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Posts tagged as “technology”

Two Black Scientists Selected for National Technology Award

By goodblacknews on December 29, 2012
 
Two African-American scientists have been named as part of a group that will receive the National Medal of Technology and Innovation Award by the Obama Administration, the White House announced.  Among the 12 recipients are James Gates, a physicist at the University of Maryland, and George Carruthers, an inventor, physicist, space scientist and professor at Howard University.

“I am proud to honor these inspiring American innovators,” President Obama said, in a statement. 

“They represent the ingenuity and imagination that has long made this Nation great — and they remind us of the enormous impact a few good ideas can have when these creative qualities are unleashed in an entrepreneurial environment.”

DIVAS Bring STEM Program, Social Justice To Brooklyn

By goodblacknews on December 1, 2012

Professor Andrea Taylor with members of the robotics group.

According to the National Center for Women & Information Technology, only 25 percent of professional computing occupations in the US were held by women in 2011. Additionally, only three percent were African-American women, four percent were Asian women, and one percent were Hispanic women.

A Brooklyn-based nonprofit organization, DIVAS for Social Justice, is hoping to change those numbers with its programming, which encourages students to use multimedia projects to discuss social justice and other issues facing their communities. DIVAS, which stands for Digital, Interactive, Visual Arts, and Sciences, launched five years ago as a way to get students in underserved neighborhoods more interested in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

“Around the Way” App Locates Black-Owned Businesses

By goodblacknews on November 30, 2012

Imagine having access to the more than 1.9 million black-owned businesses in the United States at your fingertips? A company called Around The Way, which is based in New York, teamed up with Washington, D.C.-based mobile-app development firm Clearly Innovative to create a mobile app that will locate black-owned businesses in your area.

The companies say they hope the Around The Way app will support and empower black-owned businesses, especially around this all-important Christmas shopping season. The app, which is available only for the Apple iPhone right now,can be downloaded from the Apple app store.

While the app doesn’t have all of the black-owned businesses in the U.S. yet, it does contain a substantial number and there’s a spot on the app’s website where you can add your business. “The app can locate 17,000 black-owned businesses in all 50 states. Many of the businesses are located in New York City, and other major metropolitan areas,” Eric Hamilton, chief marketing officer and co-founder of Around The Way wrote in an e-mail to The NorthStar News & Analysis.

Will.i.am to Launch Line of iPhone Accessories

By goodblacknews on November 25, 2012
Will.i.am carrying the i.am+ camera for iPhone 4 at the Ekocycle brand launch in New York in October

Will.I.am is set to launch a new line of accessories, named “i.am+,” for Apple’s iPhone.  The Black Eyed Peas star, who was hired as a creative director for technology firm Intel last year, has created a collection of hardware which he insists will transform the cell phones.

The first product from his “i.am+” line is an accessory that clips onto an iPhone and transforms the eight megapixel smartphone camera into a 14 megapixel camera, which dramatically enhances the clarity and definition of the photographs. Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, he says: “We have our own sensor and a better flash. You dock you phone into our device and it turns you smartphone into a genius-phone. We take over the camera.”

Self-Taught 15-Year-Old Sierra Leone Engineer Invited to MIT (Video)

By goodblacknews on November 21, 2012

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOLOLrUBRBY&w=560&h=315]

There are some pretty amazing kids out there doing the best they can with whatever circumstances were given to them.  In areas of the world where little to no technological advancement has occurred, ideas are being born without any mentors, tools, and/or resources.

PRODIGIES is a bi-weekly series on YouTube that showcases the youngest and brightest as they challenge themselves to reach new heights and the stories behind them.  Kelvin Doe is a 15-year-old Sierra Leone native who admittedly loves inventing.  He’s taught himself how to make things like batteries, FM radio transmitter, and a generator out of need for these things in his community.

He said that his community doesn’t have much electricity.  The lights come on at night in his area once per week and then they don’t have any lights for the rest of the month.  That led to his battery invention, so that his neighbors and family could use the battery to light their homes.

He’s known as DJ Focus because of a valuable radio program that he broadcasts on FM radio.  He was able to create his generator for his station by using scraps.  He chose that name because he said:

“If you can focus you can do invention perfectly.”

He started the station to give “voice to the youth.”

Kelvin was discovered by fellow Sierra Leone native, David Sengeh, who is a Ph.D. student at MIT.  Sengeh directs Summer Innovation Camp in Sierra Leone and that is where he discovered Kelvin and his talents.  When he saw what Kelvin was able to create simply using spare parts from trash in his community, he knew he was someone special.

BlackGirlsCode Wins $50,000 Philanthropy Award

By goodblacknews on November 18, 2012

Black Girls Code wins $50,000 Philanthropy AwardThe Bank of the West awarded $210,000 in cash grants during its third annual philanthropy award program that took place in San Francisco on November 13.

BlackGirlsCode, a nonprofit devoted to promoting young women of color in the technology industry was recognized as one of three winning laureates and received a $50,000 grant.

BlackGirlsCode reaches out to the community and introduces young black females to the world of computer programming via languages such as Scratch or Ruby on Rails. By introducing computer coding lessons to young girls from underrepresented communities, BlackGirlCode is attempting to show that girls of every color can become the programmers of tomorrow. Following their motto of “Imagine. Build. Create,” the non-profit attempts to bridge the digital divide where young black women grow up in homes where their White counterparts are twice as likely to have home internet access then they are.

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 Winfrey and Huffington Post Launch “HuffPost OWN”

By goodblacknews on November 4, 2012
Oprah Winfrey

(Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Brooklyn High School Preps Students For Technology Jobs

By goodblacknews on October 21, 2012

Students use computers even in English class at the Pathways in Technology Early College High School, also known as P-Tech.(Michael Appleton for The New York Times)

Flakes of green paint are peeling from the third-floor windowsills. Some desks are patched with tape, others etched with graffiti. The view across the street is of a row of boarded-up brownstones.  Students attended an Introduction to Computer Systems class at Pathways in Technology Early College High School in Brooklyn.  The building and its surroundings in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, may look run-down, but inside 150 Albany Avenue may sit the future of the country’s vocational education: The first 230 pupils of a new style of school that weaves high school and college curriculums into a six-year program tailored for a job in the technology industry.

By 2017, the first wave of students of P-Tech — Pathways in Technology Early College High School — is expected to emerge with associate’s degrees in applied science in computer information systems or electromechanical engineering technology, following a course of studies developed in consultation with I.B.M.

National Science Foundation Gives $7.4 Million Grant to Aid Predominately-Black Baltimore Schools With STEM Education

By goodblacknews on October 16, 2012

Johns Hopkins University recently received a five-year, $7.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation to boost STEM education programs in the predominantly Black public school system in Baltimore.  The program, called STEM Achievement in Baltimore Elementary Schools — or SABES for short — will benefit more than 1,600 students in grades three through five in nine city elementary schools and could eventually become a national model for STEM education programs. More details provided in the video below:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENXExkxe0NU&w=560&h=315]
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson