Black Genius noirpress

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.

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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Black Geniuses are changing the world, from policy to culture to tech to art. Are you a Black Genius? Send us your story at editor@noirpress.org

Join the noirpress movement on Youtube, IG, Twitter and Facebook to see how we are normalizing the Glory of Blackness. For our newsletter curating the best in Black news and films, join our mailing list at noirpress.org.

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.

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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Black Geniuses are changing the world, from policy to culture to tech to art. Are you a Black Genius? Send us your story at editor@noirpress.org

Join the noirpress movement on Youtube, IG, Twitter and Facebook to see how we are normalizing the Glory of Blackness. For our newsletter curating the best in Black news and films, join our mailing list at noirpress.org.

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.

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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Black Geniuses are changing the world, from policy to culture to tech to art. Are you a Black Genius? Send us your story at editor@noirpress.org

Join the noirpress movement on Youtube, IG, Twitter and Facebook to see how we are normalizing the Glory of Blackness. For our newsletter curating the best in Black news and films, join our mailing list at noirpress.org.

Lanre Aina is Co-founder of Content Garage, a Lagos-based video production company that has developed digital commercials for Samsung, MTN, Google, Facebook, Nestle, Wikipedia, Access Bank and Diageo - helping these businesses actualize new ways of engaging with their customers through compelling digital storytelling. Before Content Garage, Lanre led Brand Activations at Google, supporting large brands in Nigerian and Kenyan markets to develop integrated experiential marketing. In his earlier days at Google, he launched and grew YouTube’s content partnerships in Nigeria, supporting the online publisher community. Today, he is focusing his attention on sports-media, using his experience at Google and Content Garage to build an African-focused sports entertainment venture, ATHLST.

Lanre is also passionate about social enterprise. He served as a founding member of Harambeans - an African entrepreneur alliance founded by Okendo Lewis-Gayle. In his spare time, he volunteers his skills supporting peer mentorship and youth-focused career advisory programs in Lagos.

He is a graduate of Computer Engineering, with an advanced degree in Telecoms Systems Management from Northeastern University, Boston. Lanre is happily married to his best friend, Tele, and they live in Lagos with their two sons, Akinolu and Tamilore.

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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Black Geniuses are changing the world, from policy to culture to tech to art. Are you a Black Genius? Send us your story at editor@noirpress.org

Join the noirpress movement on Youtube, IG, Twitter and Facebook to see how we are normalizing the Glory of Blackness. For our newsletter curating the best in Black news and films, join our mailing list at noirpress.org.

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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Black Geniuses are changing the world, from policy to culture to tech to art. Are you a Black Genius? Send us your story at editor@noirpress.org

Join the noirpress movement on Youtube, IG, Twitter and Facebook to see how we are normalizing the Glory of Blackness. For our newsletter curating the best in Black news and films, join our mailing list at noirpress.org.

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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Black Geniuses are changing the world, from policy to culture to tech to art. Are you a Black Genius? Send us your story at editor@noirpress.org

Join the noirpress movement on Youtube, IG, Twitter and Facebook to see how we are normalizing the Glory of Blackness. For our newsletter curating the best in Black news and films, join our mailing list at noirpress.org.