“Oh, what a night!” The 89th Academy Awards ceremony honored the best films and actors of 2016 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California on Sunday evening, February 26, 2017. Host Jimmy Kimmel kept the pace going for the long exciting evening, where glitz and glamour prevailed. Hollywood’s finest didn’t disappoint, as gorgeous stars…
Harvard University has named Rihanna as their 2017 Humanitarian of the Year. In honor of the late Rev. Professor Peter J. Gomes, the award recognizes “prominent public-spirited leaders.” Past honorees include James Earl Jones, Kofi Annan, and Malala Yousafzai. Rihanna’s recognition is due to her extensive charitable work. S. Allen Counter, director of the…
Meet Haben Girma, the first deaf-blind graduate from Harvard School of Law and already a very accomplished civil rights advocate at the age of 28. Born in California, Haben is a first generation Eritrean American, her mother Saba having fled the nation in 1983 during the Eritrean war of independence. Saba walked to Sudan…
Oscar Night 2017—a night of high profile actors and actresses, prestigious awards, and extreme pressure for all those organizing the event. So how did host Jimmy Kimmel do during his debut? Well, Kimmel killed it—that is, at least until the massive snafu for Best Picture. But besides that, let’s look at how the…
The 89th annual Academy Awards were full of surprises, Hollywood stars rubbing elbows, and of course wonderful golden statues being handed out. Even after the huge mix-up for the Best Picture award, the star-studded event concluded with accolades of praise, recognition, and appreciation. The 2017 awards showed definite progress from 2016’s #OscarsSoWhite fiasco,…
The 2017 SAFTAs are using the theme of ‘SA has got it, let’s celebrate it’ and one thing they are celebrating is acting talent. In this golden age of television, South Africa has just as much acting talent on display as other parts of the world. Here is a look at some of this…
Every prestigious awards show builds up excitement, especially when it’s the SAFTAs—the South African Film and Television Awards. This year’s 2017 SAFTA nominees have been announced in a field where 400 production companies submitted their work for entries. SAFTA is also known as the Golden Horns, and each award winner receives a stunning Golden…
Born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria and raised in Maryland, Yvonne Orji was expected to become a doctor, lawyer, or engineer. However, Orji was bit by the acting bug a bit late in life when she participated in the Miss Nigeria in America pageant at 22, where she performed a stand-up comedy routine. After receiving…
After a difficult childhood and years of playing small roles, Viola Davis is finally a leading lady getting the recognition she deserves. With her third Oscar nomination this year, she has set the record for African-American women. She was also the first black woman to ever win an Emmy as a lead actress. She’s…
Kenya, the first East African nation to successfully deploy a mobile digital wallet and banking system a decade ago, has no intentions of slowing down in terms of smart technology adoptions. Similar to the way M-Pesa empowered thousands of Kenyan families to overcome the challenge of not being able to access the banking system,…
