Kara Walker
Kara Walker is among the most complex and prolific American artists of her generation. She has gained national and international recognition for her cut-paper silhouettes depicting historical narratives haunted by sexuality, violence, and subjugation. Walker has also...
Mariam Kamara
An emerging architect with a wealth of accolades under her belt, Mariam Kamara heads Atelier Masōmī, a boutique architecture practice in Niamey, Niger. The architect gained global recognition in 2018 when she was chosen for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé scheme and...
Studio Zewde
Studio Zewde is a landscape architecture, urban design, and public art practice based in Harlem, New York City. Named to the Architectural Digest AD100 and a 2021 Emerging Voice by the Architectural League of New York, the studio’s work is lauded for its design...
Viola Davis
For a month, Viola Davis had been stuck. In the spring of 2020, in the late nights of lockdown, she set out to write her memoir. She had her routine: Get out of bed in the middle of the night, make herself a cup of tea, start writing in her movie room, fall asleep in...
Nina Simone
NINA SIMONE WAS born Eunice Kathleen Waymon on Feb. 21, 1933, in the 660-square-foot house at 30 East Livingston Street. Simone’s mother was an ordained minister and domestic worker; her father ran his own dry-cleaning business and worked as a handyman. Modest though...
Step Up
WHAT WE DO Mentorship Step Up believes mentorship is the key toward a world where all girls have the opportunity to pursue their dreams of success. Our Approach Step Up creates and implements impactful virtual and in-person mentorship programs open to girls, young...
Miriam Makeba: Mama Africa
Become a singer despite the apartheid The kid who became the muse of Pan-Africanism in songs could have missed out on her own destiny. Flashback on a young Makeba locked behind apartheid’s barbed wire. Uzenzile: “You can only blame yourself” If you want to sweep the...
Somi
Remembering Miriam Makeba: SOMI On Her New Play and Album Celebrating The South African Legend SOMI is a Grammy-nominated singer, a songwriter, composer, actor and a playwright who has shared the stage with some of our world’s biggest stars—Angelique Kidjo, Common and...
Girl Be Heard 2022
Girl Be Heard has multiple program areas to bring social justice and theater making together to today’s young people. Working hand in hand our young people develop skills through creating and bring awareness through performing! All of our programs share the GBH method...
Amanda Gorman 2022
In Gorman’s recent collection of poems, Call Us What We Carry, she weaves together words that represent the overall human experience during a year of extreme isolation and the Black experience in a time of racial unrest. This might sound grim, but Gorman infuses a...
Kizzmekia Corbett 2022
Kizzmekia Corbett Wins 2022 AAAS Early Career Award for Public Engagement with Science Kizzmekia Corbett, Assistant Professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, has been awarded the 2022 Early Career Award for Public Engagement with Science from the...
Malala 2022
Everybody knows Malala Yousafzai’s name. But not everything about the extraordinary young activist’s life is common knowledge. For one thing, she has a private Instagram account (and her feed is filled with pictures of the sky). The recent Oxford University graduate –...
Afro-Futurism
While the idea of extended reality (XR) may evoke traditions of cyberpunk dystopias, at this year’s Sundance New Frontiers, five Black storytellers were leading a shift to place cultural memory and ancestral knowledge at the center of designing collective futures....
Engineering the Future
A woman smiles for the camera, leaning against a backdrop with inspirational quotes Virtue Oboro, who co-founded Tiny Hearts Technology and developed Crib A’Glow, a solar-powered crib that treats jaundiced newborns with phototherapy. Soon after her son, Tonbra, was...
Afrotectopia
OUR STORY In 2017, NYU ITP graduate student Ari Melenciano wanted to create a space where socially-minded innovators could convene. A space to explore the possibilities when building at the intersections of art, design, technology, Black culture and activism for...
Ari Melenciano
Ari Melenciano is a designer, creative technologist and researcher who is passionate about exploring the relationships between various forms of design and sentient experiences. She is a creative technologist at Google's Creative Lab, professor at NYU's...
Stacey Abrams 2022
Stacey Abrams just announced a 2022 run for Georgia governor, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Abrams is a political powerhouse and staunch advocate for the people who began her work in politics when she was elected to the Georgia General Assembly in the...
The Story of Lamees
“I want my mother not to get tired, so I do all of the housework to help,” says Lamees, with a shy smile on her face, from the tailoring workshop she works at in Aleppo, northwest Syria. The thirteen-year-old have had to mature much earlier than any child must....
Varkey Foundation
At the Varkey Foundation, we believe in a quality education for every child. That’s why, together with our partners, we work to build the status of teachers to ensure that the quality of teaching is enhanced, and outcomes will improve. Our vision is a quality...
Keishia Thorpe
Keishia Thorpe recently became the first Black woman to win the Global Educator Prize, The Washington Post reports. She was born and raised in Jamaica by her grandmother alongside her identical twin sister, Treisha. The two earned track-and-field scholarships to...
Women in Science Making a Difference
The American Association of University Women announced a pilot program designed to encourage high school girls to pursue education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). With a particular focus on girls of color, AAUW STEMEd for Girls seeks to...
Women in Science Making a Difference
By now, every corner of the world has felt the devastating impact of the pandemic, and women and girls in science are on the front lines of response. They are healthcare workers and innovators. They are researching vaccines and pioneering treatments. They are leading...
OWSD
The Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World The Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD) is an international organization founded in 1987 and based at the offices of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), in Trieste, Italy....
Moogega Cooper
A real life “Guardian of the Galaxy,” Dr. Moogega (Moo-ji-gae) “Moo” Cooper holds the awesome responsibility of keeping the red planet safe from any of the Earth’s contaminants. Moo is the planetary protection lead of the famed NASA 2020 Mars mission—with its highly...