November 15, 2018
City News Service
“Think you can solve traffic?”' will be the first question posed to private-sector companies and entrepreneurs in a series of upcoming forums, Metro announced today.
“L.A.’s rush hour traffic is a unique problem that requires unique solutions,” county Supervisor and Metro board Chair Sheila Kuehl said. “We want to tap private-sector brain power and ingenuity to encourage innovative thinking outside the box.”
The first Metro Accelerator Forum Series will include panel discussions on using incentives and/or fees to get more people to consider alternatives to driving or to avoid driving during peak periods, as well as how to use toll roads as one possible way to ease traffic congestion.
Metro officials said the forums were scheduled in conjunction with a call for solutions from the private sector, which should be submitted for review by Jan. 31. All submissions will be reviewed by Metro's Office of Extraordinary Innovation and an internal panel of Metro experts as part of the agency's Unsolicited Proposal program, which was created in 2016.
More than 110 proposals have already been submitted and 18 are undergoing examination in a Phase 2 analysis, Metro officials said, including a proposed privately funded aerial tram from Union Station to Dodgers Stadium.
“This series will expand our ability to receive and incorporate new and innovative ideas in a timely manner to tackle some of our most pressing issues,” Metro CEO Phillip A. Washington said.
The first “Think You Can Solve Traffic?” forum will take place from 1 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. on Dec. 4 at Union Station's Historic Ticketing Hall.
November 08, 2018
Defender News Service
Although Black women are the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs in the country, they still run into many obstacles when seeking capital for their business ventures. Entrepreneur Shelly Bell is looking to change that through her company Black Girl Ventures, Forbes reported.
Throughout her career Bell has been a fierce advocate for people from underrepresented groups, the news outlet writes. She leads two printing companies one of which has an all-woman team of designers and printers who develop products for major tech companies. Her other venture—dubbed Made by a Black Woman—is an e-commerce digital platform that features products created by women of color. Inspired to take her mission of empowering Black women further, she launched Black Girl Ventures in 2016 as an avenue to align Black businesswomen with opportunities to secure capital.
Through her business, she provides an array of different services that are all designed to help women elevate their businesses. She hosts networking events, boot camps, and pitch competitions where winners receive funds from the admission fees and land meetings with investors. In the future, she hopes to help Latin women as well.
“We realized on top of access to capital, Black and Brown women also want access to new networks,” Bell told Forbes. “In my opinion social capital is the move. Even if you get access to capital, if you don’t have the network or team or people around you to help you manage it or give you ideas on how to grow or scale, you can only get to a certain point.” Bell—who is a part of the LGBTQIA community—believes that there is power in inclusivity and wants BGV to be a safe space for people from all walks of life.
Ever since BGV launched two years ago, she has helped 13 entrepreneurs fund their businesses and hopes to help many others bring their dreams to fruition.
This article originally appeared in the Defender News Network.
November 08, 2018
LAWT News Service
A Super PAC whose sole focus was to turn out African American voters contributed to wins in 14 House races and four Senate races where African American turnout was pivotal.
Protecting Our Vote PAC (www.protectingourvote.org), founded following the midterm losses in 2010, is idea born from a sermon often preached by then House Majority Whip James Clyburn (SC) – “Put money into GOTV efforts and reach the African American community where they live…and Democrats will win elections...Make no mistake!” During the 2018 election cycle POV targeted African American voters in two dozen House races and six overlapping Senate races.
“I think we had a pretty good night” said Marcus Sebastian Mason, the organization’s treasurer and one of its co-founders. “We helped secure wins in more than 50% of the House races we were involved in and, had success in two-thirds of the overlapping Senate races. I’m proud of our team and glad we could help contribute to the Democratic Majority in the House” Mason added.
Protecting Our Vote PAC is a federal Super PAC dedicated to informing, engaging, and empowering Black voters. “We were laser focused on turning out African-American voters and helping to win a Democratic Majority in the House of Representatives and we helped win races in just about every region of the country” concluded Mason.
PHOTO: NU-SuperPAC.jpg
James Clyburn (Courtesy Photo)
November 08, 2018
By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire
Mall for Africa, an award-winning patented e-commerce platform, announced that it will add cars from the United States the long list of items that it sells.
The company said it will sell American made cars to its customers in Nigeria, effective immediately, with plans to expand to 16 additional countries over the next year.
“Over the years, we have received tremendous interest from customers who have wanted to purchase cars,” Chris Folayan, CEO of Mall for Africa, said in a news release.
“As a company we always strive to be the best and offer our customers items that would otherwise be unavailable. We are proud to say that our customers in Nigeria can now purchase cars, in any color, with any feature they desire,” Folayan said.
Mall for Africa, also known as Africa’s largest online mall, currently offers millions of products from more than 250 leading retailers in the United States, United Kingdom and China.
It handles every aspect of the order and return cycle, providing customers and retailers with an effortless, secure and accessible solution to online shopping. With a few simple clicks, customers can pick out their dream car and request a quote from a reputable dealer in the United States.
Both standard and luxury cars will be available, including all makes and models from 2008 to present.
The customer simply has to fill out a form with feature preferences and one of Mall for Africa’s USA-based expert car consultants will reply within one to two business days with a quote.
In a 2015 profile on Folayan by CNN, it was noted that Africa’s population has steadily gained in financial affluence, with numbers of multimillionaires predicted to rise by 59 percent over the next decade. In spite of this news, many U.S. retailers don’t ship their wares to the continent, fearing fraud or cumbersome import procedures.
That gave Folayan the idea to start Mall for Africa, an online platform through which shoppers in Nigeria and Kenya can buy products from America, Britain and, now, China.
“The main problem is that many western companies don’t have much knowledge about Africa,” Folayan said. “When I talk to companies I tell them Africa is a huge market – they are probably not tapping into billions in profit. And Nigeria is Africa’s biggest economy,” he said, something a delegation from the National Newspaper Publishers Association reported on during a recent pilgrimage to the African nation.
Folayan, the U.S.-based entrepreneur, said he would regularly travel to his native Nigeria carrying several suitcases stuffed with American-branded clothes, sunglasses and makeup his friends and family asked him to bring. But it was when he wasn’t allowed to check in for a flight with 10 tightly packed bags, even while paying for the extra weight, that he knew he was onto a business idea.
“That was a turning point. I realized that people knew exactly what they wanted, they could see a product online and had the money to buy it, but there was no one who would ship it to Nigeria,” Folayan said.