Samantha Dorisca

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has announced the rebrand of an initiative to employ youth. According to a press release, the city’s youth employment initiative, One Summer Chicago, is being rebranded as Chicago Youth Works. Mayor Johnson has worked to grow funding and partnership opportunities for the employment initiative. In 2025, his efforts led to summer jobs for 31,119 young people who earned a collective wage of more than $30.9 million, per the release. The rebranded Chicago Youth Works is partnering with the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS) . The new program name comes from input from the young people it serves, and is launching with a new tagline: “Get Paid. Get Skilled. Get Ahead.” Chicago Youth Works will employ youth aged 14 to 24, with support from local businesses, nonprofits, and city agencies, notes the release. These opportunities may include summer positions, year-round roles, or paid career exploration programming for 14- and 15-year-olds....

Bryan Myers is prioritizing responsible growth at [solidcore]. Before Myers started working for [solidcore], he was a client. He took his first [solidcore] workout class 11 years ago and didn’t initially foresee having a greater presence within the company, which offers high-intensity, low-impact workout classes done on a reformer machine, according to its website. In 2018, he joined as chief operating officer, bringing experience as a project leader at Boston Consulting Group and as a former vice president of strategy and financial planning, as well as new-store development, at sweetgreen, per his LinkedIn. Today, he leads as the president and CEO of [solidcore] — after serving as president and COO — succeeding founder Anne Mahlum. Being a client-first leader is his superpower, he told AFROTECH™ in an interview. He has maintained empathy for the client experience and a deep appreciation for the coaches. Protecting The Culture Of [Solidcore] Myers views his takeover as a unique...

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen is stepping down, and AI may be playing a role in his departure. In a letter shared on Thursday, March 13, Narayen said that he has made the decision to transition out of the role after 15 years. He has served a total of 28 years at the company. Under his leadership, the company grew from fewer than 3,000 employees to more than 30,000, delivered tech into the hands of billions, and increased revenue from $1 billion to $25 billion, the letter stated. Narayen will officially make the transition when a successor is appointed. “I am so incredibly proud of what we have accomplished together,” he expressed in the letter. Narayen’s departure comes at a time when the company’s revenue forecast just surpassed estimates, but did not resolve investor concerns about the company’s innovation in AI compared to competitors, reports Bloomberg. The staffing change “adds questions around strategic continuity, capital allocation priorities, and pace of innovation,” Grace...

Unrivaled’s second season was a slam dunk. The 3-on-3 league was co-founded by WNBA stars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart in 2023 and has attracted talent, including Kelsey Mitchell, Erica Wheeler, Angel Reese, Aliyah Boston, Paige Bueckers, and Chelsea Gray, per the league’s website. In February, Gray won the league’s 2026 1-on-1 Tournament, which carried a coveted $200,000 cash prize, according to a press release. Unrivaled entered its second season on Jan. 5. The league has eight teams, and 56 regular-season games were played before the Unrivaled Playoffs, presented by Samsung Galaxy, began on Saturday, Feb. 28, according to information shared with AFROTECH™. Photo Credit: Unrivaled / Hannah Kevorkian The Unrivaled Championship was held Wednesday, March 4, and ended with a victory for the Mist BC team, which faced team Phantom BC, according to USA Today . Breanna Stewart was named MVP after scoring 32 points. The game drew 314,000 viewers on TNT, making it Unrivaled’s...

Funding is being raised to keep the doors open at Barber-Scotia College in Concord, NC. The Historically Black women’s college lost its accreditation in 2004, per its website, but under the leadership of its president, Chris V. Rey, J.D., it is working to regain it. In a Facebook video from January, Rey acknowledged that the school had recently had its hardest day since he took over as president in 2023, according to his LinkedIn. The school has struggled to raise funds to continue operating but has acknowledged support from alumni and individuals who align with its mission, he noted. “It’s not easy raising money for an unaccredited institution … We have completely run outta money as an institution,” Rey said in the Facebook video. “Many of our students, who have decided to come and be on this journey with us, many of ’em, they have struggled to pay ’cause they don’t have access to federal financial aid yet. And it has been truly a challenge for them. Some of our major donors that...

YouTube is expanding who will benefit from its likeness detection. According to a press release published on Wednesday, March 11, YouTube first launched a tool in 2025 to manage AI-generated content and give creators the ability to review content that matches them, such as deepfakes. They can then request that the content be removed if it violates YouTube’s policies. Expanding Program The tool initially benefited nearly 4 million creators in the YouTube Partner Program, according to TechCrunch . Now, it is being expanded to a pilot group of government officials, journalists, and political candidates, the release confirmed. Leslie Miller, YouTube’s vice president of government affairs and public policy, said in a release shared with TechCrunch that the company is aware of the high risks of AI impersonation, particularly in the civic space. She described the expansion as a “new shield” but stressed that caution is still needed around how likeness detection is used. “This expansion is...

NBCUniversal is announcing a round of layoffs. Layoffs Explained Business Insider reports that nearly 12 U.S.-based employees on the global streaming product team will be laid off, in addition to dozens more who could be impacted internationally, according to an employee. For those who will be laid off internationally, a consultation process is expected, per another source, the outlet noted. The two individuals said the layoffs will specifically affect employees who worked at the South African streamer Showmax, which has released works including “Spinners,” “Catch Me a Killer,” and “Khaki Fever.” The platform had “substantial annual losses,” according to Deadline. Showmax Being Shutdown Showmax was co-operated by NBCUniversal and French broadcaster Canal+. This came after a $2 billion deal in September 2025 for Canal+ to acquire Showmax parent company MultiChoice, according to a separate Deadline article. Now, Showmax is being shuttered. Canal+ called the venture an “expensive...

Rev. Jamal Bryant is calling off the Target boycott. Boycott Explained As AFROTECH™ previously told you, in early 2025, Target retracted its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives that had been in place for three years. The commitment helped Black- and minority-owned businesses get shelved in Target’s stores and aimed to increase the number of Black employees, USA Today reports. In 2020, the retailer also committed to investing $2 billion in Black-owned businesses by the end of 2025 in response to the murder of George Floyd. After learning of Target’s move to roll back on DEI initiatives, Rev. Jamal Bryant, a senior pastor at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, launched a boycott. As a result of the boycott, Target saw declining foot traffic along with shrinking sales, per AFROTECH™. Target’s market value also declined by more than $12 billion, according to The Root. Some Black business owners were also negatively impacted, such as Lip Bar co-founder Melissa Butler, who...

Dr. Abi Oladele has launched a science-backed oral brand that prioritizes health over aesthetics. The first-generation Nigerian American was raised in Trenton, NJ, with high expectations on her to succeed, which she internalized as her parents’ desire to ensure their sacrifices weren’t in vain. And they certainly weren’t, she told AFROTECH™. While her father wanted her to become an orthopedic surgeon, she chose to become a dentist. This career would also allow her to marry her interests in the arts, including drawing and sculpting, she shared. “After learning more about exactly what dentistry entails, it’s definitely a mixture of art. It’s definitely a mixture of science and using my hands,” Dr. Oladele told AFROTECH™. “And because I loved using my hands and designing, crafting all those different things, I was like, ‘I can choose a career where it would be accepted by my family and my parents and would actually change people’s lives.'” She attended Howard University, earning a...

Dr. Dre is officially a billionaire. Forbes released its World’s Billionaires List for 2026, which includes 3,428 entrepreneurs, investors, and heirs. This is 400 more than in 2025, setting a new record. In total, the net worths of those listed reached $20.1 trillion, $4 trillion more than in 2025, setting another record. Forbes attributed AI as a factor for the increase in billionaires. “It’s the year of the billionaire,” said Chase Peterson-Withorn, a senior editor at Forbes, according to Variety. “The planet added more than one billionaire per day over the past twelve months as the AI-powered stock market boom boosted fortunes to previously unimaginable heights.” Additionally, the U.S. had the most billionaires, with a record 989, notes the outlet. Among those listed are Jay-Z and Rihanna. Newcomers to the list include Beyoncé — named a billionaire in December 2025, as AFROTECH™ previously reported — and Dr. Dre , a founding member of the Hip-Hop group N.W.A. He previously...

The NAACP is concerned about an approved permit that would harm the environment and the health of citizens in Southaven, MS, and surrounding areas. According to a news release from the NAACP, Southaven could soon be home to Elon Musk’s xAI power plants. The AI company founded by Musk in 2023 is building a “truth-seeking AI chatbot” called Grok, which features “frontier capabilities in conversation, coding, reasoning, and image and video generation,” according to its website. Per the release, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) issued an air permit that grants Musk’s company permission to operate various polluting methane gas turbines at its facility in Southaven. The permit was issued on March 10, following a hearing where community members openly spoke against MDEQ’s draft permit approving xAI’s presence in Southaven. To power xAi’s Colossus 2 data center in Memphis, TN, the company will build 41 gas turbines in Southaven, just across the state line, the...

Ex-MIT and Stanford engineer KJ Hardrict is changing the interview process for job seekers. Hardrict’s background spans engineering, venture capital, and content. He has worked at Link Ventures as a principal and served as a founding engineer and a senior engineer for various startups, according to his LinkedIn profile. Hardrict has also gained more than 115,000 YouTube subscribers. It’s the variety of his experience that has given him a front seat to the hiring process, Hardrict acknowledged to AFROTECH™. “As an engineer and startup operator, I saw how often incredible people were filtered out before anyone spoke to them. As an investor, I saw founders struggling to identify key talent in a sea of resumes,” he said. Hardrict also considered his own experience in the job market and noticed that being seen, not just read about, set him up for success. “Recruiters would watch my videos on YouTube, and within a few minutes, they understood who I was and how I thought. That made me...

An investment from Jay-Z is being put into question in the latest legal filing surrounding Uncle Nearest. The whiskey brand launched by Fawn Weaver and her husband, Keith, is under receivership after defaulting on more than $108 million in loans from Farm Credit Mid-America, as AFROTECH™ previously reported. The receivership encompasses Uncle Nearest’s Shelbyville , TN distillery , real estate holdings, intellectual property, affiliated ventures, and related entities. Court-appointed receiver Phillip Young Jr. claims Uncle Nearest has nearly $200 million in debt and is insolvent. He is also seeking full transparency into the brand’s financial records, including a $20 million loan from Jay-Z’s venture capital firm, MarcyPen, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader. Farm Credit’s filing states it was informed by Weaver that the $20 million was a loan from Grant Sidney, yet it claims the money actually came from MP-Tenn LLC, otherwise known as MarcyPen. Grant Sidney is the largest...

After more than 20 years, BlackDoctor is revamping its mission to make health more accessible to Black Americans. Black Doctor 2.0 Formerly BlackDoctor.org, BlackDoctor has relaunched as a 360-degree health destination driven by the motto “Where Culture Meets Care,” according to a press release. The platform has expanded its reach to a network of over 20,000 practitioners, making it the largest single database of black healthcare professionals in America, according to BlackDoctor President Akinwole (Aki) Garrett. “We have pretty much every Black HCP (healthcare professional) in our database across the country,” Garrett told AFROTECH™ in an interview. Users will have expanded access to Black healthcare providers using the Find a Doctor tool, while healthcare providers will have a more actionable network, he shared. Soon, BlackDoctor’s network will extend to culturally sensitive physicians, referring to those who serve a high population of Black patients but are not Black. WellBot...

Meghan Markle’s As Ever brand is now fully independent, according to Deadline. The Duchess of Sussex launched As Ever to reflect her passion for cooking, entertaining, and hosting, according to the brand’s website. She shared she had been making jams, preserves, and fruits spreads for loved ones, and the feedback inspired her to take her idea beyond her kitchen and into others’ homes. “I asked myself, ‘What would it take to scale my fruit spreads into something I could share more broadly? Could I adapt my recipe into something that could bring more people that feeling of joy? And what else could I add to this collection to spark a smile, to make your day a bit easier, to elevate your everyday,'” she expressed on the company website. As Ever sells jams in flavors such as raspberry, orange marmalade, and strawberry, as well as California-harvested honey, teas in various blends, and more. Its launch was on April 2, 2025, according to Marie Claire. The brand was supported by Netflix,...