Shaquille O’Neal’s new educational initiative is underway. As AFROTECH™ previously reported, O’Neal learned of the efforts of Tade Oyerinde, who founded and leads accredited online community college startup Campus, while reading a Forbes article about him. The startup had received a $29 million funding raise in 2023 with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Discord Founder Jason Citron leading its Series A funding round. “Shaq saw the Forbes article and had his team reach out, and he was just like, ‘This kid raised all this money from these guys.’ He thought it was unbelievable,” Oyerinde told AFROTECH™ at the time. O’Neal was so impressed that he wanted to get involved in Oyerinde’s mission. He is now an investor in the company and, most recently, is kicking off Campus’s latest initiative. According to a press release, O’Neal and Campus.edu plan to provide 500 high school students and recent graduates with access to business courses taught by college professors from top colleges and...

Whoopi Goldberg is investing in the culture. Variety reports the EGOT winner (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards) has become an equity investor in Blkfam, a family-focused streaming platform that “entertains, educates and celebrates Black American family-friendly content.” Larry Adams, founder of the streaming service, pushed forward with the venture after seeing “a ton of R-rated content” from popular streaming services when looking for Black programming for his family. “Black culture and content is so often stereotyped, siloed or written off, so I wanted to create a platform where my kids and I can be entertained without having to face those same daily biases,” Adams told Variety. “By curating authentic content — proven through data and AI — primarily from Black storytellers, we’ve built a service reflecting true inclusion and diversity, where Black parents and children especially can feel holistically represented.” In 2023, Adams reached out to Goldberg to gauge her interest in...

Teenage twins Taylan and Tylan Walker have united their individual interests to become entrepreneurs. WAVE 3 News in Louisville, KY, reports the pair was looking to open a brick-and-mortar store to start selling shoes when they completed high school. At the age of 13, Tylan had already started buying and reselling shoes on the market, while Taylan was watering his interest in cameras and videography. As the business of selling shoes grew, it became clear to them it was time to scale the venture. ”When I was in my house I was getting a bunch of shoes, and I was getting more and more shoes until like I was getting to the point where I needed to change locations because I had too many shoes in the house basically,” Tylan told the outlet. This led to the storefront Finest Kicks opening its doors in Louisville. The venture was supported through the brothers’ earnings from restoring and cleaning shoes as well as sales from buying and reselling shoes on the market. View this post on...