Black Genius

The Harambe 10×10 series continues with Lolade Siyonbola interviewing Seni Sulyman, owner and managing partner at Rincon, a firm partnering with CEOs and executives to build world-class businesses and high performance teams through a focus on strategy, people, culture, operations and executions. Sulyman inspired the Harambeans 10×10 series with his prescient writings on the breaking point to which Nigeria was heading, just prior to the EndSARS movement. Before Rincon, Seni was a Vice President of global operations at Andela, where he "contributed tremendously to lighting the spark for an entire generation of technologists", growing the company 400% and earning it the status best place to work in Nigeria and Africa.

Seni joined Andela two years after completing his MBA at Harvard, having previously built a new business jet airline in Nigeria for Bristow Group in a record 12 months. His prior career spans across roles at Bain & Company in Chicago where he helped a CPG company identify half a billion dollars in cost savings, and Hewlett-Packard in Silicon Valley, where he developed strategies to grow the billion-dollar technology services division.

Happy Black History Month! We're thrilled to invite Iyinoluwa Aboyeji to sit in the genius chair for our first episode of Black Genius, season 2. Aboyeji's interview opens the Harambeans 10×10 series through which we'd be highlighting the stories of 10 Harambeans building Africa's future through visionary, market-creating, global enterprises. Aboyeji says: "personal success cannot insulate from the failures of your society. I don't see entrepreneurship as a way to personally enrich myself but as a tool for social change. It must be done not just for profit or personal interest but most importantly as a service in the public interest." The first Black Genius to be featured in the Harambe series, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, made history when the startup he co-founded, Andela, received a $24 Million investment from Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan’s CZI fund for African Engineers. Zuckerberg’s surprise visit to Lagos in 2016 sent shockwaves across the African tech community, and awakened those unaware of the exploding African tech economy. The Andela-CZI partnership spurned a new era in African entrepreneurship catalyzing billions of dollars in investment interest in African startups, with investments surpassing $1 billion in both 2019 and 2020.

Aboyeji has since gone on to found two more startups–Flutterwave and Future Africa–and invested in many impact-focused enterprises. Future Africa returned $3.7M to investors at the end of 2020, experiencing explosive growth across their portfolio in the midst of the pandemic. Aboyeji regularly writes and speaks on the urgency of inclusive African development, and the need for African elites to do more for the plight of the common man.

On this episode of Black Genius, we're visited by Christian Epps, Founder & CEO of Lights, Camera, Diaspora (LCD!), a Los Angeles social based enterprise bridging the gap between Africa and African-Diaspora entertainment Industries. LCD! has secured African talent for projects such as Beyonce's Black is King and Netflix's Queen Sono on both of which Christian was the Chief Lightening Designer. He's also worked on Lovecraft Country(HBO), Slyvie's Love(Amazon) and the award-winning Selma, featuring David Oyelewo and Oprah Winfrey (lenses by director of photography Bradford Young) and many others.

This week’s Black Genius has done something that no other entrepreneur has done since–she raised over $670 million dollars to fund a start-up: WorldSpace. That money was used to build the first-ever global digital radio platform; launch three satellites into space, including XM Radio; support the development of MP3/MP4 technologies; and, invest in a new generation of digital radio receivers. 

Tiffany Norwood is the Founder and CEO of Tribetan, where she teaches the human science of success, how to turn imagination into reality through entrepreneurial literacy. 

She led some of the first-ever digital content licensing deals, including Bloomberg News and CNN International, and was an early collaborator with the Fraunhofer Institute on their MPEG technologies.

Tiffany has an MBA from Harvard and a Bachelor’s in Economics with a concentration in statistics and electrical engineering from Cornell University. Her dream is that the science of turning imagination into reality becomes as commonplace as reading, writing, and math. And then with these skills, we reimagine everything.

Black Genius is hosted by Lolade Siyonbola, Founder of NOIR Labs, noirpress and NOIR FEST. Lolade is a Gates Scholar and Harambean pursuing a PhD in Sociology at Cambridge University

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This week on Black Genius, Lolade is in conversation with NOIR Labs Co-Founder, Uzomaka Obiocha. They discussed Spiritual Technology in Enterprise, growing up Nigerian, Kanye West, and all the radical things that go through their heads.  

Described as a “human catalyst to everything she touches,” Uzomaka Obiocha recently joined NOIR Labs as Co-Founder and Acting COO, where she is living out her passion: creating a beautiful world through business, design and fashion. Prior to NOIR Labs, Uzo spent nearly a decade as Co-Founder of Koncept Consulting Group and Non-Profit, MD as a Brand, Business, and Financial Strategist. As a Strategic Alchemist, she has supported entrepreneurs, creatives, and humanitarians in developing and growing their enterprises in ways that resonate with their spirit, harmonize with their beliefs, and fulfill their mission, vision, and purpose. Uzomaka has supported brands in entertainment, design, food, health care, fashion and non-profits, including Timothy Oulton, Girls Inc., Homestories, and PUKU Children’s Literature Foundation. She holds a BA in Finance from Georgia State University.

Black Genius is hosted by Lolade Siyonbola, Founder of NOIR Labs, noirpress and NOIR FEST. Lolade is a Gates Scholar and Harambean pursuing a PhD in Sociology at Cambridge University.

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This week on Black Genius, we'll have Oluwaseye Olusa in the Genus Chair! Oluwaseye is a Hip Hop and Afrobeats visual documentarian and celebrity photographer, who has captured some of the most important moments in Black cultural production over the last 20 years. While working on set with Hype Williams, Def Jam and others on some of the most iconic music videos in Hip Hop history, he found a love for photography that enabled him to capture the power, essence and beauty of Black subjects in the music industry and creative world. He’s photographed Jay Z, Common, Yvonne Orji, Jidenna and every last one of your faves; as well as shot visual campaigns for Nike, Adidas, and And One.
Through his consistent documentation of African Diaspora events, artists and cultural producers over the last 20 years, he’s amassed the most notable intersectional collection of Black entertainment photography.

Black Genius is hosted by Lolade Siyonbola, Founder of NOIR Labs, noirpress and NOIR FEST. Lolade is a Gates Scholar and Harambean pursuing a PhD in Sociology at Cambridge University.

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On Episode 5 of Black Genius, we're excited to have in the Genius Chair, Okendo Lewis-Gayle.  Lewis-Gayle is the author of Harambeans: Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things, in which he chronicles the struggles and triumphs of Diaspora returnees building scalable ventures in Africa. He is also founding partner of Harambeans Prosperity Fund and Founder and Chairman of the Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance.

Harambe is an ecosystem of over 300 young African leaders (Harambeans) which has spawned a series of tech-enabled ventures such as Andela, Yoco and Flutterwave. Collectively Harambeans have generated over 3000 jobs, and raised over $500m from Google Ventures, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and Alibaba.

A global citizen in the truest sense, Okendo was born in Costa Rica, raised in Italy and educated in Taiwan and the US. He speaks and reads Spanish, Italian, Mandarin, French and Greek. A friend to many global leaders, Okendo was once responsible for introducing then Senator Barack Obama to his graduating class with a speech that, Obama remarked, made him grateful that such a leader and orator would not be running for president just yet.

Faith Crittenden is a Medical Student at UConn, a Yale MPH and the host of the ‘Coloring Health Policy’ podcast, through which she addresses how health policy impacts minority communities. A Gates Millennium Scholar, Faith has co-authored several health polices within the American Medical Association-Medical Student Section, including Racism is a Public Health Issue, Combating Natural Hair Discrimination in Medicine and Medical Professionalism, and Addressing Minority Maternal Morbidity and Mortality.

Dr. Jennifer C. Pierre is a licensed Naturopathic physician, public health professional and Chief Medical Officer at Revive Wellness Center in New Haven, CT. Dr. Pierre is an alumna of Cornell University, University at Albany, and Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine & Health Sciences.

Prior to becoming a physician, she received certifications in prenatal and Kundalini yoga, which she emphatically integrates into her patient care protocols. Her love of patient care has expanded into global health initiatives, participating in medical missions in Haiti, Mexico and Kenya.

When she is not seeing patients, Dr. Pierre enjoys prayer and meditation, traveling, fashion, reading, and cooking. She is also the host of Seeking Wellness, a leading health talk radio show on WPKN 89.5FM in Bridgeport, CT.

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Kevin Beckford is Co-Founder of the Hustler's Guild, where he's dismantling white supremacy by providing youth from the most disadvantaged areas of Washington, D.C. with coding and workforce enrichment opportunities at companies like Facebook, Google, Sony Music, and Roc Nation. In response to the Covid lockdown, the Hustler's Guild pivoted to Zoom events and has hosted moguls like Anthony Anderson, Snoop Dogg and Rickey Smiley on virtual events with Black youth to provide them with inspiration and leadership skills. He founded the Hustlers Guild with Yasmin Salina Rana and Jason Spear, two colleagues with whom he developed a close bond while working for the Obama administration at the White House.

From 2014-2016, Kevin was the Domestic Policy Portfolio Lead in the White House Presidential Correspondence Office and as a Special Advisor to Secretary Julian Castro. While there, Kevin successfully advocated for more inclusive and responsive communication practices concerning race relations and police brutality.

Kevin received his B.A. in African American Studies and Political Science from Yale, his MPhil in African Studies from the University of Cambridge, and his MSc. in Education from UPenn. Kevin has contributed to the Washington Post, the New York Amsterdam News, The Washington Informer, and others. Kevin also enjoys bodybuilding, fitness, and mentoring young people.

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Alex Tsado is the founder of Alliance for Africa's Intelligence (Alliance4AI), through which he is mobilizing African youth to collectively tap into the vast possibilities of Artificial Intelligence to solve once-endemic challenges in food security, healthcare, governance and much more. He founded Alliance4AI to ensure that African innovations reach billions across the globe, and that the Continent is never again left behind during industrial revolutions. Alex is also the Product Lead on NVIDIA's fastest-growing business channel, Cloud AI Computing.

In this episode, we discuss his journey from Benin to Columbia University, his life-changing encounter with NYPD while at Goldman Sachs, and the solutions the AI community is deploying across Africa to save millions of lives.

“I feel like it would be irresponsible to hold on to my story.”

It's the first episode of Black Genius! In this one, I share my vision for NOIR Labs, why I believe art and technology together can accelerate Black Liberation, and the journey that brought me to founding this social enterprise. Learn more about the community behind NOIR Labs, the geniuses I'll be bringing onto the show and how you can join our movement!