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Posts published by “goodblacknews”

Ghanaian Tech Startup Wins Grand Prize In Global Competition

By goodblacknews on November 13, 2012

Ghana tech startup wins global prize in Global Tech CompetitionDropifi, a startup tech company from Ghana has taken the top spot in the 2012 Startup Open, beating 49 other competitors from around the world, including Canada.

“Each year, thousands of new startups come to life through their experiences in Global Entrepreneurship Week which officially starts today in 130 countries,” said Jonathan Ortmans, president of Global Entrepreneurship Week. “By winning the Startup Open, Dropifi is at the top of that list and has a very promising future.”

Dropifi is the result of an encounter that Dropifi’s team leader David Osei had while meeting a business executive.

“I requested his business card after a meeting and the piles of cards he had to wade through was enormous. He was looking for his card amongst others” he recounted. “In 2006 I conceptualized a mobile app that will help people to share, store and organize business cards better.”

Dropifi replaces “contact us” buttons with a smart widget that allows companies to analyze and organize incoming messages more efficiently. The widget allows companies to gather analytical data about the people sending the messages and whether the messages content is positive or negative.

Oprah Seeks Trademark for Organic Products Line

By goodblacknews on November 13, 2012
It looks like media mogul Oprah Winfrey is getting into the organic food business. According to online filings for the US Patent and Trademark Organization, several applications for “Oprah’s Organics” were filed late last month. The filings are to use the name for bath soaps, sunscreen, massage oils, hair products — and also for organic salad dressings and frozen vegetables, soups, beverages and snack dips. Applications for “Oprah’s Farm” for a beverage and catering service and “Oprah’s Harvest” were also submitted for this fall. The addresses for the applicant’s include the Wilshire Boulevard addresses of Winfrey’s business and the Chicago address of Winfrey’s Harpo Inc., offices. Winfrey, who launched her own girls’ school in South Africa and has topped Forbes’ list of highest-paid celebrities this year earning an estimated $165 million, already owns hundreds of acres in Maui, which include a large farm and a bed and breakfast. A rep for Winfrey told us: “The trademarks were filed for Oprah’s farm on Maui to enable the farm to grow and distribute produce on Maui and throughout the Hawaiian Islands.”
article via nypost.com

Obama Honors Military on Veterans Day

By goodblacknews on November 12, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Obama paid tribute at a Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington Memorial Cemetery to “the heroes over the generations who have served this country of ours with distinction.”  He said the wreath he laid earlier at Tomb of the Unknowns was intended to “remember every service member who has ever worn our nation’s uniform.”

In a speech at the Memorial Amphitheater, he said America will never forget the sacrifice made by its veterans and their families.  “No ceremony or parade, no hug or handshake is enough to truly honor that service,” the president said, adding that the country must commit every day “to serving you as well as you’ve served us.”

Playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney to Adapt and Direct ‘Antony and Cleopatra’

By goodblacknews on November 12, 2012

Tarell Alvin McCraney in 2009.Tarell Alvin McCraney (“The Brothers Size”) will direct and adapt a new production of Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra” as part of a collaboration among the Public Theater, GableStage in Miami and the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Public announced on Monday. The play will have its premiere at the Stratford-Upon-Avon home of the Royal Shakespeare Company, where Mr. McCraney is an artistic associate, in November 2013, before being staged in Miami in January 2014 and later that month at the Public.

In addition to directing the production, Mr. McCraney edited the text, reordered the scene structure and relocated the play to “the late 1700s against the backdrop of Saint-Domingue, on the eve of the Haitian Revolution against the French,” according to a news release. Casting will take place in London, New York and Miami, Mr. McCraney’s hometown.

A 2007 graduate of Yale, Mr. McCraney has also written the trilogy “The Brother/Sister Plays,” “Wig Out” and other plays, including “Head of Passes,” which will have its premiere in Chicago next year.

The production will be the latest collaboration between the Royal Shakespeare Company and a New York stage. In 2011 the company had a residency at the Park Avenue Armory as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. In March 2013 its production of “Matilda the Musical,” based on the Roald Dahl children’s book and now running in London, is to begin performances on Broadway.

article by Erik Piepenburg via nytimes.com

WATCH TONIGHT: Terrence Jenkins Replaces Ryan Seacrest on ‘E! News’

By goodblacknews on November 12, 2012

Beginning this evening, “106 & Park’s” Terrence Jenkins will replace Ryan Seacrest as co-host of E! News with Giuliana Rancic. His debut will feature an exclusive interview with Chris Brown.  The move comes as the hour-long show looks to expand beyond celebrity, focusing more broadly on pop culture, politics, fashion and music, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Jenkins, formerly known as Terrence J, will join Rancic on the weekday news desk, working on personality profiles and other reporting for the show.

Antron Brown Makes History as First African-American Top Fuel Champion

By goodblacknews on November 12, 2012

POMONA, Calif. (AP) — Antron Brown became the first black auto-racing champion in any NHRA pro series when he won the Top Fuel title on Sunday at the season-ending event.  Brown suffered minor burns to his hands when his engine popped in an opening-round loss during eliminations, then had to wait to celebrate his victory until the final, when teammate Tony Schumacher lost in a photo finish to Brandon Bernstein.

Ninety-Seven Years Ago Today: Xavier University Was Founded

By goodblacknews on November 11, 2012
Xavier University of Louisiana is founded(Photo: Xavier University of Louisiana)

Xavier University of Louisiana began its mission to educate Native American and Black students when St. Katharine Drexel and the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament opened its doors in New Orleans on Nov. 11, 1915. After seeing the lack of Catholic schools for higher education that catered to Blacks in the South, Drexel used her inheritance to open the institution. It started as a small high school, and later became known as Xavier Prep A. Normal School. The school taught the few career fields open to Blacks at the time and grew into an institution that taught 47 major areas on the undergraduate, graduate and professional degree levels. The co-ed liberal arts college remains the only historically black Roman Catholic college in the country. 

article by Dorkys Ramos via bet.com

 

 

ARISE Magazine in Africa Celebrates 100 Dynamic Women

By goodblacknews on November 11, 2012

ARISE Magazine, Africa’s “first and foremost” fashion glossy, has released its first ever list of 100 dynamic women across the diaspora. Honoring women from business, government, entertainment, philanthropy, and fashion, ARISE’s list of 100 Dynamic women reads like a who’s who of prominent women from around the globe.

The inaugural honorees include Nkosazana DlaminiZuma, the chairwoman of the African Union; philanthropist Melinda Gates; media mogul Oprah Winfrey; singer and campaigner Angélique Kidjo; actress Sophie Okonedo; Diezani Alison-Madueke, Minister of Paterolem Reserves in Nigeria; and many more.

Pick up the latest issue of ARISE or head on over to their website to read the entire list of their 100 Dynamic women of 2012.

article by Britni Danielle via clutchmagonline.com

It’s Official: Obama Wins Florida, Putting Final Electoral Tally 332 to 206

By goodblacknews on November 10, 2012

Obama Wins Florida: Final electoral tally: 332 to 206

Major news outlets have reported that President Barack Obama has won Florida, topping Republican challenger Mitt Romney in the final electoral vote tally 332 to 206.

The Florida Secretary of State’s Office said that with almost 100 percent of the vote counted, Obama led Romney 50 percent to 49.1 percent, a difference of about 74,000 votes. That was over the half-percent margin where a computer recount would have been automatically ordered unless Romney had waived it, NBC News reported.

Obama had already clinched re-election, leading earlier in the Electoral College vote 303 to 206.

A win in Florida gives Obama victories in eight of the nine swing states, losing only North Carolina. He won Ohio, Iowa, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Virginia, Colorado and Nevada.

article via defendernetwork.com

Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum Opens “African Presence In Renaissance Europe” Exhibit

By goodblacknews on November 9, 2012

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid “The Three Mulattoes of Esmereldas” (1599) is one of the works in “Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe,” at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.

BALTIMORE — In a fall art season distinguished, so far, largely by a bland, no-brainer diet served up by Manhattan’s major museums, you have to hit the road for grittier fare. And the Walters Art Museum here is not too far to go to find it in a high-fiber, convention-rattling show with the unglamorous title of “Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe.” 

Visually the exhibition is a gift, with marvelous things by artists familiar and revered — Dürer, Rubens, Veronese — along with images most of us never knew existed. Together they map a history of art, politics and race that scholars have begun to pay attention to — notably through “The Image of the Black in Western Art,” a multi-volume book project edited by David Bindman and Henry Louis Gates Jr. — but that few museums have addressed in full-dress style.