Mercedes Ortiz has just completed a year as a Tribeca Film Fellow —a year filled with mentoring, workshops, panel discussions, traveling, and, of course, filmmaking. The 18-year-old describes herself as “a singer, a musician, a songwriter, a poet, an activist, and a filmmaker,” and has gone from almost dropping out of high school to creating…

Every April evening in the few minutes before midnight, the words of Nelson Mandela take over the billboards in Times Square. The Power of Words , a short video that displays select quotes from Mandela’s speeches, fills up select screens from 11:57 p.m. to midnight. The Power of Words is a preview of a project…

What if all men had to obtain marriage approval from a girlfriend’s father by providing their credit reports, bank statements and medical records? Would men approach life and marriage preparation a little bit differently? These are questions Steve faced as a reality when asked for these very items by his girlfriend’s father. What started off…

Tamar Braxton and Vince Herbert have been at the top of media’s gossip chain since the first episode of WEtv’s Braxton Family Values aired April 12, 2011. With Tamar’s Igotplentyofmouth.com attitude and Vince’s laidback, go-with-the-flow persona, audiences were captivated by the couple’s ability to get through the good and the bad—at home and in business.…

You’ve seen the commercials. Actor Idris Elba—the infidelity exception of women all over the world—is the sexy and unflappable super spy, navigating a world of danger, false faces and intrigue in a sleek, powerful driving machine befitting a man with a license to kill. Hunted by enemy operatives, Elba repeatedly eludes his predators because while…

Tamar Braxton and Vince Herbert have been at the top of media’s gossip chain since the first episode of WEtv’s Braxton Family Values aired April 12, 2011. With Tamar’s Igotplentyofmouth.com attitude and Vince’s laidback, go-with-the-flow persona, audiences were captivated by the couple’s ability to get through the good and the bad—at home and in business.…

While many aspiring and new African-American business owners have the passion and drive to get their company off the ground, there are overwhelming challenges that come to play once funding-time hits. A CB Insights report that tracked founders of 165 companies that had received a first round of venture funding during the first half of…

Young professionals from all over the tri-state area on Saturday gathered at the Helen Mills Event Space in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan to celebrate the “elegance, opulence and glamour of the Harlem Renaissance,” and to raise money for the Whitney M. Young Scholarship Fund for high-achieving high school seniors. “REBIRTH!” the New York Urban…

You might be in financial straits or planning for the future. Whatever the case may be, however dire your situation, here are a few things you need to be doing right now to open some doors: 1.) Savings/ Emergency Fund If you do not already have 8 months to 1 year of expenses saved, then…

Bolstr is a community funding marketplace for small businesses. Data shows that 80% of donations to successful crowdfunding campaigns come from the social network of the person asking. So after meeting each other as interns at JP Morgan Chase, co-founders Charlie Tribbett and Larry Baker, both 28, saw a way to help entrepreneurs engage local…