One of the most popular highlights of the Future of Wealth Summit in Washington, DC was its Inclusion Revolution Innovation Competition. Testify Software Solutions representatives Femi Adebogun and Zack Tasker, both 17, took home $10,000 as the competition’s winner. 

Testify, a team of about nine, ages 17 to 40, created Mindmap. The software is a game students play as their responses are tabulated separately to reveal to their teachers many things about them including how they best learn.

The competition awards the $10,000 prize to innovators who develop products, services, programs, or policies that help make the application of technology, big data, and/or the operation of the tech sector more inclusive and economically or socially beneficial to marginalized communities. JPMorgan Chase & Co. sponsored the competition.

During Adebogun’s presentation, he shared that he has been to six schools since coming to America from Nigeria. Schools in underrepresented communities are so different from those serving the “upper crust," the Chief Executive Officer of Testify observed. He and Tasker, the company’s Chief Marketing Officer, attend Franklin High School in Reisterstown, Maryland, just outside of Baltimore.

The three day conference also included panel discussions including one hosted by Star Jones and featured “Grey’s Anatomy” star Jesse Williams. Williams is also one of the minds behind Ebroji, an app that stocks contemporary Black and multi-cultural emojis.

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The annual three day event broadly focuses on the racial wealth gap in America and inclusion

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The annual three day event, which broadly focuses on the racial wealth gap in America and inclusion, screened “Against All Odds:  The Fight for a Black Middle Class.” The documentary by acclaimed journalist Bob Herbert chronicles efforts by Blacks to gain and maintain wealth despite unrelenting barriers. Afterwards, Representative Elijah Cummings (D-Baltimore, MD) spoke of the newly birthed fight. “We are going through a storm and this one can be destructive,” he warned.

During one of the lunch talks, representative Gregory Meeks (D-Jamaica Queens, NY) said about 34 percent of his constituents still rely on alternative banking services such as expensive cash checking services, despite laws enacted to expand cost-effective financial services to more Americans. He warned of 45s attempt to roll back such laws. “We are on the defense and need to keep him from hurting people.”

Recent data show that for every $1 of wealth in White households, Hispanic own $.07 and Blacks own barely a nickel or $.05. Income is the amount you earn in any given time period. Wealth in the value of what you own, after all debts are paid. 

“I was in Lubbock, Texas for only 13 weeks, before I said it's time to go," says Robin Baker, an occupational therapist of Liberian heritage and the Executive Director of GoTherapy, a charity that provides health services to the physically disabled in Liberia and Ghana. The Howard University graduate says returning to Washington, DC has been good for her social and business life.

The large continental African population and groups like Young African Professionals (YAP DC) is what makes DC speacial for people like Baker. Metropolitan DC has the second largest African-born population says the U.S. Census Bureau with about 161,000 African born people. Metro New York is number one with 212,000. 

Like Baker, Sonnie Njau attended a Wednesday evening informational gathering on Intellectual Property organized by YAP DC.  “I came for the motivation and networking,” says Njau, who traveled more than an hour from Essex, Maryland to attend the event and who runs a mentoring group in Baltimore County.

The interests among YAP DC members are diverse. Port Of Harlem subscriber Ken Gwira of MoodsInWoods.com says he came to keep informed. We featured Gwira’s wood work in Port Of Harlem several years ago. He says he has now branched out into paintings and fashion design. “As an artist, I am always interested in protecting intellectual property,” says Gwira.

“We come for the exchange of innovative ideas,” explained President Margaret Kamara. The group meets for presentations on various subjects and at various venues, she continued as she prepared for the Thursday, May 11, Happy Hour gathering at the Eighteenth Street Lounge. Kamara runs a food blog on Instagram, using the handle adama_pepel, named for her mother and the island where her mother is from in Sierra Leone.

Copyrighting, Patents, and Trademarks

During the two and half hour meeting at the Library Congress (LOC), about 20 YAP DC members learned that the United States Copyright Office encourages creativity and legal security. Our job is to “promote the progress of science and the arts,” says Clifton Knight, Senior Publication Information Specialist for the LOC.

The group learned that the protection begins when they first create intellectual property and that registration is to secure legal remedies if needed. It is the “form of expression, not the idea,” that can be copyrighted, Knight continued. While copyrighting is for intellectual property, patents are for inventions, and trademarks (service marks) are for logos and brands. Interestingly, explained Copyright attorney-advisor Whitney Levandusky, the government considers software a literary work; therefore copyrightable.

The Event Was Streamed

Port Of Harlem subscriber Samuel Suraphel, owner of Mansa Colabs, streamed the event. His consulting company works with early-stage entrepreneurs by helping them find the skills and network needed to grow. The Smithsonian African Art Museum recently licensed one of their apps, Jeligeo, for use along with a traveling exhibit on quotes from famous Pan-African leaders.

Even Suraphel’s company name is inclusive. “Mansa is from Mansa Musa,” he says in remembrance of the Malian Empire leader. “It references the wealth and contribution to knowledge that is represented in his reign,” he continued. Colabs, he say, refers to collaborations. Together the words, “means growing wealth through shared efforts and collaborations.”

For Genii Games, Mansa Colabs helps increase their exposure and presence among the large Diaspora community in the DC region and organizations that have complimentary missions. “We represent them at various conferences, most recently at Teach Africa Day and co-developed a webinar held with African Ancestry,” says Suraphel.

Suraphel, who is of Ethiopian heritage, also heads the MeetUp group DMV African Entrepreneurs. “There are lots of Africans and people of African descent doing good things, YAP and DMV African Entrepreneurs are just platforms to help us inspire professional and future entrepreneurs in our community.”

May is National Stroke Awareness Month and the National Stroke Association is turning its attention to the alarming number of strokes in young Americans. Over the last decade, there has been a spike of 44% in the number of young Americans (under 45 years) hospitalized due to stroke. On top of that, 73% of young Americans are not familiar with stroke symptoms and the need for urgent medical attention.

A stroke can happen to anyone, at any time, and at any age.  However, the Association’s animated video, “Young Stroke: An Unexpected Reality,” focuses on the unique challenges faced by young stroke survivors and offers a wide range of resources to support stroke survivors in their recovery journeys.

More Stroke Statistics:

- A stroke happens every 40 seconds
- Every four minutes someone dies from stroke
- Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the U.S.
- Up to 80% of strokes can be prevented

The Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare, is still the law of the land. However, by the very slim 217 to 213 vote, with no Democratic votes, 1 not voting, and 20 Republican no votes, the TrumpCare bill will now have to take these steps to become law:

1. Pass an amended version in the Senate
2. Go to conference to hammer out differences between the House and Senate
3. Pass in the House again
4. Pass in the Senate again

“It took them five months to take the (initial) and easiest step - passing a repeal that they’ve passed literally dozens of times through the House before. The next steps are much harder,” says The Indivisible Team, which opposes the bill.

See also:
New York Times:  How Every Member Voted on the House Health Care Bill

The Indivisible Team’s: Save the ACA: Die-In Planning Guide

Money Magazine: 50 Health Issues That Count as a Pre-existing Condition

A bill that would see Texas men fined $100 (£82) for masturbating has taken a step closer to becoming law after it received its first reading in the state’s House of Representatives. Under section 173.010 of House Bill 4260, the Man’s Right to Know Act, Texas men would only be allowed to masturbate under supervision, inside approved health care and medical facilities.

Any “unregulated masturbatory emissions outside of a woman’s vagina, or created outside of a health or medical facility, will be charged a $100 civil penalty for each emission, and will be considered an act against an unborn child and failing to preserve the sanctity of life.”

Allowing Texas men only “occasional” masturbatory emissions inside the approved facilities, the bill would insist that the resulting semen be “stored for the purposes of conception for a current or future wife.”

Read the Full Story

FOX has picked up “Showtime At The Apollo” as an one-hour weekly series, featuring Emmy Award-winning personality Steve Harvey as host. The show will debut during the 2017-2018 season.

Featured in the series are elements from the Apollo’s legendary Amateur Night - - the long-running, live talent competition, now in its 82nd year - - which provides a platform for up-and-coming artists to perform. The Apollo audience is famed as one of entertainment’s most boisterous and brutally honest, and those amateurs who don’t win them over must endure the wrath of this notorious crowd. 

The Apollo Theater helped launch the careers of many iconic artists, including James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Lauryn Hill, Michael Jackson and The Jackson Five, D’Angelo, and countless others. Its venerable stage show, “Amateur Night at the Apollo,” has long been revered by artists as a transformative experience during which up-and-coming talent feel the power of the legendary performers who have come before them, while audience response can help make or break a career.

Washington
Not Your Mother’s Photos
Tolbert & Bing Gallery
716 Monroe Street NE – Studio 6
Exhibit Open until Wed, May 31
Opening: Sat, May 13, 6p-9p, free

Finding Samuel Lowe: From Harlem to China
Alexandria Black History Museum
902 Wythe Street
Alexandria
Sat, May 13, 5p, free

Hidden Figures
Westminster Presbyterian Church
400 I Street, SW
Sat, May 13, 6:30p pizza, 7p, free

Malcolm X Day Program
Film and Discussion
America's Islamic Heritage Museum
2315 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave SE
Friday, May 19, 5p-7p, free

Deanwood Day
Deanwood Citizens Association
Deanwood Recreation Center
1350 49th Street, NE
Sat, May 20, 10a-3p, free

Malcolm X "An American Legend"
Written and Performed by Darrick Johnson
Everlasting Life Vegan Restaurant & Lounge
9185 Central Avenue
Capital Heights, MD
Sat, May 20, 6p-9p, $20/$15 Students w/ID

Mindfulness Decor + Art: Feng Shui
with Sherry Ways
Latela Art Gallery
716 Monroe Street, NE - Studio #27
Tue, May 23, 6:30p-8p, $25

Clarksdale, MS
Movie Night at the Museum
Celebrating Mississippi's Music History and Heritage
Delta Blues Museum
1 Blues Alley
one Monday per month starting May 22, 8p, free

Richmond, VA
Public Safety Film Screening and Discussion
Community Justice Film Series
Calhoun Center
436 Calhoun Street
May 17, 6p-8:30p, free

United States
Resistance Near Me
(public rally listings by ZIP code)

Coming
Getting the Most of Your Vacation for Less
Bernadette Champion
Alexandria Black History Museum
902 Wythe Street
Alexandria
Sat, May 27, 11a-1p, free

Fatherless Daughter Reconciliation
Jonetta Rose Barras
Alexandria Black History Museum
902 Wythe Street
Alexandria
Sat, Jun 17, 11a-1p, $5

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