the 2020 U.S. census, their representationintheinvestmentbusinessamounts to 7%. The U.S. population remains about 62% white, but 72% of all investment staffers are white, the investment consultant survey shows. Representation of Hispanics in investment managementtotalsabout7%,comparedto18.7% in the U.S. census.

Among senior leaders and owners in the investment management space, the contrast is morestark.Seniormanagement is89%white and 11% non-white, while firm owners are 79% white and 21% non-white.

It was against this kind of backdrop that in 1998 Orlando Bravo showed up at Chicago-based privateequityfirmThomaCresseyEquityPartners. The firm’s co-founder, Carl Thoma, was willing to hire Bravo to work for the firm in San Francisco, Bravo said. Although earning both MBA and law degrees from Stanford University, Bravo found it hardtogettheattentionoftheventurecapitalelite on Sand Hill Road inSilicon Valley.

“Iwasneverpartoftheventureclub,theventure community,”Bravosaid.“Thatmayhavejustbeen meandithadnothingtodowithmybackgroundor myaccent.Thefewoffersfromprivateequityfirms that Igot whenI graduated —theywereallfor the LatinAmerican group of this or that.”

Hired to work on information technology transactionsintheBayArea,Bravo’searliestdeals were in start-ups engaged in web site design and theylostmoney.Butinmakingtheseventure-style investments, Bravo started to recognize earlier than most the value of software companies as generators of cash flow. At the time, the private equity industry didn’t see software companies as

logical targets for leveraged buyouts and many banks were reluctant to lendagainst their assets, which were essentially lines of code.

Bravo distinguished himself by leading the firm in its 2003 acquisition of distribution software maker Prophet 21 for $23 million as Thoma Cressey’s first private equity deal in the space. Two years later, in 2005, Activant Solutions Inc. paid $218 million to buy Prophet 21, earning Thoma Cressey a return of five times its investment.Around that time, Thoma Cressey became Thoma Cressey Bravo before changing its name to Thoma Bravo in 2008. The firm focused exclusively on software companies and the results were incredible. The fund that Thoma Bravo raised in 2008 generated a net annual internal rate of return of 44.7%, an investor document shows.

With Bravo in charge, the firm grew quickly and embarked on larger deals. One major example was its 2019 purchase of mortgage processing software company Ellie Mae for $3.2 billion. A year later, Thoma Bravo sold the company to InterContinental Exchange for $10.7 billion. The firm bought Compuware for $2.4 billion in 2014, carved out its data provider Dynatrace DT and took it public in 2019 for $16 a share. Thoma Bravo then sold about $3.8 billion of stock, leaving it with a

roughly 29% stake, securities filings show. The stock recently changed hands for $41.60, giving it a market capitalization of nearly $11.9 billion.

Bravo’s firm is now the biggest private equity firm in the world founded in the last 25 years. In aninterview,BravosaidhisHispanicoriginhelped him look at software deals differently. “We’ve very humble not to take anything for granted — so that makes us very open to embrace things that are neweranddifferent,” hesaid.“Sincewedon’ttake anything forgrantedand wedon’tfeel wedeserve anything, we have that mentality.”

Bravowasnottheonlypersontoseethepotential in building a private equity investment model aroundsoftwarecompanies.Thesonoftwoschool principals in Denver, Robert Smith was bused to a school in a white section of town as part of desegregation.An engineer by training, he turned to Wall Street and got a job as a tech investment banker after graduating from Columbia Business School.In2000,hefoundedhisownprivateequity firm,VistaEquity,andstartedinvestingexclusively in enterprise software companies. Vista became a raging success and was eventually able to get banks to back its software deals. The fund Smith raised in 2009 posted a net annual internal rate of return of 39%, an investor document shows, and Smith became famous for his philanthropic activities, like his pledge to pay off all the student debt of the class of 2019 at the historically Black Morehouse College, a gift of $34 million.

TheoriginsofSmith’ssuccess,however,arenow miredincontroversy.After hebecamethenation’s richestBlack person,Smith in 2020agreed to pay $139 million in a non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Justice Department in connection with what prosecutorsdescribe asthelargesttaxfraud in U.S. history. Smith had launched Vista with $1 billion of seed money from a single investor, Texas software entrepreneur Robert Brockman, whom prosecutors have charged with evading $2 billion in taxes, largely by concealing capital gains earned through Vista funds. The criminal case against Brockman is now set for trial.

The deal with the U.S. government allowed Smithtokeeprunninghissuccessfulprivateequity

business, which has counted 90-plus private equity and permanent capital transactions in the last 12 months including the blockbuster $14.5 billion pending acquisition of Citrix Systems Inc. Smith declined to comment for this story.

Airports, Ports and Infrastructure Assets

WhileBravoandSmitharewellknownassoftware buyoutpioneers,BayoOgunlesihascarefullykept a low profile as founder and chairman of Global Infrastructure Partners. But among Wall Street insiders, Ogunlesi is a power broker, running one ofthebiggestprivateequityfirmstoemergeinthe last decade and also sitting on Goldman Sachs’s board as its lead director.

BornandraisedinNigeria,Ogunlesicametothe

U.S.to attend Harvard University, where he graduated with a law degree and MBA. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall before heading to

General Electric’s infrastructure unit, and formed a $1 billion joint venture that quickly evolved into Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP).

Ogunlesi decided to specialize in three areas — water and wastewater, energy, and transportation infrastructure assets, targeting gross returns of 15% to 20%, well above the low-to-mid-teens objectives of other infrastructure funds. GIP’s operating team of industry executives was largely madeupofpeoplethatworkedatGeneralElectric Co. during the Jack Welch era, with a focus on productivity and efficiency.

“What we’ve found out about these men and women is when you turn them loose on infrastructure businesses, they’re actually able to makeahugedifference,”OgunlesitoldtheOregon retirement system board in late 2018.

GIP invested in ports, wind farms and pipelines. In one of its more prominent deals, GIP in 2009 bought for $1.9 billion Gatwick Airport, the U.K.’s second busiest airport. The financial crisis was raging at the time and other investors shied away duetoasharpdropincorporatetravelactivity.But the sector recovered and GIP invested another $500 million to make improvements, finding ways to boost revenue. Using big conveyor belt trays at X-ray machines, GIP sharply increased the numberofpassengersecurityscreeningsperhour at Gatwick, leaving passengers with more time to shop in the terminal, Ogunlesi said during his presentation in Oregon.

In late 2018, GIP sold a controlling stake in GatwicktoVinciAirportsforabout$3.6billionafter an investment of about $2.4 billion. GIP retained a 21% stake in the airport, with a value of about $1.4 billion, while continuing to co-manage the airportwithVinciasco-owner.ThefundGlPraised in 2007 generated a net 17% annual internal rate of return, and helped attract new investors to Ogunlesi’s model.

WallStreet,whereheworkedfor23yearsatCredit Suisse, rising to the position of global investment banking chief.

But in 2006, Ogunlesi had the notion that investors would gravitate to a private equity investment style focused on infrastructure assets that could provide good returns with less risk. He teamed up with Bill Woodburn, the head of

Ogunlesi assiduously avoids publicity, with one notable exception. In 2016, Ogunlesi joined then President Donald Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum along with 15 other corporate CEOs, like JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, BlackRock’s LarryFink,andBlackstone’sStephenSchwarzman. The group mutually agreed to disband in the wake of Trump’s comments related to the white

supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017. Ogunlesi declined to speak to MarketWatch.

‘Being in the Right Place at the Right Time and TakingAdvantage of what was in Front of us’

In 1994, Frank Baker started as a junior analyst atGoldmanSachswithafirmunderstandingofthe people who had helped him get there. In addition to his father, a Detroit-area engineer and plant manageratFordMotor,BakerknewthatSponsors for Educational Opportunity played a crucial role. The non-profit group supports young people from underserved communities and helped Baker land a summer internship at Goldman Sachs.

Baker had studied economics at the University of Chicago, where he also played football and remains the all-time leading rusher in the school’s modern era with 4,283 yards, as well as a twotime Academic All-American. Sports Illustrated described Baker as “a supernova. A bruising fullback with the brains of a college professor.” He workedfortwoyearsasamergersandacquisitions analystatGoldmanSachs,followedbynearlythree yearsas acapital markets associateat JPMorgan Chase&Co.In1999,hemovedintoprivateequity at Ripplewood Holdings as a managing director, where he reached another major turning point in his career and moved to Japan.

Working for Ripplewood in Japan, Baker quickly became a partner and felt like he was running much of his own business by the early 2000s. He often focused on technology companies that had fallen out of favor or seen growth slow, and the experience made him want to start his own firm once he moved back to New York City.

Baker founded Siris in 2011, zeroing in on publicly traded tech companies to take private, withafocusonbusinessesintransition.Hesought outmatureorlegacy,slow-growthtechassetsthat generated free cash flow and were being ignored in the public markets.

His effort to build his own Wall Street business wasaidedbytheemergingmanagersprogramfor new and diverse private equity firms run by the massive Texas Retirement System (TRS). The first-time investments under the TRS program rangefrom$10millionupto$30million.BothSiris

and Clearlake secured early backing under the program that helped them get their start.

“Many of the traditional firms lacked diversity, particularly ata leadershiplevel forpublicpension plans, especially given the diversity of their constituents,” Baker said. “It became critical to them that the opportunity to lead a private equity firm was open to everyone.”

That kind of initial investment has played a big role in the emergence of firms built by people of color. At Clearlake, whose founders declined to commentforthisstory,75%ofthefirm’semployees are considered people of color.Ramzi Musallam’s Veritasbecameoneoftheprivateequityindustry’s topperformingfirmsbyfocusingonhowthebiggest player in markets, the government, intersects with technology. Joe Benavides was a partner at Veritas Capital before co-founding his own firm, OceanSound Partners, which closed a new fund in February with $780 million in commitments. Benavides saidOceanSound’s fund stands out as having the most assets under management for a first-time, Hispanic-managed private equity fund.

In the same spirit, Baker has tried to give the kinds of boosts he received to others. Together with his wife, he recently gifted $1.2 million for a scholarship program at Florida A&M University to initially pay outstanding balances for spring and summer 2022 graduates. In 2020, they also set up a $1 million scholarship program at Spelman College, a historically Black women’s school in Atlanta, to pay off remaining balances for women that would have been unable to earn a degree otherwise. In its first year, the effort helped nearly 50 women graduate Spelman.

“We’re no different than anyone else,” Baker said. “It’s partly due to being in the right place at therighttimeandtakingadvantageofwhatwasin front of us.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/ they-have-shattered-barriers-on-wall-street-thenew-biggest-private-equity-firms-are-run-byblack-and-latino-billionaires-and-people-of-color/ ar-AAYbYt2

Image credit: aaaim.org, PR Newswire, logos. wikia.com. PRWeb, EFE

Black Bread Co. Founders Give Back, Provide Investment Opportunities for all Income

By TheGrio Staff

THE FIRST BLACK-OWNED sliced bread business inAmerica(USA) isn’tjust about making money.It’salsoaboutgivingbacktothecommunity.

Founders of the Chicago-based Black Bread Company are going to Chicago Public Schools to talktostudentsabouttheirsuccess.Theyarealso offering investors a low-cost way to buy shares in the company through an equity crowdfunding campaign.

“You can start a business, be successful in businessandstillbeaboutyourpeopleandwhere you come [from],” Charles Alexander, a founder of the Black Bread Company, told CBS Chicago. Jamel Lewis and Mark Edmond round out the founder’s group.

The enterprise started in February 2021, more

than 90 years after the unveiling of thefirst breadslicing machine, which took place in 1928, and the saleofWonderBread’s firstcommerciallysold product in 1930.

Alexander said their company wants to visit 30 Chicago public schools in 30 days to show Windy City students they, too, can be successful, accordingtoWBBM-TV.Thatwouldbringthethree BlackBreadCompany partnersbacktotheir roots since they all graduated from Kenwood Academy in Chicago.

Additionally, they are offering the public a total of 10% actual equity in the business, allowing potential investors to participate for as little as $250ashare.“Weareintentionalwithhavingalow minimum in order to give everyone an opportunity

tobuysharesregardlessoftheireconomicstatus,” Alexander says on the Black Bread Company website.

Their plan seems to be working. Lewis told WBBM-TV that more than 1,000 people have invested over $700,000 in the venture, which is now valued at $51 million.

“We’reproudofthat,beingpartofourcommunity learning and growing together and being open to new ideas and ownership,” said Lewis.

According to CBS Chicago, the bread is distributed from a warehouse in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood and sold in 70 stores across the region, plus shipped internationally.

The company gained notoriety in February when Alexander, Lewis and Edmond appeared on Profiled: The Black Man, a new four-part Discovery+ docuseries created by the Oprah Winfrey Network. Then, in March, the trio appeared on Ellen, where host Ellen DeGeneres presented them with a $20,000 check to support their business operations.

“When we launched, we literally had $1.87,” Lewis told DeGeneres. “But we pulled together all of our resources, our savings. Our families have made sacrifices for us to be here, and that’s how seriousweareaboutthiscompanyandpresenting somethingthatcanchangegenerationsforpeople that look like us around the world.”

https://thegrio.com/2022/06/27/black-breadcompany-founders-all-income-investmentopportunity/

Also Read: Black Bread Co. featured onTina Knowles-Lawson docuseries

Image credit: Screenshot/blackbreadco.com

Black Bread Co. Invest Today

#BREADWINNERS EXCITING NEWS…

WE ARE PROUD to announce that our official Black Bread Company equity crowdfunding campaign is LIVE on StartEngine, NOW. Have you considered investing in an impactful brand? Click on our campaign page to learn about your opportunities to invest: This brand is for US #100Years100Reasons #Invest

Take the first step [CLICK TO INVEST].

TheBlackBreadCompanyisoffering10%equity to the public. The minimum buy-in for shares is $250. Charles Alexander, Co-Founder says, "We were intentional with having a low minimum in order to give everyone an opportunity to buy shares regardless of their economic status." One of our mantras is 'This brand is for US' and we wholeheartedly stand by this statement. It is our hope that everyone, regardless of race, gender, or economic class will join our Breadwinners community as investors. We believe that with the additional capital support, together we will make The Black Bread Company one of the top bread companies in the world!

Self-agency is Key for Venture Capital in Francophone Africa

By Ndeye Diarra Diobaye

Senegal's Minister of Economy, Planning and international cooperation Amadou Hott speaking at an event © Provided by Quartz

WHEN IT WAS ANNOUNCED recently that Fenty Beauty and Fenty Skin (see page 20 and Dawn June issue page 21), would be available in Africa, some fans rejoiced and others were disappointed. Those who were disappointed were found in countries which were not listed as part of the official launch and have gotten used of feelingleftoutbyinternationalbrands’intentionsof conquering African consumer markets.

There is indeed a tendency for brands to have

a very distorted image of the African continent, one which consistently eclipses those countries that are part of what is famously called “Francophone Africa.”

The expression is loosely used to describe the twentysomething countries in west and central Africa where French is often spoken in urban centers and speaks directly to France’s colonialheritage.Fromadistance,thesecountries wouldappear to marketersas complex.Outside of theDemocraticRepublicofCongo,thesecountries have in common small territories and populations.

Francophone Africa attracts minimal VC funding compared to the rest of the continent

Investorsoftencometoasimilarconclusion.The African Venture Capital Association’s 2021 report (pdf) on Private Equity activity has shown how the past year set new records with the total value

of deals reaching $7.4 billion. West Africa was the most attractive region in 2021, attracting 33% of the overall amount of deal shares, yet the region owes its pole position to Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy.

2021 showed encouraging signs for Francophone countries with the region registering its first unicorn by the way of Wave, a mobile money services provider that took on telecom giant Orange forcing it to match its competitive offer for transactions services. The startup’s $1.7 billion valuation sent an important signal to VC investors on the lucrative deals that could exist beyond the imaginary language barrier.

ItwasnotcoincidentalthatAVCAchosetolaunch therecentreportinDakar,Senegal.AVCA'schoice to turn Dakar into the “capital of private equity” for the week-long event in the words of Papa Ndiaye, the founding partner and CEO of AFIG Funds—a globalprivateequityfundmanagementcompany— enabled investors to discover an entire ecosystem and a side of the continent they had never seen before.

The presence of Senegal's minister of economy, AmadouHott,attheopeningceremonyshowcased the French-speaking region's recent trend of appointingbusiness-savvy,bilingualleaderstokey government positions to woo investors.

Changing the perception of Africa as an investment destination

The matter of perception remains an issuefor all

African economies. The doomsday announced at the very early stage of the covid-19 pandemic was a perfect illustration of the distorted lens which is too often used to look at Africa. So how does one go about changing centuries old misconceptions and deeply rooted myths?

Some,likeNdiaye,believethatinfrastructureand institutionstoharnessthecontinuityofbusinessare important. Others like Tidiane Dème, the co-lead at Partech Africa Fund—a tech fund exclusively dedicatedtoAfrica'sdigitalmarkets—believesthat the talent pool will be instrumental.

Relying on perception alone may not be sufficient. African business affairs remain vastly underreportedbythemediaandwithoutaggressive marketing campaigns backed by governments or international organizations, mobilizing investors to come for a visit may not be as obvious. The pandemic has only worsened the skewed view of the continent.

Justasit isourownresponsibilitytopromoteour own countries, our own designers, perhaps we ought to recognize that it is also our responsibility to invest into our own economies.

Senegal is paving the way for crowding-in domestic capital to fund its local ecosystem with several vehicles ranging from WIC Capital, a fund dedicated to women entrepreneurs, funded by women investors, the Dakar Network Angels or eventherecentlylaunchedsubscriptionmodelfund Wuri Ventures. These vehicles can not only serve as models for other countries to replicate but can alsoplayadirectroleinbecomingambassadorsfor the region towards hesitant institutional investors.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/selfagency-is-key-for-venture-capital-in-francophoneafrica/ar-AAXUG1e

Source: https://qz.com/africa/2171727/self-agencyis-key-for-venture-capital-in-francophone-africa

Image credit: legit.ng

IT WAS THE SUMMER of 2018, and Ham Serunjogi, a 24-year-old Ugandan immigrant, thought the pitch he was making to a Palo Alto venture capital firm was going well. He had explained how his fintech startup, Chipper Cash, wouldenableAfricanconsumerstosendmoneyto eachother,acrossnationalborders,morecheaply and easilythantheantiquatedbankingsystem—a sort of Venmo for the continent.

Then came a question from one of the partners: “Why don’t you go look for donations and grants to fund this?” Because, Serunjogi replied, this will be a profit-making business. The clueless partner persisted: “Why don’t you talk to Unicef or an impact investing firm?” Serunjogi discreetly declinestonamethefirm,ortosaywhichVClater told him that “regardless of what the metrics are, I have to apply a discount to this business because it’s inAfrica.”

Thosememoriesstillsting,eventhoughChipper Cash has now raised $300 million from a roster of blue-chipVCs,mostrecentlyinNovemberata$2.2 billion valuation. “These were things I’d have to

How Two Africans Overcame Worth Billions

By Jeff Kauflin

take with a straight face. But it was outrageous, and it still is,” Serunjogi says from the San Francisco office where he, cofounder Maijid Moujaled and nearly a fifth of the company’s 350 employees are based.Thetwofounders each have an estimated 10% stake in Chipper, translating into paper fortunes north of $200 million.

Sheel Mohnot, a former partner at 500 Startups—Chipper Cash’s first backer—chalks up some early investor resistance to ignorance about Africa. “No one was investing in Africa at the time,” he says. That has changed. Per CB Insights,venturecapitalistsinvested$1.5billionin African fintech companies last year, up sevenfold from 2020. Sub-SaharanAfricans today have 605 million registered mobile money accounts—with which they can send cash via text message— up from 469 million in 2018. That makes the area fertile ground for more advanced consumer financial apps.

Four years after its founding, Chipper Cash has 5 million registered users in seven countries, includingUganda,GhanaandNigeria.Itoffersnot only low-cost money transfers but bill payment, crypto trading and the ability to buy U.S. stocks. Excludingcryptotransactions,itbookedmorethan $75millioninrevenuein2021,comparedwith$18 million in 2020.

The idea for Chipper Cash was seeded when high-school-age Serunjogi saw the problems his father encountered trying to move money through Africa’s ossified banking system. Serunjogi’s

Chipper president Maijid Moujaled and CEO Ham Serunjogi in their San Francisco headquarters, wherethey located for access to venture capital. ETHAN PINES FOR FORBES

Overcame Bias to Build a Startup

him he was about to miss rent. “I will be eternally grateful to him for that,” Serunjogi says.

Chipper’s free, easy-to-use app was a big improvement over the available alternatives. For example, Kenya’s M-Pesa, which launched in 2007, charges 1% to 2% for many domestic transfers.

family lived in Gayaza, a Ugandan town 10 miles outside Kampala, the capital. His parents owned a farm, and his father also ran an IT operation helping local businesses set up networks.Though hardly rich, the family sent Serunjogi and his two brotherstoaprivatehighschoolandenrolledthem in a competitive swim club. In 2010, Serunjogi, then 16, made the Ugandan Youth Olympic team. After having problems completing a bank transfer, his father was forced to fly to SouthAfrica with an envelope full of cash to pay his son’s swim coach while they were training there.

After high school, Serunjogi followed his older brothertoGrinnell,asmallliberalartscollegeinIowa knownfor itsstrong academics,whereboth swam varsity. At Grinnell he met Moujaled, a Ghanaian computersciencemajorwhohadstartedapopular studentcodinggroup.Almostimmediately,thetwo began talking about developing anAfrican money transfer app. But first they wanted real-world tech experience and needed work visas. So during his junior year Serunjogi sent cold emails to Mark ZuckerbergandSherylSandbergandsnaggedan internship with Facebook, which turned into a fulltime job in Dublin after he graduated in 2016.

Inthespringof2018,SerunjogitextedMoujaled, who was working as a software engineer in San Francisco, to say it was time to get going. Serunjogi quit his job and moved into Moujaled’s studio apartment, sleeping on an air mattress in the kitchenette. The two used their combined savings of less than $30,000 and Moujaled’s ongoing salary as seed capital. They launched a test version of their app in July 2018, letting customerssendmoneyfromUgandatoGhanafor free.

Theytookpitchestomorethan50VCfirmsuntil, in November 2018, 500 Startups agreed to invest $150,000.Beforethepapersweresigned,Mohnot wired $40,000 to Chipper after Serunjogi told

By mid-2019 Chipper Cash was available in Uganda, Ghana, Kenya and Rwanda. It soon expanded to Nigeria, Africa’s biggest market with morethan200millionpeople,andbytheendofthe year, it had 600,000 customers. It also introduced a foreign-exchange markup fee of 2% to 5% to start generating revenue. As bitcoin rose from $14,000 to $20,000 in the fall of 2020, Chipper began to let users buy and sell bitcoin and ether, establishing a second lucrative line of business: trading fees. It reached a $2.2 billion valuation in late 2021, with investment from firms including Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX, Ribbit Capital and Bezos Expeditions. Transactions grew from $200 million inthe first quarter of 2021 to$1.6 billion 12 months later.

All that growth comes with added high-stakes challenges. One is liquidity: Chipper needs to make sure it has enough funds in each country to support instant transfers. When it doesn’t, transaction times can slow to a full day or longer. Money can solve that problem. A bigger worry is competition. Senegal-based startup Wave offers similar services (albeit in different countries so far) and notched a $1.7 billion valuation last year. Other remittance companies such as Remitly and Wise don’t yet let people send money from one African country to another, but there’s nothing stopping them from entering the market.

For now, Serunjogi is focused on maintaining Chipper’s steep growth, moving to profitability— and helping Africans while doing so. Customers benefit,hesays,whentheycanmovemoneyeasily andhavenewwaystoinvestandbuildwealth.“I’m adeepbelieverintheroleofentrepreneurshipand capitalisminimprovingthelivesofpeoplewholive in developing countries.”

billions/

mitrobe.com

Zambia’s Union54 is Bringing Virtual Debit and Credit Cards to the Unbanked

By tawanda karombo

THE RISE OF E-COMMERCE on the continent,plusgreateraccesstoglobalsupply chains,presentsenormousupsideforbothbuyers and sellers. But taking advantage of that upside still often requires access to bank-underpinned debit and credit cards.

InZambia,only10%oftheadultpopulationuses a debit card.

In 2021, Perseus Mlambo and Alessandra Martini—an entrepreneur couple—founded Union54, Zambia’s first Y-combinator backed startup,asafintechspinofffromZazu,achallenger banktheyset-upaboutsixyearsearlier.Challenger banks are niche specialists that offer distinct techbackedfinancial services not availableatmajor or legacy banks.

Union54wassetupinreactiontothechallenges thatZazuexperienced.Relyingonlegacybanksto create debit cards for its users, Zazu often faced lengthydelaysandotherchallengesemblematicof dominant legacy banks’failure to expand financial inclusion.

Union54 developed a card-issuing application program interface (API)Union54 found a simpler way: software that enables other fintechs and companiestogeneratetheirowncardsinphysical or virtual format. “Our approach is unique in that forthefirsttimeeverallofthesefintechsthathave done really well in their home countries can do an integration with Union54; they can wake up and offer their customers a debit card,” Mlambo says. “Wearealsoabletoprocessvirtualdebitcardsfor online and e-commerce payments. We occupy a really unique position in that we allow all of these fintechs to be able to introduce debit cards.”

Union54, which raised $12 million in a seed extension round in April, says 100-plus fintech companies and 20-plus websites are using its

software. Mlambo says the latest funding will be used to expand beyond Zambia.

Mlambo believes in the unbundling of banking, and debit- and credit-card access for all African consumers saying, that the opportunities lie even beyond simply regular e-commerce.

“Remittances companies are also interested in enabling people who receive money from abroad to get physical credit cards, [which] they can link to their platforms to enable recipients to buy groceries and other cards for their websites.”

Union54’s ambitions are regional with the name representing the unification ofAfrica’s 54 nations.

Mlambo says, “Wedon’t see Zambiaas the only market for us. We see the whole continent as a potential market.”

Virtualcreditanddebitcardsaremakinginroads in AfricaOne of Africa’s largest telcos, Safaricom, launched a virtual card in partnership with Visa in June. This virtual card will allow customers of M-Pesa, a Safaricom joint venture, to send or receive payment from almost anywhere in the world. Safaricom is one of Africa’s mobile-money frontrunners, with over 30 million customers and a network of 3.2 millions businesses that accept M-Pesa.

FormanyfinanciallyexcludedAfricans,including those living outside urban centers, virtual credit cards may also be the only option available. That makes developing them a win-win situation for startups and potential customers.

https://senegalbgc.org/blog/2022/07/04/zambiasunion54-is-bringing-virtual-debit-and-credit-cardsto-the-unbanked/

Black-owned, African Spirits Group Receives $3 Million to Bring Africa to the World's Bar

By Atiya Jordan

HAILING FROM THE UK, entrepreneurs Chris Frederick and Damola

Timeyin are claiming the responsibility of bringing

authenticAfrican distilled and bottled spirits to the world’s bar.

According to a press release, the dynamic duo behind the multi-award-winning Spearhead, a Black-owned, African spirits group, has recently secured $3 million in funding from Pendulum, a strategic investment and advisory platform for founders and leaders of color. This investment propelsthespiritsgroupforwardastheyaccelerate itsglobalreach,enterintotheUnitedStatesmarket and reign as the first global, black-owned African spirits brand.

What’s more? More funding, new product Iines.

Launched in March 2021, Spearhead fills a gap in an industry where Black-owned, African spirits companies are few and far between. The co-founders, who met at university, saw a lack of diversity behind the bar and “thought we could change the narrative, make a product that spoke to us and highlight a unique perspective,” said Frederick, who has family origins in Ghana, per Master of Malt

The operation, which takes liquid from South Africa to America, the UK, France, and various other countries across the world, offers a growing portfolioof premiumbrands that includetwomultiaward winning spirits BayabGin and Vusa Vodka. Vusa is a premium copper distilled sugarcane Vodka fromAfrica. Image Credit: Spearhead

The duo may not distill the products themselves but are very intentional in putting the “best of Africainabottle,tomakeitapan-Africanproduct” including botanicals from Zambia, Botswana, and Madagascar,“especiallythebaobab,whichweget from a farm in Zambia, it’s quite unique so it’s got a different kind of taste profile,” Timeyin, a Britishborn Nigerian, told Master of Malt. Bayab is a premium copper distilled Gin from Africa. Image Credit: Spearhead

“Our brands not only increase diversity and challenge cultural bias in the sector, but being produced on the African continent allows us to show the world whatAfricans have always known about its culturally and resource rich continent, with products that compete on the world stage in taste and quality, as wellas innovation,”Frederick said, per the press release.

He added: “Pendulum’s investment will allow us to realise this vision globally; we are beyond excitedaboutthepartnershipandtheirbeliefinthis mission and the power of theAfrican continent.”

In a joint statement, Robbie Robinson, CoFounder and CEO, and Helen Wang, Senior AssociateofPendulumsaid,“Wecouldn’tbemore excited to work with Spearhead and its founders, Chris and Damola, to amplify the story of a truly differentiated platform that aims to embody and honor the diaspora. With this investment, we’re also thrilled to partner with Kenny Burns and Donae Burston, long-time industry veterans, to propel Spearhead’s growth and launch into the U.S. market.”

Look out for Spearhead!

Son of Sharecroppers, HBCU Grad was the Man who Fixed NASA’s Giant Space Telescope

By TheGrio Staff

IN 2018, GREGORY ROBINSON was asked to take over as director of a long-stalled NASA project that had cost the space program nearly $8 billion with a launch date that had been delayed foradecade.AndRobinson,adoubleHBCUgrad, saved it.

FormerlyNASA’sdeputyassociateadministrator of programs — where he had assessed the performance of more than 100 science missions, according to The New York Times — Robinson declined when he was first asked to direct the James Webb Space Telescope project.

But Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administratorforscience,toldTheTimesRobinson “had a kind of the confluence of two skills.”

“The first one is he had seen many projects, including projects that were in trouble,” said Zurbuchen. “And the second piece is he has that

interpersonal trustgaining activity. So he can go into a room, he can sit in a cafeteria, and by the time he leaves the cafeteria, he knows half of the people.”

The James Webb Space Telescope began in 2002, and it had an initial launch date of 2010 and a budget of $1 billion to $3.5 billion, but was pushed back to 2014. It was delayed for another four years to 2018, when Robinson joined as its program director. It was Zurbuchen who was able to convince Robinson to get it back on track.

With Robinson at its helm, the Webb telescope — which is supposed to gaze at some of the universe’s earliest stars — was finally launched on the Ariane 5 rocket on Christmas 2021. Since

◄ Gregory Robinson is the Director James WebbTelescope Program

Director of the

then, it has been a smooth deployment.

Thesonoftobaccosharecroppers,Robinsonwas the ninth of 11 children and was born in Danville, Virginia, attending a school for Black children until fifth grade, when his district campuses integrated in1970.HeearnedhiswaythroughVirginiaUnion University in Richmond on a football scholarship, later transferring to Howard University in Washington, D.C. He earned a bachelor’s in math from Virginia Union and a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from Howard.

As the Webb telescope’s program director, Robinsonassessedthatmanyoftheissueskeeping it out of spacewere the result of avoidablehuman

error. When he took over, he was able toboostefficiencyupto95%,withbetter communication, encouraging managers to be willing to share bad news.

“You needed somebody who could get the trust of the team, and what we needed to figure out was what was wrong with the team,” Zurbuchen toldThe Times. “The speed at which he turned this thing around was just astounding.”

At 62, Robinson is one of NASA’s highest-level Black managers.

“Certainly people seeing me in this role is an inspiration,” Robinson said, “and also it’s acknowledging they can be there, too.” https://thegrio.com/2022/07/12/hbcu-gradrobinson-fixed-nasa-giant-space-telescope/?utm_ medium=email

Image credit: mywinet.com, https://www.ebay. com

Meta has Built a Massive new Language AI—and it’s Giving it Away for Free

By Will Douglas Heaven

META’S AI LAB has created a massive new language model that shares both the remarkable abilities and the harmful flaws of OpenAI’s pioneering neural network GPT-3. And in an unprecedented move for Big Tech, it is giving it away to researchers—together with details about how it was built and trained.

“We strongly believe that the ability for others to scrutinize your work is an important part of research. We really invite that collaboration,” says Joelle Pineau, a longtime advocate for transparency in the development of technology, who is now managing director at Meta AI.

Meta’s move is the first time that a fully trained large language model will be made available to any researcher who wants to study it. The news hasbeenwelcomedbymanyconcernedaboutthe waythispowerfultechnologyisbeingbuiltbysmall teams behind closed doors.

“I applaud the transparency here,” says Emily M. Bender, a computational linguist at the University of Washington and a frequent critic of the way language models are developed and deployed.

“It’s a great move,” says Thomas Wolf, chief scientist at Hugging Face, the AI startup behind BigScience, a project in which more than 1,000 volunteers around the world are collaborating on an open-source language model. “The more open models the better,” he says.

Large language models—powerful programs that can generate paragraphs of text and mimic human conversation—have become one of the hottest trends in AI in the last couple of years. But they have deep flaws, parroting misinformation, prejudice, and toxiclanguage.

In theory, putting more people to work on the problemshouldhelp.Yetbecauselanguagemodels requirevastamountsofdataandcomputingpower totrain, they havesofar remainedprojectsfor rich techfirms.Thewiderresearchcommunity,including

ethicists and social scientists concerned about their misuse, has had to watch from the sidelines.

Meta AI says it wants to change that. “Many of us have been university researchers,” says Pineau. “We know the gap that exists between universities and industry in terms of the ability to build these models. Making this one available to researchers was a no-brainer.” She hopes that others will pore over their work and pull it apart or build on it. Breakthroughs come faster when more people are involved, she says.

Timnit Gebru

Metaismakingitsmodel,calledOpenPretrained Transformer (OPT), available for non-commercial use. It is also releasing its code and a logbook that documents the training process. The logbook contains daily updates from members of the team about the training data: how it was added to the model and when, what worked and what didn’t. In more than 100 pages of notes, the researchers log every bug, crash, and reboot in a three-month training process that ran nonstop from October 2021 to January 2022.

With175billionparameters(thevaluesinaneural network that get tweaked during training), OPT is the same size as GPT-3. This was by design, says Pineau. The team built OPT to match GPT-3 both in its accuracy on language tasks and in its toxicity. OpenAI has made GPT-3 available as a paid service but has not shared the model itself or its code.The ideawas to provide researchers with a similar language model to study, says Pineau.

OpenAI declined an invitation to comment on Meta’s announcement.

Google, which is exploring the use of large language models in its search products, has also been criticized for a lack of transparency.

Gebru

The company sparked controversy in 2020 when it forced out leading members of its AI ethics team after they produced a study that highlighted problems with the technology.

Culture clash

So why is Meta doing this? After all, Meta is a company that has said little about how the algorithms behind Facebook and Instagram work and has a reputation for burying unfavorable findings by its own in-house research teams. A big reason for the different approach by Meta AI is Pineau herself, who has been pushing for more transparency in AI for a number of years.

Tech giants dominate research but the line between real breakthrough and product showcase can be fuzzy. Some scientists have had enough.

Pineauhelpedchangehowresearchispublished in several of the largest conferences, introducing a checklist of things that researchers must submit alongside their results, including code and details about how experiments are run. Since she joined Meta(thenFacebook)in2017,shehaschampioned that culture in its AI lab.

“That commitment to open science is why I’m here,” she says. “I wouldn’t be here on any other terms.”

Ultimately,Pineauwantstochangehowwejudge

AI. “What we call state-of-the-art nowadays can’t just beabout performance,”shesays. “It has to be state-of-the-art in terms of responsibility as well.”

Still, giving away a large language model is a bold move for Meta. “I can’t tell you that there’s no risk of this model producing language that we’re not proud of,” says Pineau. “It will.”

Weighing the risks

Margaret Mitchell, one of the AI ethics researchers Google forced out in 2020, who is now at Hugging Face, sees the release of OPT as a positive move. But she thinks there are limits to transparency. Has the language model been tested with sufficient rigor? Do the foreseeable benefits outweigh the foreseeable harms—such as the generation of misinformation, or racist and misogynistic language?

“Releasing a large language model to the world where a wide audience is likely to use it, or be affected by its output, comes with responsibilities,”

shesays.Mitchellnotesthatthismodelwillbeable to generate harmful content not only by itself, but through downstream applications that researchers build on top of it.

Meta AI audited OPT to remove some harmful behaviors, but the point is to release a model that researchers can learn from, warts and all, says Pineau.

“There were a lot of conversations about how to dothatinawaythatletsussleepatnight,knowing that there’s a non-zero risk in terms of reputation, a non-zero risk in terms of harm,” she says. She dismisses the idea that you should not release a model because it’s too dangerous—which is the reason OpenAI gave for not releasing GPT-3’s predecessor,GPT-2.“Iunderstandtheweaknesses ofthesemodels,butthat’snotaresearchmindset,” she says.

Hundreds of scientists around the world are working together to understand one of the most powerfulemergingtechnologiesbeforeit’stoolate.

Bender,whocoauthoredthestudyatthecenterof theGoogledisputewithMitchell,isalsoconcerned about how the potential harms will be handled. “One thing that is really key in mitigating the risks of any kind of machine-learning technology is to ground evaluations and explorations in specific use cases,” she says. “What will the system be used for? Who will be using it, and how will the system outputs be presented to them?”

Some researchers question why large language models are being built at all, given their potential for harm. For Pineau, these concerns should be met with more exposure, not less. “I believe the only way to build trust is extreme transparency,” she says.

“We have different opinions around the world about what speech is appropriate, and AI is a part ofthatconversation,”shesays.Shedoesn’texpect language models to say things that everyone agrees with. “But how do we grapple with that? You need many voices in that discussion.”

https://www.technologyreview. com/2022/05/03/1051691/meta-ai-largelanguage-model-gpt3-ethics-huggingfacetransparency/

Arti cialIntelligenceHasaProblemWithGenderandRacialBias. Here’sHowtoSolveIt

By Joy Buolamwini

MACHINES CAN DISCRIMINATE in harmful ways.

I experienced this firsthand, when I was a graduate student at MIT in 2015 and discovered that some facial analysis software couldn’t detect my dark-skinned face until I put on a white mask. These systems are often trained on images of predominantlylight-skinnedmen.Andso,Idecided to share my experience of the coded gaze, the bias in artificial intelligence that can lead to discriminatory or exclusionary practices.

Altering myself to fit the norm—in this case betterrepresentedbyawhitemaskthanmyactual face—ledmetorealizetheimpactoftheexclusion overhead, a term I coined to describe the cost of systems that don’t take into account the diversity of humanity. How much does a person have to change themselves to function with technological systems that increasingly govern our lives?

We often assume machines are neutral, but they aren’t. My research uncovered large gender and racial bias in AI systems sold by tech giants like IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon. Given the task of guessing the gender of a face, all companies performed substantially better on male faces than femalefaces.ThecompaniesIevaluatedhaderror rates of no more than 1% for lighter-skinned men. For darker-skinned women, the errors soared to 35%. AI systems from leading companies have failed to correctly classify the faces of Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, and Serena Williams. When technology denigrates even these iconic women,itistimetore-examinehowthesesystems are built and who they truly serve.

There’s no shortage of headlines highlighting tales of failed machine learning systems that amplify, rather than rectify, sexist hiring

practices, racist criminal justice procedures, predatory advertising, and the spread of false information. Though these research findings can be discouraging, at least we’re paying attention now. This gives us the opportunity to highlight issues early and prevent pervasive damage down the line. Computer vision experts, the ACLU, and the Algorithmic Justice League, which I founded in 2016, have all uncovered racial bias in facial analysis and recognition technology. Given what weknownow,aswellasthehistoryofracistpolice brutality, there needs to be a moratorium on using such technology in law enforcement—including in equipping drones or police body cameras with facial analysis or recognition software for lethal operations.

We can organize to protest this technology being used dangerously. When people’s lives, livelihoods, and dignity are on the line,AI must be developed and deployed with care and oversight. This is why I launched the Safe Face Pledge to prevent the lethal use and mitigate abuse of facial analysisandrecognitiontechnology.Alreadythree

companies have agreed to sign the pledge.

As more peoplequestion how seemingly neutral technologyhasgoneastray,it’sbecomingclearjust how important it is to have broader representation in the design, development, deployment, and governance of AI. The underrepresentation of women and people of color in technology, and the under-sampling of these groups in the data that shapes AI, has led to the creation of technology that is optimized for a small portion of the world. Less than 2% of employees in technical roles at Facebook and Google are black. At eight large tech companies evaluated by Bloomberg, only around a fifth of the technical workforce at each are women. I found one government dataset of facescollectedfortestingthatcontained75%men and 80% lighter-skinned individuals and less than 5% women of color—echoing the pale male data

problem that excludes so much of society in the data that fuelsAI.

Issues of bias in AI tend to most adversely affect the people who are rarely inpositionstodeveloptechnology.Beinga black woman, and an outsider in the field of AI, enables me to spot issues many of my peers overlooked.

I am optimistic that there is still time to shift towards building ethical and inclusive AI systems that respect our human dignity and rights. By working to reduce the exclusion overhead and enabling marginalized communities to engage in the development and governance of AI, we can work toward creating systems that embrace full spectrum inclusion.

In addition to lawmakers, technologists, and researchers, this journey will require storytellers who embrace the search for truth throughartandscience.Storytellinghasthepower to shift perspectives, galvanize change, alter damagingpatterns,andreaffirmtoothersthattheir experiencesmatter.That’swhyartcanexplorethe emotional, societal, and historical connections of algorithmic bias in ways academic papers and statistics cannot. And as long as stories ground our aspirations, challenge harmful assumptions, and ignite change, I remain hopeful.

https://time.com/5520558/artificial-intelligenceracial-gender-bias/ TedTalk: https://www.ted.com/talks/joy_ buolamwini_how_i_m_fighting_bias_in_ algorithms?language=en

Ain't IAWoman video: https://www.youtube.com/

Big Tech is Winning the Battle for Kenya’s Talent

By Daniel Maithya

THE EXCITEMENT in Kenya’s vibrant tech communitywaspalpablewhen,withinthespaceof a few weeks in April, several big tech firms made moves to significantly increase their presence in the country.

MicrosoftlaunchedoneoftwoAfricaDevelopment Centre (ADC) sites in Nairobi and is looking to hire at least 450 full-time employees. Google announceditwashiringover100employeesforits upcoming Product DevelopmentCenterinNairobi, the company’s first such facility in Africa. Visa had just launched its Innovation Hub, one of six in the world. Amazon’s plans to launch an Amazon Web Services (AWS) local zone was disclosed.

ForKenya’stechtalentpool—rankingfourthonthe list of African countries with the most professional developers with 58,866, behind Nigeria, South

Africa,andEgypt—increasedcompetitionfortalent is resulting in higher compensation and fueling growth of the larger local ecosystem.

Not everyone is winning though in Kenya’s battle for techtalent.Even asKenyaaddedanestimated 2,000 new developers (pdf) to its tech talent pool in 2021, startups in particular are facing an uphill battle to retain talent. Major telcos and banks, long considered the best-paying organizations for techies in Kenya, are also losing their best talent to big tech.

Silicon Savannah has renewed interest from global tech

The renewed confidence in Kenya as a tech hub for the continent is reminiscent of a similar boom a decade earlier that earned Nairobi the

‘Silicon Savannah‘ moniker. Back then, what led thefirms to set up shop here was increased public investment in internet infrastructure, the meteoric riseof mobilemoneyand afast-growingeconomy.

Today, one of the biggest factors attracting big tech to Kenya is the engineering talent. A quick spot-check of tech-related job openings in Nairobi revealsmultiplevacanciesatGoogleandMicrosoft for engineers, designers, and researchers.

Increasing competition for Kenya’s tech talent has companies rethinking their talent acquisition and retention strategies. It calls for a deeper look at Kenya’s talent development pipeline and what the future looks like.

For those welcoming big tech, the prevailing schoolofthoughtisthattheirentrywillbeacatalyst for development of Kenya’s tech ecosystem. They expect a more lucrative, vibrant marketplace that benefits not just the giants but also startups and emerging talent in Kenya.

“Technology transfer and pipeline are very important to be able to grow a local ecosystem. That is what has allowed all major global talent and innovation-focused countries to grow. India, Singapore, China, Japan, Estonia etc…all of them grew that way,” writes experienced tech executive Sheilah Birgen, maintaining that their entry could only be a good thing.

JackNgareledthefintecharmofKenya’slargest bank by assets, Equity Bank, until 2019 when he joined the then newly-announced Microsoft ADC as managing director and led a major recruitment drive that saw startups among other firms lose some of their best engineers. He left Microsoft for Google shortly after the launch of a massive new Microsoft ADC site in Nairobi in April 2022. He too believesincreasedinvestmentinKenyabybigtech will spur the local ecosystem on.

“The ecosystem effect is a driving force in our industry and we are seeing something similar in Kenya,” Ngare told the Financial Times back in October last year.

Is it a win-win for big tech and Kenya’s tech ecosystem?

Proponents point at Africa-focused initiatives being undertaken by big tech. For instance, Google’s$4MBlackFoundersFundforearly-stage,

Black-founded startups in Africa, or Microsoft’s involvement in the development of a coding curriculum for primary and secondary schools in partnership with Kenya’s Ministry of Education.

Startups in Kenya are being forced to improve their offers to employees to keep up with big tech. Thosewhoinvestedintrainingtheirownengineers are especially feeling the pinch. To attract and retain talent, they’re also banking on giving staff equity and the promise of greater responsibility in startups compared to big tech firms.

The scramble for talent has, however, sparked renewed interest by firms both big and small on investingintalentdevelopment.Codingschoolsand tech mentorship programs are announcing more partnerships with tech firms and job placements for their students.

KamiLimu is a Nairobi-based tech mentorship program equipping students with the skills they need to thrive in the industry. In the last year, six of their mentees joined big tech firms including Microsoft as engineers and program managers.

Thisisindicativeofthemarket’sgrowingappetite forrefinedtechtalent.ForthelikesofMicrosoftand Googlewhoareplottingbillion-dollarinvestmentsin Africa,havingthebestlocaltalentisarequirement, not an option.

The increased flow of venture capital investment to African startups also means that the pool of potential employers for the continent’s tech talent isgrowinglarger,especiallyinkeymarketssuchas Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt.

The Africa Developer Ecosystem Report 2021 (pdf) says that 81%of venture capital funding in Africa went to the top four countries with the highestpopulationofsoftwaredevelopers—Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt.

“LedbyNigeriaandKenya,AdvancingCountries secured more funding than ever in 2020, and this success has allowed their startup ecosystems to growfaster thaneverandtakeadvantageofdigital transformation spurred by the pandemic,” the report says.

https://countydevelopment.co.ke/big-tech-iswinning-the-battle-for-kenyas-talent-quartz-africa/ Source: https://qz.com/africa/2173517/big-tech-iswinning-the-battle-for-kenyas-talent

Meta Sued in Kenya over Claims of Exploitation and PoorWorking Conditions

Story by Reuters

AFORMERMODERATORworkingforFacebook owner Meta Platforms Inc (FB.O) on recently filed a lawsuit alleging that poor working conditions for contractedcontent moderatorsviolatethe Kenyan constitution.

The petition, also filed against Meta's local outsourcing company Sama, alleges that workers moderating Facebook posts in Kenya have been subjected to unreasonable working conditions including irregular pay, inadequate mental health support, union-busting, and violations of their privacy and dignity.

The lawsuit, filed by one person on behalf of a group, seeks financial compensation, an order that outsourced moderators have the same health care and pay scale as Meta employees, that unionization rights be protected, and an independent human rights audit of the office.

AMetaspokespersontoldReuters:"Wetakeour responsibilityto the peoplewhoreview content for Metaseriouslyand requireourpartnerstoprovide industry-leading pay, benefits and support. We also encourage content reviewers to raise issues when they become aware of them and regularly conductindependentauditstoensureourpartners are meeting the high standards we expect."

Sama declined to comment before seeing the lawsuit but has previously rejected claims that its employees werepaid unfairly, that the recruitment process was opaque, or that its mental health benefits were inadequate.

The lawsuit's specific requests for action are moregranularandwide-rangingthanthosesought

in previous cases and could reverberate beyond Kenya.

"This could have ripple effects. Facebook is going to have to reveal a lot about how they run theirmoderationoperation,"saidOdangaMadung, a fellow at the Mozilla Foundation, a U.S.-based global nonprofit dedicated to internet rights.

Globally, thousands of moderators review social media posts that could depict violence, nudity, racism or other offensive content. Many work for thirdpartycontractorsratherthantechcompanies.

Meta has already faced scrutiny over content moderators' working conditions.

Last year, a California judge approved an $85 million settlement between Facebook and more than10,000contentmoderatorswhohadaccused the company of failing to protect them from psychologicalinjuriesresultingfromtheirexposure to graphic and violent imagery.

Facebook did not admit wrongdoing in the California case but agreed to take measures to provide its content moderators, who are employed by third-party vendors, with safer work environments.

Violent videos

TheKenyanlawsuitwasfiledonbehalfofDaniel Motaung, recruited in 2019 from South Africa to work for Sama in Nairobi. Motaung says he was not given details about the nature of the work reviewing Facebook posts before his arrival.

The first video Motaung remembers moderating was a beheading. The disturbing content piled up, but Motaung says his pay and mental health

support were inadequate.

"IhavebeendiagnosedwithseverePTSD(posttraumatic stress disorder),"Motaung told Reuters. "I am living ...a horror movie."

Motaung's lawyers said that Meta and Sama created a dangerous and degrading environment whereworkerswerenotgiventhesameprotections as employees in other countries.

"If inDublin,peoplecan'tlook atharmful content fortwohours,thatshouldbetheruleeverywhere," Motaung's lawyer Mercy Mutemi said. "If they need to have a psychologist on call that should apply everywhere."

ShortlyafterjoiningSama,Motaungtriedtoform

auniontoadvocateforthecompany'sroughly200 workers in Nairobi.

He was fired soon after, which he and his lawyers say was because of the unionization attempt. Union rights are enshrined in the Kenyan constitution.

Sama has not commented on this allegation.

Motaung's experience was first revealed in an investigation published by Time magazine in February.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/10/tech/metasued-in-kenya-lgs-intl/

Image credit: lascositasdeange.blogspot.com

LinkedIn Launches Audio Events and New Creator Tools

By Danica Lo

OVER THE PAST YEAR,

more than 10 million people have activated LinkedIn’s Creator Mode. The setting, launchedlastfall,givesusers

accesstocontentcreationandlivestreamingtools including LinkedIn Live and newsletters. Today, LinkedIn expands its creator tool offerings by debuting audio events and profile enhancements, pivoting the professional networking platform further into the creator economy.

Emerging from six months of beta-testing, LinkedIn’s audio events gives users the ability to schedule and host discussions, interviews, and other conversations—not dissimilar to apps and tools such as Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces. Later this month, users will also be able to add a hyperlink to the tops of their profiles, create a shareable follow link for promotional use on other platforms, automatically gain followers from incoming connection requests, and experience enhanceddiscoveryviaLinkedInhomepagefeeds and via search.

“Since first launching Creator Mode last March, we’vebeenexcitedtoseetherapidadoptionofour suiteofcreatortools—everythingfromnewsletters to audio events to enhanced analytics,” Keren Baruch, product lead for creator strategy at

LinkedIn, tells Fast Company. “What’s most exciting to watch is how creators are leveraging thedifferentcontenttoolstotelltheirstoriesintheir own unique ways to spark member engagement.”

Alongwiththesenewcreatortoolsandproducts, users may notice their homepage feeds evolving as the LinkedIn team continues to focus on event discoverability, notifications, and scheduling—via enhanced RSVP tools, the ability to add LinkedIn events to personal calendars, and easier-to-find, browsable event listings.

In line with the global creator economy surge— link-in-profile company Linktree estimates there are 200 million monetized digital content creators worldwide—LinkedInreportsitsusersincreasingly self-identify as content-makers.

In December 2021, more than 144,000 LinkedIn members included the word “creator” in their job titles—representing a 48% increase from prepandemic 2019. The job market has responded in kind—in the first four months of 2022, LinkedIn has seen more than 65,000 job listings with the word “creator” in the title, three times the number of creator job posts over the same period in 2021.

As for demographics, since 2015, women creatorshavegrown300%onLinkedIn—astatistic driven by the growth in Gen Z women creators, whichLinkedInreportshasgrownmorethan1,000 % in the past seven years. https://www.fastcompany.com/90759390/linkedinaudio-events

Image credit: https://www.linkedin.com

AI-powered Speech Recognition is Entering a New Phase: Total Global Comprehension

By Greg Nichols

A SPEECH RECOGNITION STARTUP just landed$62millioninSeriesBfunding.Howwillthe money be used? In a quest to enable a computer to understand every voice in the world.

If that doesn't strike you as hugely ambitious you haven't spent enough time trying to get Siri to compose a text message. Speech recognition hasbeenahugechallengefor developers,andit's a puzzle that's being closely watched in a variety of industries. The technology has implications for human-machine interfaces in fields like robotics, autonomous vehicles, and personal computing, all of which will benefit from computers that can accurately interpret natural speech.

Speech recognition, then, is a kind of technological entry point, a market need that can help spur the development of technologies that will have broad resonance and incalculable implications for how we interact with machines.

It's also an equity issue. Notsurprisingly, speech recognition currently works well for a small part of the global population.

A big part of the challenge is the training model. Mosttrainingdataneedstobemanuallyclassified, which means that accuracy is only achievable across a very narrow set of speakers (not surprisingly,thatnarrowsetcorrespondedprecisely to the most valuable consumers). Speechmatics is taking a different approach in its bid for more representative speech recognition.

Based on datasets used in Stanford's 'Racial Disparities in Speech Recognition' study, Speechmatics recorded an overall accuracy of 82.8% for African American voices compared to Google (68.6%) and Amazon (68.6). This level of accuracy equates to a 45% reduction in speech recognition errors – the equivalent of three words in an average sentence.

Its engine is exposed to hundreds of thousands of individual voices using unlabelled, more

representative voice data that doesn't require human intervention. That's helped drive coverage beyond English-language speakers.

"Our progress in the last few years left us inundated with interest from investors for our SeriesBfundraise,"saysKatyWigdahl,CEO."The Speechmatics team is hugely ambitious. We have a real heritage in speech technology combined withsomeoftheworld'smosttalentedspeechand machine learning experts."

Atpresent,theengineunderstands34languages, a small drop in a very large linguistic bucket (there are over 7,000 languages spoken worldwide). But the platform has made impressive strides in punctuation, numbers, currencies, and addresses, which traditionally stymie speech recognition engines.

All of this has attracted major interest in the UKbased company. Companies like 3Play Media, Veritone, Deloitte UK, and Vonage, as well as government departments across the world, are using the platform.

In line with its global goals, Speechmatics is headquartered in the UK but has offices in Boston (U.S.), Chennai (India), and Brno (the Czech Republic). The company will use the investment to supportglobalexpansionacrosstheUnitedStates and Asia-Pacific.”

https://www.zdnet.com/article/ai-is-making-thefrontline-a-more-compelling-place-to-work

Image credit: Speechmatics

New Artificial Photosynthesis MethodGrows Food With No Sunshine

ByVanessaBatesRamirez

HOW CAN WE GROW more food using fewer resources? Scientists have been focused on this question for decades if not centuries, as an evergrowing global population necessitates constantly seeking new ways to produce food in sustainable and affordable ways.

Here’s a question most of us have never contemplated,becauseitseemssounfathomable: what if crops could grow without sunlight—not vertical farm-style, where LED light replaces the sun, but intotal darkness?

ApaperpublishedrecentlyinNatureFooddetails a method for doing just that.

Photosynthesis uses a series of chemical reactions to convert carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight into glucose and oxygen. The lightdependent stage comes first, and relies on sunlighttotransferenergytoplants,whichconvert

it to chemical energy.The light-independent stage (also called the Calvin Cycle) follows, when this chemical energy and carbon dioxide are used to form carbohydrate molecules (like glucose).

A research team from UC Riverside and the University of Delaware found a way to leapfrog over the light-dependent stage entirely, providing plants with the chemical energy they need to complete the Calvin Cycle in total darkness. They usedanelectrolysistoconvertcarbondioxideand water into acetate, a salt or ester form of acetic acidandacommonbuildingblockforbiosynthesis (it’s also the main component of vinegar). The team fed the acetate to plants in the dark, finding they were able to use it as they would have used the chemical energy they’d get from sunlight.

They tried their method on several varieties of plants and measured the differences in growth

efficiency as compared to regular photosynthesis. Greenalgaegrewfourtimesmoreefficiently,while yeast saw an 18-fold improvement.

The problem with photosynthesis, though it’s been around since the beginning of life on Earth, isthatit’sonlyabletoconvertaboutonepercentof the energy it gets from sunlight into “food” for the plant.The team also had success feeding acetate to cowpea, tomato, tobacco, rice, canola, and green pea plants.

“Typically, these organisms are cultivated on sugars derived from plants or inputs derived from petroleum—which is a product of biological photosynthesis that took place millions of years ago,” said Elizabeth Hann, co-lead author of the study. “This technology is a more efficient method of turning solar energy into food, as compared to food production that relies on biological photosynthesis.”

Decoupling plant growth from sunlight, as bizarre as it sounds, would have huge potential benefits for food production. As climate change makes weather and thus crop yields increasingly unpredictable, it’s becoming more appealing— and necessary—to grow food in controlled environments, like those of vertical farms. Being able to grow more crops indoors would also bring produce to a whole new level of “local,” as crops that used artificial photosynthesis to replace sunlight could theoretically be grown just about anywhere.

“Using artificial photosynthesis approaches to

produce food could be a paradigm shift for how we feed people,” said the study’s corresponding author, Robert Jinkerson, a UC Riverside assistantprofessorofchemicalandenvironmental engineering. “By increasing the efficiency of food production, less land is needed, lessening the impact agriculture has on the environment.”

There are some key details that would need to be worked out before this methodology could be seriously considered for large-scale food production. How much energy, water, and other resources would it use relative to traditional farmingorothertechnology-enhancedfoodgrowth techniques? Is the texture, flavor, and nutritional contentofplantsfedwithacetateidenticaltothose grown in sunlight?

Tinkeringwithnaturealwaysseemslikeamurky undertaking, but from the Green Revolution to the advent of modern-day GMOs, humans have been doing so for centuries; to some degree our survival has been dependent on our ability to manipulate nature. We’re seeing the fallout from thatmanipulationnow,buttechniqueslike artificial photosynthesis could end up being part of the toolbox we’ll need to repair the damage we’ve done—while continuing to feed a growing global population.

https://singularityhub.com/2022/07/01/newartificial-photosynthesis-method-grows-food-withno-sunshine/

Image credit: Hann et al/Nature Food

These 3D Printed Millirobots Can Sense and React to Their Surroundings

By Shelly Fan

THE MILLIROBOT looked like an adorable cartoonvehicle as it expertly navigated acomplex maze.It’sastrangecreature:thebottomresembles a collapsed fence; the top, a colander-like basket. The size of a penny, it seems fragile and utterly unassuming.

But at its core is a potential paradigm shift for building autonomous robots that can sense and respond to its local environment. Unlike classic robots, which are assembled with multiple components, the millirobot is 3D printed with a milky-looking metamaterial that can flexibly change its properties with a few electrical zaps.

Metamaterials sound like something out of a comic book, but the concept is simple. Unlike wood, glass, or other static materials we readily rely on to hold their structure, the metamaterials used in the study—piezoelectric materials— easily change their structure when blasted with an electromagnetic field. This allows the material to twist, contort, shrink, or expand. Map out each movement, and it’s possible to build and steer a robot.

To build the bot, the team designed a 3D printing setup to print out robotic structures using piezoelectric materials. As an additional add-on, the team gave the bots an ultrasound glowup, embedding components into the material, which helped the bots turn vibrations into electricity to sense their environment.

The millibots learned to autonomously walk, jump, and escape from potential obstacles in real time. They could even take a mini-beach hike in the lab, easily navigating through a rough, sandy terrain partially covered with greenery.

Thebots,thoughstillrudimentary,couldoneday helpdeliverdrugsinconfinedspacesinourbodies if shrunken down. They may also act as cheap,

tiny, but powerful scouts to explore new or hazardous environments.

ToDr.AhmadRafsanjaniat the Center for Soft Robotics, University of Southern Denmark, who was not involved in the study, the millibots bring metamaterials into the limelight as a new way to construct autonomous robots. The study “highlights a broader view of ‘robotic materials’ in which the boundary between materials and machines becomes indiscernible,” he wrote in a related commentary. “Additive manufacturing of piezoelectric metamaterials may lead to materializing fully integrated robots that might eventually walk straight out of a 3D printer.”

Meta-What?

Metamaterials are weird. But thanks to their exotic properties, scientists have readily explored potential uses for these strange ducks. A classic one is optics. Metamaterials are often made of components that flexibly interact with electromagnetic waves, including light. In a way, they’resimilartocameralensesormirrors,butwith the superpower to rapidly change how they direct every light wave. In theory, a carefully created structure from metamaterials could overhaul all types of glasses—from microscope lenses to those on our faces.

More recently, scientists began exploring other uses. One major effort is incorporating piezoelectric materials into neuromorphic chips, which roughly simulate how the brain computes andstoresinformation.Bychangingtheproperties

of these materials with electrical fields, scientists canapproximatehowsynapsesworkwithultra-low energy. Other studies tapped into metamaterials’ acrobatic ability to morph their shape, creating structures that convert linear motion—say, a crab walk—into rotations and mechanical gears. It’s as if your legs suddenly turn into rotating wheels.

Yeah, metamaterials are weird. How do they work?

It helps to imagine them as old-school boxed TVswithantennae.Toadjustthechannel—thatis, the material’s behavior—you move the antennae around until their structure interacts strongly with radiowaves,andvoilá,you’venailedthematerial’s state. It can then be blended with conventional materials to build intricate, lattice-like structures while preserving their metamorphosis properties. This flexibility makes them an especially intriguing canvas for designing robots. Because they’re a near-single structure, in the long run, they could help build intelligent prosthetics less prone to failure, as they don’t have mechanical moving parts. Rather than soldering, they can now be 3D printed. (This gives me all the Westworld vibes— mechanical Dolores versus milky-liquid printed version, anyone?).

Stranger Things

The new millibots look like a hybrid between Wall-E and TARS, a ridged, folding, chopsticksesque robot in Interstellar. Fully 3D printed, they shattered the conventional dogma for building robots. Normally, a robot needs several independent components: sensors to navigate the environment, microprocessors for the “brain,” actuators for movement, and a power supply to drive the whole system. Each link is prone to failure.

Here, the team integrated each component into onedesign.Thefirstkeyingredientispiezoelectric materials, which convert electrical fields into mechanical tension and vice versa. They’re the “muscles” that guide the robot’s movement. But they do triple duty. Depending on the state of the metamaterial, it can form a ceramic-like backbone to help the millibot maintain its shape. In its conductive phase, it acts like nerve cells, capturing electromagnetic signals to control the “muscles.” Further bumping up the bot’s prowess isan ultrasonicelement, melded onto thebot,that helps it sense its surroundings.

Altogether, the simple millibot essentially has multiplesystemsmixedintooneglaringwhitegoo: anervoussystemcapableofsensingandactuation, a “muscle” component, and a skeletal structure. Dropping the goo into a 3D printer, the team built sophisticated lattices as the robot’s backbone, each carefully decorated with conductive metals and piezoelectric properties onto specific regions.

The result? A tiny robot that taps into electrical

Millirobots from page 111

fieldstosenseandnavigateitsenvironment.Even more impressive is its ability to “understand” its own bodily movements and place in space—a trick called proprioception that’s been dubbed the “sixth sense” of human perception and rarely implemented in robots.

With a few challenges, the authors next showcased the bots’ prowess. One robot expertly navigated around roadblocks in real time as a human sequentially dropped down barriers based on ultrasound feedback. In another test, the robot hopped long distances and expertly navigated sharp turns. With just milliseconds of delay, the robot frog hopped several rough surfaces without asweat—amotortaskthat’spreviouslybewildered

other bots.

The millibots also made great pack mules. Even with 500 percent weight in payload—such as an onboard power source, a driver, and a microcontroller—they were able to move easily withjusta20percentdeclineinspeed.Inpractice, the superpower makes these bots great scaffolds asdrugdeliverymachinesthatmay one day roam our bloodstream.

AWays to Go

A single piece of piezoelectric material can be extremely flexible, with six degrees of freedom— the ability to extend linearly in three axes (like bending your arm forward, sideways, and back) andtwistrotationally.Thankstothestudy’sadditive manufacturing, it’s easy to design different robotic architectures guided by creative algorithms.

The team “artfully interweaved actuation and perception in a lightweight miniature composite 3D lattice that moves around and senses its surroundings,” said Rafsanjani.

The robots may come off as an incongruous conundrum:aflexiblecreaturethat’smadeofhard ceramic-like backbone with onemetamaterial.But soarewehumans—we’remadeofcellswithvastly different shapes, sizes, and capabilities.Adapting ideas used to design piezoelectric robots gives soft robotics a new outlook, potentially leading to completely artificial materials that jive with our bodies.

The study “brings robotic metamaterials closer to biological systems, one function at a time,” said Rafsanjani.

https://singularityhub. com/2022/06/21/these-3d-printedmillirobots-can-sense-and-react-totheir-surroundings

Image credit: Harvard University, Daily Mai, unlimitedtomorrow.com

Prosthetics: https://singularityhub. com/2020/07/22/this-startup-is-3dprinting-custom-prosthetics-for-afraction-of-the-standard-cost/

Intelligent prosthetics

This Portable Wind Turbine is the Size of a Water Bottle and Charges Devices in Under an Hour

By Vanessa Bates Ramirez

FIVE YEARS

AGO, a startup called Semtive Energy took the concept of a wind turbine, shrank it down to the size of a garden shrub, and started marketing it directly to households; much like rooftop solar panels, the mini turbine is intended to help homeowners rely less on the grid and produce their own clean energy.

Now another startup has taken a wind turbine, shrunk it down even more, and is marketing it to people who truly are off the grid—that is, hikers, campers, climbers, and others spending time in nature.Justunderayearago,AureaTechnologies launched a Kickstarter campaign for Shine, “an ultra-compact lightweight wind turbine that offers unrivaled performance for outdoor enthusiasts who need to recharge electronic devices.”

About the size of a 1-liter water bottle, Shine weighs3pounds,canbesetupinunder2minutes, and will provide power at wind speeds from 8 to 28 miles per hour. It looks a lot like a mini airship on a stick. Its maximum output is 40 watts, which isn’t much; the turbine seems primarily intended to charge phones, and wouldn’t be of much use for other purposes (though the Kickstarter page mentions laptops, cameras, drones, tablets, and lights).

The best use case is for people who are on long hikes or other outdoor adventures and want their phones on to take photos, use GPS, send texts, etc. Batter packs are the current backup power sources for these types of activities, which are smallerandlighterthantheShineturbine,buthave a limited amount of juice. The mini turbine, on the other hand, can provide real-time power or store energy in its 12,000 mAh (milliamp-hours) lithium-

ion battery. The battery can collect three phones’ worth of power in anhour when the turbine blades are rotating at full speed.

For a lot of outdoor adventurers, the extra three pounds of weightintheir packswon’tbeworth this small amount of electricity. But it’s a worthwhile concept—on-the-go power from a source that never runs out—and will likely start to see more iterationsinthenearfuture.Productslikethiscould also be used in a pinch if there’s a blackout and you don’t have power at home.

The turbine’s creators estimate its lifespan is about five years and are aiming to ship the first units in October.

“We’re offering wind power that fits in your backpack,” said Cat Adalay, Aurea’s CEO and founder. “Wind is the second-largest producer of clean energy in the world, yet most people don’t have direct access to it. As a team of outdoor enthusiasts with backgrounds in science and engineering, we set out to create a wind power product that gives users the freedom to produce their own clean energy day or night, rain, cloud, or shine.”

It’s becoming more and more difficult to truly get off the grid; scenic and tucked-away spots that used to be known by few were Instagrammed into the spotlight and quickly became overrun with eager travelers (most of whom also put these placesonInstagram);phonenetworkcoveragehas expanded; and now you can even have renewable power out in the middle of nowhere (though this isn’t a brand-new phenomenon—small portable solar panels serve the same purpose, though at a lower power to weight ratio). Will “disconnecting” soon be a thing of the past?

https://singularityhub.com/2022/05/11/this-miniportable-wind-turbine-is-the-size-of-a-waterbottle-and-charges-devices-in-under-an-hour

SirMoFarahReveals Hewas

Traffickedto theUKasaChild

By Ashitha Nagesh

SIRMOFARAHwasbroughttotheUKillegallyas a child and forced to work as a domestic servant, he has revealed.

The Olympic star has toldthe BBC he was given the name Mohamed Farah by those who flew him over from Djibouti. His real name is Hussein Abdi Kahin.

He was flown over from the East African country agedninebyawomanhehadnevermet,andthen made to look after another family's children, he says.

"For years I just kept blocking it out," the Team GB athlete says. "But you can only block it out for so long."

The long-distance runner has previously said he came to the UK from Somalia with his parents as a refugee.

But in a documentary by the BBC and Red Bull Studios, seen by BBC News and airing on Wednesday, he says his parents have never been totheUK-hismotherandtwobrothersliveontheir family farm in the breakaway state of Somaliland.

His father, Abdi, was killed by stray gunfire when Sir Mo was four years old, in civil violence in Somalia. Somaliland declared independence in 1991 but is not internationally recognised.

Sir Mo says he wasabout eight or nineyearsold when he was taken from home to stay with family in Djibouti. He was then flown over to the UK by a woman he had never met and wasn't related to.

ShetoldhimhewasbeingtakentoEuropetolive with relatives there - something he says he was "excited"about."I'dneverbeenonaplanebefore," he says.

The woman told him to say his name was Mohamed.Hesaysshehadfaketraveldocuments with her that showed his photo next to the name "Mohamed Farah".

When they arrived in the UK, the woman took him to herflatinHounslow,westLondon,and took

a piece of paper off him that had his relatives' contact details on.

"Right in front of me, she ripped it up and put it in the bin. At that moment, I knew I was in trouble," he says.

Sir Mo says he had to do housework and childcare "if I wanted food in my mouth". He says the woman told him: "If you ever want to see your family again, don't say anything."

Sir Mo took his son, Hussein, to meet

"Often I would just lock myself in the bathroom and cry," he says.

For the first few years the family didn't allow him

Sir Mo was reunited with his mother, Aisha, through woman in London's Somali community

his

a

to go to school, but when he was about 12 heenrolledinYear7atFelthamCommunity College.

Staff were told SirMo was a refugeefrom Somalia.

His old form tutor Sarah Rennie tells the BBC he came to school "unkempt and uncaredfor",thathespokeverylittleEnglish and was an "emotionally and culturally alienated" child.

She says the people who said they were his parents didn't attend any parents' evenings.

Sir Mo's PE teacher, Alan Watkinson, noticed a transformation in the young boy when he hit the athletics track.

"The only language he seemed to understand was the language of PE and sport," he says.

Sir Mo says sport was a lifeline for him

The PE teacher contacted social services and helped Sir Mo to be fostered by another Somali family.

"Istillmissedmyrealfamily,butfromthatmoment everything got better," Sir Mo says.

"Ifeltlikealotofstuffwasliftedoffmyshoulders, and I felt like me. That's when Mo came out - the real Mo."

Sir Mo began making a name for himself as an athlete and aged 14 he was invited to compete for English schools at a race in Latvia - but he didn't have any travel documents.

Mr Watkinson helped him apply for British citizenshipunderthenameMohamedFarah,which was granted in July 2000.

Inthedocumentary,barrister Allan Briddocktells Sir Mo his nationality was technically "obtained by fraud or misrepresentations".

Legally, the government can remove a person's British nationality if their citizenship was obtained through fraud.

However, Mr Briddock explains the risk of this in Sir Mo's case is low.

"Basically, the definition of trafficking is transportation for exploitative purposes," he tells Sir Mo. "In your case, you were obliged as a very small childyourselftolookafter smallchildrenand to be a domestic servant. And then you told the relevant authorities, 'that is not my name'. All of those combine to lessen the risk that the Home Office will take away your nationality."

A Home Office spokesperson told BBC News it willnottake actionoverSirMo'sillegal entryto the UK.

Sad Songs

As his profile grew in the Somali community, a woman approached him in a London restaurant and gave him a tape.

Itcontained arecorded messagefor Sir Mofrom someonehehadnotheardfrominalongtime-his mother, Aisha.

as "the only thing I could do to get away from this [living situation] was to get out and run".

He eventually confided in Mr Watkinson about his true identity, his background, and the family he was being forced to work for.

'The real Mo'

"It wasn't just a tape," Sir Mo says. "It was more of a voice - and then it was singing sad songs for me, like poems or like traditional song, you know. And I would listen to it for days, weeks."

The side of the tape had a phone number on it,

Sir Mo Farah from page 115

asking him to call but adding: "If this is a bother or causing you trouble, don't - just leave it - you don't have to contact me."

"I'm going, 'Of course I want to contact you,'" Sir Mo says.

The mother and son then had their first phone call.

"When I heard him, I felt like throwing the phone on the floor and being transported to him from all the joy I felt," Aisha says. "The excitement and joy of getting a response from him made me forget everything that happened."

In the documentary, Sir Mo takes his son, whom he named Hussein, to Somaliland to meet Aisha and his twobrothers.

"Never in my life did I think I would see you or your children

alive,"she tellsSirMo."Wewere living in a place with nothing, no cattle,anddestroyedland.Weall thought we were dying. 'Boom, boom, boom,' was all we heard. I sent you away because of the war. I sent you off to your uncle in Djibouti so you could have something."

When Sir Mo asks Aisha who decided he would be taken from Djibouti to the UK, she says: "No-one told me. I lost contact withyou.Wedidn'thavephones, roads or anything. There was nothing here. The land was devastated."

Running 'saved me'

Sir Mo says he wants to tell his story to challenge public perceptions of trafficking and slavery.

"I had no idea there was so many people who are going

through exactly the same thing that Idid.Itjustshowshowlucky I was," he says.

"What really saved me, what made me different, was that I could run."

ThewomanwhobroughtSirMo to London has been approached bytheBBCforcomment,buthas not responded.

Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, who was forced to flee Iraq with his family when he was 11, said hearing Sir Mo's story was "heartbreaking and painful".

HetoldBBCBreakfast:"Isalute Mo Farah. What an amazing human being, to have gone throughthattraumainchildhood, to come through it and be such a great role model. It's truly inspirational."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk62123886

Sir Mo won gold medals in the 5,000m and 10,000m at the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympic Games

Henry Louis Gates Jr. Named Editor-In-Chief of the New Oxford Dictionary of Africam American English

By Derek Major

HISTORIAN AND DIRECTOR of the Hutchins CenteratHarvardUniversity,HenryLouisGatesJr., will be the editor-in-chief of the Oxford Dictionary of African American English Gates, the 2018 Benjamin Franklin Creativity Laureate Prize winner, made the announcement onTwitterlastweek.Oxford’sDictionaryofAfrican American English will contain words and popular phrasesusedbyhistorical BlackfiguresandBlack Americans today.

“Just the way Louis Armstrong took the trumpet and turned it inside out from the way people played European classical music,” Gates told The New York Times. Black people took English and “reinvented it, to make it reflect their sensibilities and to make it mirror their cultural selves.”

The dictionary is a joint venture between the Oxford University Press and the Hutchins Center. Gates added that the idea for the dictionary came about when the Oxford Press asked him to collaborateontheirexistingdictionaries,whichled him to propose the project.

The dictionary is part of a three-year research project, led by a diverse team of researchers,

to preserve the vocabulary of AfricanAmericans. Gates said the new dictionary, which is heavily influenced by “words invented by African-Americans,” will serve as an authoritative record of African American English.

“Words with African origins such as ‘goober,’ ‘gumbo’ and ‘okra’ survived the Middle Passage alongwithourAfricanancestors,”Gatesexplained. “And words that we take for granted today, such as ‘cool’ and ‘crib,’ ‘hokum’ and ‘diss,’ ‘hip’ and ‘hep,’ ‘bad,’ meaning ‘good,’ and ‘dig,’ meaning ‘to understand’— these are just a tiny fraction of the words that have come into American English fromAfricanAmericanspeakers…overthelastfew hundred years.”

Someoftheresearchinvolvedfiguringoutwhere andwhenawordoriginated.Todothis,researchers studied books, magazines, and newspapers, because they’re the easiest documents to date. The project has received grants from the Mellon and Wagner Foundations. Those anticipating the dictionary’s release date will have to wait a few years as it won’t be released until 2025 at the earliest.

https://www.blackenterprise.com/henry-louis-gates-jrnamed-editor-in-chief-of-the-new-oxford-dictionary-ofafrican-amercan-english

Catching Up with CFDA/Vogue Taofeek Abijako

By Greg Emmanuel taofeek abijako CFDA

him. “It's like one of those things you have always dreamtaboutandtheneventuallywhenithappens, it's weird that you can't soak it all in because it requires more work, but I feel really good overall,” he says.

On designing for the Met Gala, Abijako shares, “I've done this thing every year when they would announce the theme. I would sketch looks and reimagine what HOS would look like as a part of thattheme–justdoingitforfun.Thelastfewyears

IMAGINE DREAMING of becoming a fashion designer and seeing all of those doodles and sketches in your notebook >CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund and this year also marked the first time that the Nigerian designer created not one, but two looks for the Met Gala

While achieving monumental success, one can only imagine the challenges that come with managing the momentum of two major back-toback wins and trying to find the time to celebrate. “I'm feeling really good. I just haven't had time to properly celebrate everything yet,” Abijako tells ESSENCE. “I found out that I was a finalist for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund while I was in a fitting for the Met Gala. We had two very lastminute urgent requests for outfits, so I was sort of stressed out about that and couldn't properly soak in the fact that I was a finalist.”

Before Abijako could process what being a CFDAVFF finalist meant for Head of State (HOS), he had to first tackle the dream job in front of

Evan Mock Danai Gurira

CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Finalist

volume referenced Gilded Age silhouettes, and thehorsetailsheheld, whichusuallyaccompanies one when attending an upscale event, was also a nodtoAfricanculture–hisintentionwastocapture the essence of NYC during the Gilded Age while also honoring Gurira’s heritage.

I'vealwayshadsketchesforthethemeandfor this year when I got the call, it caught me off guard, but I also kind of already had sketches for what I wanted.”Tosaytheleast,whenAbijakowascalled to design a menswear and womenswear look for the Gilded Glamour Met Gala, he was more than ready.

“When they reached out to me to do Danai [Gurira] and Evan’s [Mock] look, I thought it was very interesting because they are the type of characters I wouldexpectHOS to dress,” says Abijako. “It makes so much sense becausethey'renotthetypeofcharacters thatwouldnecessarilybelongintheworld of this year's Met Gala theme. It's not a theme that has them in mind whatsoever andthewholeideaofHOSistofigureout howtotellstoriesthatdon'tfitinthenorm of traditional storytelling.”

Historically, Abijako’s creative process begins with detailed research and finding reference images. However, while searching for images from the Gilded Age (late 1800s), he had trouble locating references of Zimbabwean women like Gurira during that time and the same thing for Mock, hecouldn'tfind images of Hawaiian kids that embodied his youthful energy during that time. Abijako’s safety net was to reimagine the silhouettes and cuts worn during the Gilded Age and marry them with his interpretation of Danai and Evan's essence.

For Mock’s look, Abijako infused his feminine menswear touch on a butlerinspiredtuxedo.WithGurira,hereplicated the wings of an eagle across the front of her gown – the eagle is a known symbol in American and African culture. For the bottom half of her dress, the big

As a 2022 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalist, Abijako will receive mentorship and funds based on his business needs. On what he plans to utilize the fund/mentorship for, Abijako says, “Definitely on creating more structure for the business side. I need more help than ever right now so I can get moreHOSproductsoutthere.”Headds,“Ialsowant to focus more on my DTC. We are mainly gearing the mentorship and the fund towards production andbrandvisibility–Iwanttobewalkingdownthe street and to see HOS.”

Prior to this interview, the last time we chatted with Abijako he told ESSENCE that he had been interviewinghisdadforthelasttwoyearsforHead of State’s next collection. When asked about that journey with his dad and the status of the next collection, he provides us with an update, “I have two collections in mind. One is my dad's story, whichIdonotwanttorushandIwanttodoitatthe right time and the other one is also a very strong collection, but I'm just working through it as I'm dealing with everything else.”

Abijako adds, “I'm still deciding if I'm going to do a show in September because I have other things I'm interested in like creating films and wanting to do a fashion film for the next collection, so I'm juggling a few things in my head. Mydad's story is still something I really want to tell, but the question is do I tell it now? Or do I tell it when I feel like the brand is at a point where I could do the story justice? I don't want to half-ass or do it on a low budget.”

Although Abijako is not disclosing what Head of State will present next season just yet, he says, “One thing I will say about the next collection is that we're taking it there.”.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/ catching-up-with-cfda-vogue-fashion-fund-finalisttaofeek-abijako/ar-AAXkY2G

West Africa Comes to Hollywood with New Immersive Dining

By Nathalie Basha

A CHEF WHO IS NEW to Los Angeles hosts weeklydinnerpartiestoimmersepeopleinNigerian food and culture at his home in Hollywood.

Food bloggers and enthusiasts say it’s the most exciting dining experience in the city right now.

WhenhewasakidgrowingupinLagos,Nigeria, chef Tolu Erogbogbo’s greatest desire was to be on the stage.

“First of all, I’m a born entertainer,” Eros said. “My mother always thought I’d end up in front of the camera!”

For a number of reasons, the chef (who goes by "Chef Eros" for short) says that did not work out, but today, Eros has a stage and a very bright spotlight — for his food.

After making it big as a chef in Nigeria (he goes by "The Billionaire Chef" on social media), Eros landed in LA, where he recently started hosting immersivedinnerpartiestoshowcasewestAfrican food and culture, plated like a Michelin-starred restaurant. And he’s bringing back the concept of a real chef’s kitchen, to boot — he lives in the space where he hosts guests twice a week.

“So you are at my dining table,” Eros explained to a table of customers. “I sit here every day to eat.”

Eros named the experience Ilé, which means home in his native Yoruba, because that’s exactly whatheistryingtodo:createanewhomeinLAby sharing parts of his old home in Lagos.

The experience is hosted every Thursday and Friday,withtwoseatingtimesat5:30pmand7:30 pm. Every course of the nine-course meal comes with a story of west Africa, as well as a musical pairing meant to transport his customers.

“I will give you food from my grandmother. I will takeyouonajourney,”Erosdeliveredthislinewith flair.

There’s a bread served with sweet fig butter, which — as Eros explained — is often eaten as a common breakfast in Lagos.

One of the most staple dishes of west Africa is jollof rice — “which is a tomato-based rice that includes sweet chilis, bell peppers, habanero, onions, garlic and ginger” — and is one of those beloveddishesthatallthecountriesofWestAfrica lay claim to. The jollof rice, served with a tender fried chicken leg, is served atop a steaming bowl of dry ice for dramatic effect.

But the food is really just a conduit for the storytelling and cultural exchange.

David Olusoga, a business partner of Ilé who is originallyfromWestAfricabutgrewupinBrooklyn,

Dining

kind of

grown up not having

of

I’ve always

food

it’s elevated…it’s

Olusoga

his cultural experience

popular

DR. SAMELLA S. LEWIS is a visual artist and pioneer in the field of art history.Among her many accomplishments are the creation of numerous gallery spaces and later a museum for African American artists, the publication of a series of scholarly books and journals on black art, and the production of a substantial body of artwork that has garnered international acclaim.

Lewis grew up in New Orleans in the 1920s and turned to art as a way to cope with life's harsh realities and with her own unique nature. As a youngartist,shewasdrawntosubjectsasdiverse as police brutality against African Americans, comicbooks,andcharactersfromheroldersister's romancenovels.Shebeganheracademicstudies at Dillard University in New Orleans, where she met her eventual mentors Elizabeth Catlett and Charles White. After two years, she transferred to Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) in Virginia,completing herdegreein 1945.She went on to earn master's and doctorate degrees in art history from Ohio State University. In 1950, while writing her dissertation, she began teaching as

Samella Lewis

By Naima J. Keith

Samella Lewis, the famed artist, activist, historian and mentor to dozens of Black creatives, has died at the age of 99.

an associate professor at Morgan College (now Morgan State University) in Baltimore. Lewis spentfiveyearsasthechairofthe fine arts department at Florida A&M University, where she organized the first professional conference for African American artists—theNationalConference of Artists—in 1953. She moved to State University of New York, Plattsburg, in 1958, where she developed an interest in Chinese and Asian art, language, and culture. She traveled to Taiwan on a Fulbright fellowship, and upon her return she became apostdoctoral fellow at the Universityof Southern California, LosAngeles

As an artist, Lewis is best known for her figurative works on paper, including many series of lithographs and screen prints that are pictorial manifestations of the age of civil rights and black liberation. A raised Black Power fist is the focal point of her 1968 linocut Field. Lewis's boldly incised markings circumscribe a ponderously sculptural field worker who gestures in agony and rebellion under the burning heat of the sun. The matte blackness of the sky is adroitly offset by sweeping lines of varying thickness, bearing witness to the artist's dexterity with the medium. Lewis also produced paintings and sculptures throughout her career.

Lewisbecameasignificantforceintheartscene inLosAngelesoverthenexttwodecades,andher influencespreadtotherestofthecountry.In1969 she became education coordinator at the Los

Angeles County Museum of Art, an opportunity she pursued because she wanted to create new exhibition opportunities for African American artists.Shefoughtvigorouslyforthehiringofmore AfricanAmericans by the museum, but after more than a year of constant conflict and disappointment, she resigned. Before she left, however, she and some other constituents started a group called Concerned Citizens for Black Art. They set up guidelines and made recommendations to the museum as to what they thought would be more appropriate educational programming. Lewis established three galleries in the Los Angeles area, and in 1976 founded the city's Museum of African American Art, where she served as senior curator until 1986.

In 1970 Lewis was appointed professor of art history and humanities at Scripps College in Claremont, where she became the first tenured AfricanAmericanfacultymember.Shealsodirected and curated exhibitions for the college's Clark Humanities Museum. As a scholar, Lewis was highly influential in establishing black art as an art historicalgenre.Inthe1960sand1970sshemade severalshortfilmshighlightingthecareersofAfrican American artists such as John Outterbridge, Bernie Casey, and Richmond Barthé. In 1969 and 1971 she coedited and copublished (with Ruth Waddy) the two volumes of Black Artists onArt, a guide to contemporaryAfricanAmerican artists comprising artist statements and images. In order to publish this collection, Lewis and artist

and actor Bernie Casey founded Contemporary Crafts Gallery, the first African American–owned art book publishing house. Contemporary Crafts also incorporated an exhibition space for artists of color and facilitated the production of affordable prints. In 1976 Lewis cofounded Black Art: An International Quarterly, which later became the International Review of African American Art, and in 1978 she published the seminal textbook Art:AfricanAmerican.

Lewis taught at Scripps until 1984 and has since continued to write, curate, and make art. She was granted the Charles White Lifetime Achievement Award in 1993 and the UNICEF AwardfortheVisualArtsin1995.In2002Scripps established the Samella Lewis Scholarship for African American students based on scholastic achievement, excellence in character, leadership, and responsibility. Five years later the college launched the Samella Lewis Contemporary Art Collection in her honor and with her assistance. The collection focuses on contemporary artists, with a special emphasis on works by women and AfricanAmericans.

https://hammer.ucla.edu/now-dig-this/artists/ samella-lewis

Image credit: scrippscollege.edu

SELECTED LINKS

Samella Lewis ContemporaryArt Collection page, Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Scripps College, Claremont, California.

Samella S. Lewis papers, 1930–2010 finding aid, StuartA. Rose Manuscript,Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University,Atlanta.

Samella Lewis Wikipedia page.

Richard Candida Smith, "Image and Belief: Samella Lewis"oral history interview, 1999, Getty Research Institutefor the History ofArt and the Humanities.

"Samella Lewis," oral history onThe HistoryMakers, August 24, 2003, and May 22, 2004.

"Samella Lewis on ElizabethCatlett," uploaded to Vimeo by the Museum of theAfrican Diaspora, January 15, 2015.

"BlackArtists onArt:The Legacy Exhibit," Oakstop, February 2, 2015.

DIY Is Not a Trend—It’s a Necessity

By DAPHNE CHOULIARAKI MILNER

Western fashion media have hailed the rise of DIY as a pandemic-era fad. But in Nairobi’s Warembo Wasanii—a community program that teaches women to create art from trash—a culture of upcycling was born to solve the problem of imported waste.

JUSTAFEW MINUTES walkfromJoanOtieno’s artist studio in Korogocho, Nairobi is a giant landfill.Itisanever-growingmountainofdiscarded

and repurposing waste materials as a way of reimagining their value. She spent much of her early 20s experimenting with different media before settling on the transformation of waste into art—a logical step considering the materials are cheap and readily available, especially in Kenya, a country that is routinely treated as a dumping ground by the West. The immediate access to plastics and other waste products is why she first decided to look for supplies in local junkyards in Kariobangi and Dandora, which is one of Africa’s largestunregulatedlandfillsites.Usingfound

garbage from all over the world. But Otieno isn’t bothered by it. On the contrary: it inspires her. “I don’t see these things aswastematerial,”Otienosaid.“Tome,[plastic]is agift.Itisavailable,adorableandIviewitthisway with a passion.”

Otieno’s creative practice is built on recycling

bottle caps, yogurt pots, and Colgate wrappers, Otieno would create wearable sculptures in a variety of colors and playful silhouettes.

“In my process, I consider how I want people to look at this material. I want it to spark a conversation,” she said. “That’s how you shift people’s thinking from seeing a branded rice

package from a different perspective and with respect.”

Now,OtienorunsWaremboWasaniiartstudio,a programofworkshopsinwhichsheteachesyoung women and girls how to source trash and upcycle it. Warembo Wasanii—which consists of a studio where the students work as well as a gallery that showcasesandsellstheirart—isasmuchaspace forwomentoexpressthemselvescreativelyasitis a means for them to gain financial independence.

It’s this sisterhood that Warembo Wasanii’s most recent exhibition, titled Mokoro, celebrates. Lensed by Kristin-Lee Moolman, art directed and styledbyLouiseFord,andproducedandcuratedby EmmanuelleAtlan of Farago Projects and Sophie Strobele of ERE Foundation, the show includes photographs, videos, and soundscapes featuring the women of Warembo Wasanii in elaborate,

“Peopleuserecycledplasticsallthetimetocreate these amazing sculptures and art installations. This DIY approach to creating can produce great art without factories melting things down and remolding them. It’s totally sustainable and really beautiful; that’s what wewanted to capture.”

It’s true—in the West, fashion media have been hailing the rise of DIYas a pandemic-era trend. In WaremboWasanii,however,acultureofupcycling was born to solve the problem of imported waste andoverpricedclothes,especiallyamongNairobi’s poorest communities who continue to be most impacted by the toxicity generated from smoking landfills and the inflated cost of living. It’s why Warembo Wasanii’s DIY approach to creativity is a vehicle for self-realization: the program teaches young women to become financially independent; it teaches them valuable business skills and

handmade garments they’ve been building over a four-year period. The images are powerful, composed of confident women staring into the camera’s lens, and serve as an homage to Otieno’s determination to democratize knowledge and expertise that extend the lifespan of discarded items in groundbreaking, imaginative new ways.

“Across the African continent, upcycling is a necessity,”saidMoolman,whoisfromSouthAfrica.

innovative new ways of problem-solving. These lessons extend far beyond the women of Warembo Wasanii. “We have to change our perception of what is valuable,” said Strobele. “In the West we think that, if we can’t find use for an item, we have to bin it. What these women do so intelligently is alter the context of these items. They take something that’s been deemed to be trash and express themselves by finding a new

DIY Fashion from page 125

purpose for that thing.That’s inspiring.”

Of course, the reality isn’t straightforward. Sourcing usable plastics for upcycling projects among heaps of garbage has considerable risks, not least the discarded needles and sharp metal scraps mixed up in the mountains of waste that can cause serious injury. There are also the toxic chemicals leaking from dumpsters that the United Nations Environment Program has since 2007 deemed a serious hazard to those working and living nearby.

“Thesewomenareheroes,”saidFord.“Theyare turning these discarded materials into objects of desire and aspiration. They make these amazing clothes and they stun their community with their fashion shows. It’s a beautiful story; the girls are setting an amazing example of what it means to turn one person’s waste into another person’s treasure.Butit’salsoimportanttonotethatit’snot sustainable. Not at all.”

It means that Otieno has to take additional action to ensure the safety of the women enrolled in Warembo Wasanii. For example: when they go waste-walking,Otieno’smenteesareaccompanied by a team of security guards who oversee the hierarchiesofthedumpsiteandensurethewomen are free to collect their materials safely. Otieno

also typically leads the trash walks to ensure safe routes are taken by the women as they navigate the landfill.

TeamworkisattheheartofWaremboWasanii,a space built on care and compassion—and radical feminist imaginings. “Art collectives can be a playground for alternative social constellations,” said Strobele. “And with Joan, that means showing the women she tutors how this world could look under a matriarchy.”

Moolman agrees—Otieno is paving the way for the next generation of Korogocho women. “With many charitable causes, the drive is often money or recognition, whereas her initiative is completely selfless,” she said. “I think she is driven by a love of growing this community of strong women, but also by her complete devotion to and love of the process of making art.” https://atmos.earth/upcycling-fashion-wastesustainable-kristin-lee-moolman-mokoro

Image credit: KRISTIN-LEE MOOLMA, https:// www.facebook.com/Warembo-Wasanii-artstudio-591555527911824/ N

Culinary Kudos: the Trailblazing Chef Showcasing the Cuisine of Rural West Africa

By Lizzy Davies Kganye

Fatmata Binta, right, with HadjaAssia in a Fulani community inAbuja, Nigeria. Binta wants to celebrate traditional methods. Photograph: Courtesy of Basque culinary world prize 2022

▲ Fatmata Binta at a Fulani settlement near Accra, Ghana, where maize cobs are being dried in the sun. ‘We use food as a vehicle, but for me, what fulfils me the most is also impacting the lives of people, especially women,’she says.

Photograph: Francis Kokoroko/Courtesy of Basque culinary world prize 2022

WHEN Fatmata Binta was 11, she and her family fledthecivilwarinSierraLeoneandwenttolivein a small village in neighbouring Guinea. Hundreds of refugees descended on a place that could only really accommodate about 100. Resources, and budgets, were stretched extremely thinly.

Binta’s pastoralist Fula community prided itself

on its minimalist habits: her grandmother used to chide the children when they dropped rice on the floor, telling them it would make the grains cry, “andIbelievedher!Allofusdid.”Butthetwoyears spent in Guinea tested even their resourcefulness.

128

Chef Binta

page 127

“While we were in this village, everything was done from scratch,” recalls Binta. “No electricity. Wehadtofetchourownfirewood tocook; we’dgo tothestreamforwater;we’dgarden,we’dgotothe back and pick food.

“That’s when I got my respect for all of this stuff – for food and community,” she says. “Because I went through that for two years, it became part of me.”

Now 37, Binta is a trailblazing chef based in Ghana, who last week became the first African to win the Basque culinary world prize for her work showcasing nomadic food culture and exploring the diaspora of west African cuisine through her Dine on a Mat pop-up.

But the experiences of her childhood, from growing fonio – an ancient grain – on her grandparents’ land to picking cockroaches out of rice, have stayed with her. From them have sprung a desire to celebrate and support both the sustainable,low-wastecultureoftheFulanipeople – and the women who make it possible.

“We usefood as avehiclebutfor me, what fulfils me the most is also impacting the lives of people, especially women. I see them; I grew up in that space, Iknowtheir challenges.WhenI seethem,I see my mother, I see my aunties,” she says.

With the €100,000 (£86,000) prize money, she plans to build a centre where women can come to practise arts, crafts and other activities – including growing fonio – that are authentic to the Fulani people.

Fatmata Binta, left, with Fula girls Mariama, Assatou and Fatima inAbuja.

Photograph: Courtesy of Basque culinary world prize 2022

“We’re going to focus on … traditional methods and have a space where women can grow economically and socially,” she says. “A safe space.”

Binta has 1.5 hectares (four acres) of land in Daboya, northern Ghana, where the centre will be built.

In her cooking, Binta conjures up mostly plant-based meals with a variety of seasonal, local ingredients, “especially the underused ones”. There’s a strong focus on fonio as a versatile, resilient and quick-to-harvest carbohydrate; she has used it in breads, salads and puddings.

She also loves using moringa, baobab fruit, and dawadawa, as the Ghanaians call it: a seasoning made from the seeds of the African locust bean tree. “It has the highest umami in the world but it has a funky smell … like when cheese has gone bad,” she laughs. Many people avoid it because of this, but not Binta.

For her, the cuisine of rural west Africa is vastly preferabletothatofthecities,where,shelaments, the food is often overly salted and the eating cultureforgotten.“Peopledon’tslowdownforfood. Food is not just sustenance – food is community, it’s connection,” she says.

That belief was partly what prompted her to set uptheDineona Matinitiative in2018 –anomadic pop-up restaurant that served up Fulani dishes in countries around the world. She recalls one diner, part of a group of students from Harvard Business School, telling her that she had got to know her fellow scholars better during one dinner with Binta than she had in an entireweek of bus travel.

“For me, that was powerful, because I believe there’s something grounding when you sit on the floor,” she says. “It creates space for compassion and empathy. When you’re on the ground all your guards are down.”

At the core of all Binta’s work, however, is not just the food but the women who grow it, harvest it, cook it and serve it. “I really want to inspire, empower and change,” she says.

Binta’s Fulani Kitchen Foundation says it

aims to empower and educate women as well as transform traditional ingredients and recipes from remote groups of Fulani “into sources of income, economic autonomy, food security and employability”.

Whilevaluingherculturedeeply,sheisnotblindto its flaws.“Thetribe I comefrom, theydon’t believe ineducation;theybelieveinearlymarriages,which is something I escaped because they wanted me tomarrywhenIwas16andIsaidno,becauseI’ve always been rebellious,” she says.

“There are girls who don’t have a choice, but if you can create a space for them where they can see that there’s another way, they can actually do it.Youknow,ifIcandoit,theycandoit.AndIthink that’s how you start a good revolution.”

Fatmata Binta’s Fonio Jollof Serves 6

Ingredients

» 500g fonio (or if not available, rice)

» 500g yellow onions

» Oil

» 500g fresh plum tomatoes

» 1 abanero pepper or any spicy chilli (or to taste)

» 2 tsp curry powder

» 1 bulb garlic

» 1 small handful fresh thyme leaves

» 1-2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

» 1cupmixedvegetables,finelychopped(carrots, scallions [spring onions], capsicum [peppers])

» 200g tomato paste

» 3 Bay leaves

Preparation

Slice onions. Heat a frying pan and cook the onions in oil on a low heat until they caramelise. Addcurrypowderandletitsimmerfortwominutes. Blend garlic, tomato and chilli together to a pulp. Add the pulp to the onion and curry mixture and cookonamedium-lowheatuntilitthickens.(About 10 minutes)

Add tomato paste, bay leaf and salt to taste (you could add some allspice if you like). And cook for 10 minutes on medium-low heat. Then divide the sauce in half.

Add fonio to half of the sauce, simmer on a low heat and keep stirring for three minutes. Then add one or two cups (two if the sauce is really thick) of stockandthymeleavesandsimmerforanother10 minutes. (If you cook it with rice you might need more stock and may need to cook it until the rice is soft).

Add the finely chopped mixed vegetables. Cook untilvegetablesarecookedthroughbutstillhavea little bite. Serve the fonio with the other half of the sauce.

Top withsomethinlycut scallions(springonions) and some grilled capsicum (pepper) if you like.

https://www.theguardian.com/globaldevelopment/2022/jun/30/culinary-kudos-thetrailblazing-chef-showcasing-the-cuisine-of-ruralwest-africa-fatmata-binta

Source: https://qz.com/africa/2181906/sierraleone-chef-wins-the-nobel-of-gastronomy-prize

Plantain and wagashi (unpasteurised cheese) with tomato confit.

https:// themacaronaddict. blog/2019/09/15/accraeats-dine-on-a-mat-withfulani-kitchen/

New Human Fossil Discovery has Everyone Questioning the Origin of Mankind

By Joshua Hawkins

WE HAVE LONG DEBATED the origin of mankind. Some believe in God’s creation of man in his own image, while others say that mankind evolvedfromanotherspecies.Now,newevidence found in South Africa has reignited questions about where modern humans come from, and what species we may have left behind.

Fossils are sparking new debates around the origin of mankind

Way back in 1947, Robert Broom and John T. Robinson discovered the fossils of an ancient

pre-human now known as Mrs. Ples. At the time, many believed the skull, identified as part of Australopithecus africanus, to bearound2.1to2.6millionyears old. Many also believed the genus Australopithecus to be the likely precursor to the genus homo, marking it as the evolutionary origin of mankind.

Now,though,anewstudyhasthrownallofthese beliefs out the window. Researchers published the new study in the journal Proceedings of the NationalAcademyofSciences.Init,authorsDarryl Granger and others posit that the skull date back to between 3.4 to 3.6 million years.

That’s almost a one-million-year difference. As such, this study’s discovery has thrown a wrench

Origin of mankind may be found in fossils © Provided by BGR

intothetheoriesthatMrs.Plesandotherskeletons that were dated similarly are the precursors to modern humankind.

What does it all mean?

GrangersaysthecavesinSouthAfricawhereMrs. Ples was discovered hold more Australopithecus fossils than anywhere in the world. The site, known as Sterkfontein Caves, is now part of the UNESCO World Heritage site known as the Cradle ofHumankind.The discoveriesinthe cave havebeenatthecenterofdebatesontheoriginof mankind for over 70 years.

Now, though, this new evidence suggests the fossilsfoundinSouthAfricaarefromthesametime as renowned fossils like Lucy, which was found in Ethiopiabackin1974.ManylongconsideredEast Africa themost likely originof mankind, where the earliesthomininthatevolvedintotheHomogenus resided. So, this study simply adds more merit to those claims.

But, one thing Granger notes is that it is very difficult to date the fossils found in South Africa. But, he does say they are much older than originallythought.AtthetimethediscoveryofMrs. Ples confused many. That’s because the fossil showed a skull more akin to a chimpanzee. Many

believed that the brain had evolved at the same time that pre-humans began walking upright.

With Mrs. Ples now dating to a similar period as Lucy and others, though, it once more has scientists scratching their heads. We’ve long searched for the origin of mankind, and now, it seems that scientists will needtokeepsearching if they hope to find a more definitive answer to that lingering question.

https://www.msn.com/ en-us/news/technology/ new-human-fossildiscovery-has-everyonequestioning-the-origin-ofmankind/ar-AAZ96sZ

Lucy blogspot.com

Image credit: nafricaandbeyond. comMail>Associated

African Diaspora Independence Days

J

R

CAMEROON - J . 1, 1960 R HAITI - J . 1, 1804 D R SUDAN - J . 1, 1956

F

G

GRENADA - F 07, 1974

R T GAMBIA - F . 18, 1965

SAINT LUCIA - F 22, 1979

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - F . 27, 1844

A R EGYPT - F . 28, 1922

WESTERN SAHARA - F . 28, 1976

M

K MOROCCO - M 2, 1956 R GHANA - M 6, 1957 S MAURITIUS - M 12, 1968 R TUNISIA - M 20, 1956 R NAMIBIA - M 21, 1990 A

R SENEGAL - A 4, 1960 S N Z MOROCCO (M ) - A 7, 1956 R ZIMBABWE - A 18, 1980 MOROCCO (S S Z , M ) - A 27, 1958 R SIERRA LEONE - A . 27, 1961 R TOGO - A 27, 1960

M

P ' D R ETHIOPIAM 5, 1941 R CUBA - M 20 ,1902 S ERITREA - M 24, 1993 C R GUYANA - M 26, 1966 R SOUTH AFRICA - M 31, 1910

J

NIGERIA (B C N ) - J 1, 1961 A A ' R V (J ) - J 19, 1865 R MOZAMBIQUE - J 25. 1975 D R

-

J 26, 1960 R

DJIBOUTI - J 27, 1977 R

SEYCHELLES - J 29, 1976 D R CONGO (KINSHASA) - J 30, 1960 MOROCCO (I ) - J 30, 1969 J

R

BURUNDI - J 1, 1962 R

RWANDA - J 1, 1962 D R

SOMALIA - J 1, 1960 D P R

ALGERIA - J 3, 1962 R

CAPE VERDE - J 5, 1975 F I R COMOROS - J 6, 1975

R

MALAWI - J 6, 1964

THE BAHAMAS - J 10, 1973 D R SÃO TOMÉ AND

PRINCIPE - J 12, 1975

LIBERIA - J 26, 1847 A

BENIN - A . 1, 1960

NIGER - A . 3, 1960 P D R BURKINA

FASO - A . 5, 1960 G

JAMAICA - A 06, 1962

CÔTE D'IVOIRE (I C )A . 7, 1960

CHAD - A . 11, 1960

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC - A . 13, 1960

CONGO (BRAZZAVILLE)A . 15, 1960

GABON - A . 16, 1960

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO - A 31, 1962 S

ESWATINI - S . 6, 1968

S C ST. KITTS

"Awakening theAfrican Giant Within"

pleased to invite you to be an integral part of

Africa BusinessAssociation (ABA)

the DAWN -Awakening theAfrican Giant Within. DAWN

a voice through which public and private

and people share pertinent information and market business and investment opportunities inAfrica and the African Diaspora. Gain access to these

dollar markets viaABA DAWN

and advertising

owners,AfricanAmerican

owners, corporate buyers, prime contractor’s,

community organization members, elected officials and civic/social leaders inAfrica and the United States. Don’t be leftout.Advertise in this door opening