New this week!
Hill Harper teams with MCI Diagnostic to combat vaccine hesitancy among African-Americans
Actor Hill Harper is teaming with the largest African-American owned diagnostic test and vaccination company, MCI Diagnostics, in an expanded nationwide campaign to reduce the low rate of African-American vaccination.
Colleen Payne, MCI founder, made the announcement during the Journal of Black Innovation’s panel Creating Global Supply Chains in Black Communities during the National Urban League conference Sept. 30
The panel featured companies among the Journal’s Ten to a Billion list with prospects for passing the Billion Dollar Barrier, theme of Innovation&Equity21: 50 Most Important African-Americans in Technology.
Jefferi K. Lee, Founder and President of RepItSocial, also announced that the social media platform would launch in October.
Lee said, “We need to call the shots because we drive the audience.” He spoke as Congress investigated new claims of harm to children from existing platforms
The Journal of Black Innovation also hosted a Sept. 29 session Bounce Back Black San Francisco with the San Francisco Planning Department, which has presided over a six decade long decline in the city’s Black population since 1960, when African-Americans were the second largest group in the city.
Dr. Malcolm Fabiyi, COO of 3Degrees Group, a global climate expert, described how renewable energy credits can provide the capital for rebuilding those neighborhoods in addition to the new state investments during both sessions. Fabiyi is chief operating officer of 3Degrees Group. Dr. Frederick Foreman also discussed DynaKrypt(tm), his revolutionary solution to the ransomware crisis.
HBCUS want more R&D funding, targeted specifically for HBCUs in reconciliation
HBCUs and their supporters sent an urgent letter to Congressional leaders that $2 billion for expanding their long-overlooked technical capacity is not enough in the Build Back Better reconciliation.
“We write to respectfully urge you to increase the $2 billion currently included in the House Education & Labor Committee’s markup bill text, on reconciliation for Improving Research & Development Infrastructure for HBCUs, HBGIs, TCUs and MSIs, by several billions more in research funding for these institutions. We also respectfully request that you adjust the competitive grant program designed to identify colleges and universities to receive R&D funding under the Improve Research & Development Infrastructure for HBCUs, HBGIs, TCUs, and MSIs, so that the competition is among similar institutions. Research grant competitions among HBCUs, HBGIs, TCUs and demographic Historically White Institutions that are MSIs, have proven ineffective in ensuring that the lesser-resourced institutions because of the vestiges of de jure discrimination in America, are hamstrung when competing against the four-year resource-rich Historically White Universities that are designated MSIs based on meeting a percentage threshold of targeted “minority students.”
Dr. Lezli Baskerville, President/CEO of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, called for five new HBCU medical schools during Innovation&Equity20 last January. The original budget allocation of $42 billion was seen as the largest investment toward Black graduate and research education in history.
Signers were National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO), United Negro College Fund (UNCF), Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), 1890 Universities Foundation, 1890 Landgrant Universities, Association of Minority Health Professions Schools (AMPHS), Historically Black Graduate Institutions (HBGIs), Predominantly Black Institutions (PBIs), Joseph Whittaker, Ph.D. Vice President for Research, Jackson State University, Collaborative of HBCU R-2 University Vice Presidents for Research, and Ivory A. Toldson, Ph.D. Director of Education Innovation and Research, NAACP
Warnock pushes voting rights back to the forefront
Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-GA told a San Francisco audience that voting rights would be his first priority when he returned to Washington and he was true to his word — introducing the Freedom to Vote Act with nine fellow Democratic senators.
His speech on the Senate floor came on the same day that four African-American girls were blown up in Birmingham, AL in 1964, an impetus for the Voting Righits Act to restore the impact of the 15th Amendment.
The previous day, fellow ministers in California propelled a large African-American turnout in opposition to a recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom. Newsom actually got several percentage points more than he did in his first election in 2018. During a Souls to the Polls conference call Saturday, the point was made that Black voters in California would set the tone for Black voters across the country leading to the November elections in New Jersey and Virginia and the 2022 elections and put pressure on Congress to pass voting rights legislation.
Warnock’s election on Jan. 5 gave Democrats control of the Senate and resulted in $30 billion of direct assistance to African-American businesses so far this year.
From Crispus Attucks to Gen. CQ Brown, African-Americans key to military history
The Journal of Black Innovation announces Gen. Charles Q. “CQ” Brown, the first African-American to head one of the U.S. armed services, will be the Roy L. Clay Sr. Technology Pinnacle winner among the 21st annual 50 Most Important African-Americans in Technology.
This group represents more than 560,000 African-American technologists as we have since 1998. The September issue includes the 50 Most as well as a new 50 Most Important African-Americans in Infrastructure as the nation makes the most significant public works investments since the Interstate highway.
Learn about the important decisions ahead during Innovation&Equity21: 50 Most Important African-Americans in Technology Jan. 15 as part of your subscription to the Journal of Black Innovation.
During the 18th annual National Black Business Month, we reported that more than 800,000 Black-owned firms participated in the PPP loans this year following changes in policy that we advocated during 2020.
Now, we bring forward the decision-makers who can dramatically increase the number of African-American firms which are federal contractors and which participate in international trade with the African Union and Caribbean Community to follow up on our 31 Ways 31 Days conversations during August.
Vaccine manufacturers urged to boost supplies to Africa
The heads of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank Group, World Health Organization and World Trade Organization met with the CEOs of leading vaccine manufacturing companies to discuss strategies to improve access to COVID-19 vaccines, especially in low— and lower middle-income countries and in Africa. The Task Force expressed concerns that without urgent steps the world is unlikely to achieve the end-2021 target of vaccinating at least 40% of the population in all countries — a critical milestone to end the pandemic and for global economic recovery.
