The Leukemia Ball 2008
March 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment
WASHINGTON DC - MARCH 29, 2008 - The creme-de-la-creme of DC gathered at the Washington Convention Center for a good course - to raise money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in an event tagged the Leukemia Ball 2008. More than $3.3 million was raised at the event.
For the past 21 years, the Leukemia Ball has reigned as Greater Washington, D.C’s single largest, non-political fundraiser. Bringing together the entertainment, corporate, political and philanthropic communities, business leaders in Washington consider this dazzling, annual, black tie gala the “must attend” event of the year, putting it on their calendars up to a year in advance. Since its inception, The Leukemia Ball has raised more than $30 million dollars.
Entertainment at the Ball which took place on Saturday was provided by Late Show host, Jay Leno and musical entertainmentwas provided by Southside Johnny and the Ahsbury Jukes.
This year’s Leukemia Ball co-chairs are Fernando Murias, Partner, PriceWaterhouseCooper and Joe Kelley, Vice President, Government and Public, Eli Lilly and Company.
Mercedes-Benz donated two automobiles used for this year’s raffle.
Disease Information:
Leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma are cancers that affect the blood forming and infection fighting organs - mainly the bone marrow and lymph nodes. They are related because they involve the uncontrolled growth of cells with similar functions and organs. Currently, more than 800,000 Americans are living with some of blood cancer. Every five minutes someone is diagnosed with a blood cancer and every 10 minutes someone dies.
Leukemia causes more deaths than any other cancer among children under the age of 20. Lymphomas are the most common blood cancers and incidences increases with age. The survival rate for myeloma is only 34 percent. Incidence is nearly twice as high among African Americans as for all other races. In addition, African Americans are least likely to survive the disease because of low donation rate of blood and blood tissues by African Americans.
In the past decade, new drugs have been developed and used with increasing success. New horizons in treatment include immunotherary, gene therapy, advances in the use of transplantation and translational research, all under investigation by national and international researchers supported by grants offered by the Society.
To learn more visit www.leukemia.org
Angelique Kidjo at the Strathmore Music Center
March 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment
N. BETHESDA, MD - MARCH 26, 2008 - ANGELIQUE KIDJO - The Benin Born and Brooklyn Based Grammy Award winner performed today to a sold out crowd at the magnificent Strathmore Music Center. During the concert which lasted about 3 hours, Angelique performed tracks from her latest album “Djin Djin” and also songs from her older albums - Oyaya, Black Ivory Soul and Aye.
Tracks performed at the event includes Babalawo, Aruna Ishola (a tribute to the deceased Nigerian folklore musician), Papa, Yemoja and Agolo.
Her performance was so great that after the initial concert closing song, she performed two extra tracks to quench the thirst of the audience for more songs. It was an exhilirating performance and truly a night to remember.
Angelique called for peace in the world and asserted that we are all one race with variations hence we are interconnected and owe one another the duty of care and love. She has being a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador since 2002. Black Herald is proud to bring pictures from the event.
About the Music Center at Strathmore:
Located one-half mile outside the Capital Beltway in North Bethesda, Maryland, Strathmore provides affordable, accessible, multi-disciplinary arts programming in the Mansion at Strathmore, the Music Center at Strathmore, and on its scenic 11-acre site.
Founded and operated since 1981 by the Strathmore Hall Foundation, Inc., an independent, 501(c)(3) organization, the arts center presents a lively and diverse program of art exhibitions, concerts and performing arts programs, and literary lectures and events.
Visit www.strathmore.org for more information about the center as well as upcoming events.
Evening with Chinua Achebe - 50th Anniversary Publication of Things Fall Apart
March 25, 2008 | 2 Comments
WASHINGTON DC - MARCH 24, 2008 - PEN/Faulkner and The Washington Post Book World presented “An Evening with Chinua Achebe” today to commemorate the 50th anniversary publication of Things Fall Apart. During the event Chinua Achebe read excerpts from his book. The event was attended by literary scholars, students and the general public.
CHINUA ACHEBE was born in Nigeria in 1930. He was raised in the large village of Ogidi, one of the first centers of Anglican missionary work in Eastern Nigeria, and is a graduate of University College, Ibadan. Cited in the London Sunday Times as one of the “1,000 Makers of the Twentieth Century” for defining “a modern African literature that was truly African” and thereby making “a major contribution to world literature,”Achebe has published novels short stories, essays and children’s books.
His volume of poetry, Christmas in Biafra, written during the Biafran War, was the joint winner of the first Commonwealth Poetry Prize. Of his novels, Arrow of God won the New Statesman-Jack Campbell Award, and Anthills of the Savannah was a finalist for the 1987 Booker Prize. Things Fall Apart, Achebe’s masterpiece, has been published in fifty different languages and has sold millions of copies in the United States since its original publication. Achebe holds an important position - not only for his work but also for his place in the evolution of world and postcolonial literature.
His essay on the racist aspects of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is almost required reading with any teaching of that novel. Mr Achebe lives with his wife in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, where they teach at Bard College. They have four children and three grandchildren. He won the International Man Booker prize in 2007.
He was introduced at the event by:
Tijan M. Sallah, a Gambian poet and writer, was educated at Berea College and Virginia Tect, where he received a Ph.D in economics. Author of several books of poetry, short stories, literary criticism; and editor of two major African poetry anthologies, he has also published the successful biography Chinua Achebe: Teacher of Light (Africa World Press). His works have been featured in numerous majjor African literary publications. He is presently a Lead Economist in the Africa Region of the World Bank.
Charles R. Larson is a Professor of Literatire at American University. His course on African Literature– which began offering in 1965 and has taught every year since–was the first course in African Literature taught anywhere in the United States. Among other works, he is the author of: The Emergence of African Fiction (1972); Under African Skies (1997); and The Ordeal of the African Writer (2001). His article on the 50th Anniversary of Things Fall Apart is forthcoming in the Times Literary Supplement.
Part of the above write up was culled from the event program.
HBS/MBA Admission Interview Questions
March 16, 2008 | 1 Comment
Sample Harvard/MBA Interview questions – the list of questions below are not exhaustive but represent some of the questions you may be asked during MBA admission interviews. The questions were prepared for me by an HBS graduate during my application and you may find them useful. These questions are aimed at helping you succeed in your admissions interviews….. so read them carefully and pay attention to the key points.
(1) What are some questions they tend to ask? What do they focus on?
Your weak points/unclear/vague parts on application (”something they have a problem with”)
- Why do you want to do an MBA?
- Why now?
- Given your successful career, what will an MBA add to it?
- Why Harvard?
- What will you do after school?
- What motivates you?
- What will you do if you don’t make it to HBS?
- Long-term career goal?
- Why you as opposed to any other candidate?
- If you were CEO of your company…what would you do to make your company more competitive?
- How committed are you to getting an MBA?
(2) The questions can be very specific to the nature of your job too!!
The interview included some general questions (e.g., Name a company you admire and why?…What would you do to accomplish your goals if there were no MBA programs?), as well as several questions that are specific to your application (e.g., One of your recommendations mentioned …….can you expand on that?).
(3) How should you prepare for the interview?
Basically you should re-read your application carefully. Also they may pick on some unusual aspects of your application. So you friend should look through your application and see if anything sticks out e.g. If you have done a lot of charity work and they wanted to know what motivated you in that direction and why… Also for each essay you wrote try and come up with a different situation for each.
(4) Resources:
To prepare, I recommend that you re-read your application and look for things that might be holes in the story / potential questions. Get a party to read it too and do the same thing.
There is a terrific book with a very good section on interviewing. The book is entitled “How to Get Into the Top MBA Programs” (by Richard Montauk). Amazon has it. Reading the chapter on interviewing was excellent preparation for me.
(5) How long is the interview?
The interview should last somewhere between 20-60 minutes. The interviewee needs to be dressed in business attire and it is better to be 5 or 10 minutes early than late (treat it as a professional employment interview). You might be comforted to know that probably 2/3 of all interviewees are eventually admitted. They say it is about 50-60%, but I think that’s just them being conservative.
(6) Other comments:
There are 2 philosophies that I have heard regarding interviews. One is that they want to make sure that you don’t have 2 heads or that you come across great on paper but can’t communicate. The other is that they have questions regarding your application and want you to explain them. I am more inclined to believe the first given the atmosphere/class environment at HBS vis-à-vis class participation (I also think it helps you relax more if you believe the first). During my interview, my interviewer kept pushing back on me to explain why I wanted to go back to school if I was enjoying I-banking and performing well at JP Morgan. She also asked me to explain more about what I planned to do post-MBA. That was pretty much it. Tell your friend to ask questions also. I interjected with mine along the interview, as she told me to, but this point depends very much on the interviewer.
(7) The format is different for on-campus interviews and for alumni interviews.
On campus:
The interviewer has read all the application in advance. My interviewer had all the details in mind. She had prepared a list of about 10 questions, very personalized. The questions asked are typically the toughest ones;
- Why did you have x employers before applying: tell me in detail about all
- Your career changes
- Why do you consider that it is the best time for you to do the MBA
- Duration: about 45 minutes
- Preparation: be ready to defend all the details of your application, as well as the points not included, but which might make the interviewer curious. Be consistent, honest, and enthusiastic.
(8) General Comments:
However, I do know a friend of my brother’s who got dinged after the interview round. He says the mistake he made was that he may have come across as being *too modest* early on in the interview and lost the interviewer after about 5 minutes. So I guess the key is to appear confident during the first few minutes and then ease into a casual conversation, if that is what the interviewer wants…
The interview is a half hour long - trust me it’s long - it feels like an eternity. For me it seemed as though there was something they wanted to ask me specifically about my application. Once that one question was answered the interviewer didn’t have much else to ask me. The woman interviewing me was very business like. She told me up front not to ask her any questions at the end of the interview unless I really and truly had something that I’d like to know. That is, don’t ask a B.S. question just because you think it is the right thing to do.
She asked me why HBS? Asked me to describe some analytical things that I did at work. Then asked me why HBS again. That was pretty much it. They told me I would hear in two weeks from the date of the interview – I heard after only one week that I was accepted.
My take on it is they tend to focus on something that caused them to put the person into the “interview” pile. To clarify, I believe they think the person ought to be in the “accept” pile but something is causing them to have a concern or need for clarification. I have not compared notes with anyone else, but for example in my case, I did not use a recommender from my last job. An additional insight is, again at least in my case, they tend to hone in on “that one thing” and ask repeated questions about it. Thus, my advice to your respective friends is know yourself (obvious in any interview) BUT ALSO try to think what they may be hung up on…and be prepared for that cold!
In a nutshell, it was confrontational (which was a similar experience to many others who have had interviews). It is designed to see how you will react given the case method environment - can you think on your feet? How do you react when directly challenged?
Announcement: World Bank Launches Diaspora Firm Registration Drive
March 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Greetings from the African Diaspora Mobilization Team!
We are writing to seek your assistance in launching an initiative aimed at registering Firms owned by members of the African Diaspora on a World Bank database called eConsultant, so that these Firms become eligible for consulting opportunities within ongoing Bank projects in Africa.
This is further to the Diaspora Open House in Washington DC last November, where one of the commitments we made to participants was that we would provide them with opportunities to be considered for consulting roles with the World Bank. We continue to remain excited by this because we believe that the African Diaspora’s unique perspective, combined with specialist skills, will add immense value to our work on the continent.
If you own or manage a Firm that can offer consulting services to the World Bank, please register with us by clicking on www.worldbank.org/econsultant, creating an account and completing the required form. Once you submit your details, you will receive a temporary registration number. After your information has been reviewed and approved, you will receive an official Vendor ID number. Please note that the eConsultant database in not managed by the Diaspora team, so we will be unable to answer any questions about your registration.
Since all project teams regularly use eConsultant to identify experts, the registration of your firm is an essential first step toward your participation in a Bank project. Also, though the Bank considers both Firms and Independent Consultants for consulting opportunities, this email pertains only to the registration of Firms.
Thank you again for your interest in the Diaspora initiative. We look forward to receiving your Firm’s registration and your continued participation through the year.
African Diaspora Mobilization Team
Capacity Development Management Action Plan (CDMAP) Unit
Africa Region, The World Bank, Washington, DC
www.worldbank.org/afr/diaspora
4th Annual African Fashion Show - More Pictures Part 2
March 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment
WASHINGTON DC - February 29, 2008 - The African Students’ Association at Howard University hosted the 4th edition of the highly successful African Fashion Show at the Crampton Auditorium today. The Fashion Show which ushered in the 1st ever African Business Conference organized by the school’s African business students was also featured in the week long DC Fashion Week 2008.
The Fashion show provided the rare opportunity for up and coming African designers to showcase their designs. More than 1000 people from across the United States attended the event. Black Herald is proud to bring you pictures from the event.
Click on the first picture and double click to navigate through the gallery.
To see more pictures click here.
Aliko Dangote (Nigerian) is the Richest Black Man in the World.
March 9, 2008 | 104 Comments
CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT THE RICHEST BLACK PEOPLE IN 2009
Alhaji Aliko Dangote emerged the 334th richest man in the world based on the recently released 2008 Forbes Magazine list of richest men in the world, making him the richest black person. A Nigerian, he hit the jackpot when his sugar-production company listed on the Nigerian stock exchange last year.
Meanwhile, proposed initial public offerings of his flour and cement companies have stalled. Began career as trader at 21 with loan from his uncle; built his Dangote Group into conglomerate with interests in sugar, flour milling, salt processing, cement manufacturing, textiles, real estate, haulage and oil and gas. Closely linked to Nigeria’s former president Olusegun Obasanjo. His wealth is estimated at $3.3 billion.
The other black man on the list is Patrice Mosepe (#503) from South Africa with a net worth of $2.4 billion.
Story from www.forbes.com
DCFASHIONWEEK 2008 - More Pictures.
March 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment
EMBASSY OF FRANCE, WASHINGTON DC March 02, 2008 - The International Couture collections fashion show took place today at the embassy of France in the heart of Washington, DC. The event was organized by a partnership of independent fashion designers, producers and models.
DCFASHIONWEEK was created to increase development in the area of fashion design, clothing merchandising and modeling, and to enhance the visibility of the nation’s capital as a center of international fashion.Black Herald is pleased to bring you pictures from the event.
Click on the first picture and double click to navigate through the gallery.
The International Couture Collections - DCFASHIONWEEK 2008
March 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment
EMBASSY OF FRANCE, WASHINGTON DC March 02, 2008 - The International Couture collections fashion show took place today at the embassy of France in the heart of Washington, DC. The event was organized by a partnership of independent fashion designers, producers and models.
DCFASHIONWEEK was created to increase development in the area of fashion design, clothing merchandising and modeling, and to enhance the visibility of the nation’s capital as a center of international fashion.Black Herald is pleased to bring you pictures from the event.
Click on the first picture and double click to navigate through the gallery.
The following designers exhibited at the event:
Amore Hats - (Nigeria - Africa)
Corjor Couture - (Washington, DC - USA)
Yodit Tibebu - (Ethiopia - Africa)
House of Leevean - (Liberia - Africa)
Divaista (Charlottsville, VA - USA)
Ray Vicente (Trenton, NJ - USA)
Tony Joshua Sanna (Sardinia, Italy - Europe)
Glamfurs - (Atlanta, GA - USA)
Favala (Lynn, MA - USA)
Milazzo (Miami, FL -USA)
Renee France Designs (Washington, DC - USA)
Stella Bonds (Colombia - South America)
Tsyndyma (Siberia - Europe)
Aleksey Zalevsky (Ukraine - Europe)
Zemskova & Vorozhbyt (Ukraine - Europe)
Liliya Poustovit (Ukraine - Europe)
Oksana Karavanska (Ukraine - Europe)
Elena Burenina (Ukraine - Europe)
Howard African Business Conference 2008
March 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment
WASHINGTON DC - March 1, 2008 - The 1st annual Howard University African Business Conference took place today at Howard University in the District of Columbia, USA. The event which was co-hosted by the school’s African Students’ Association and the business school was created to highlight business and career opportunities in Africa and showcase the positive things happening in Africa and to Africans in diaspora. More than 500 business professionals and students alike participated in the event.
Many accomplished business executives from Africa shared their knowledge and expertise with the audience on how to make impact in Africa and tap from the huge opportunities available in the continent. The overall consensus is that Africa represents a vast yet untapped market with thriving economies and capital markets and Africans should to start tapping into the economic gains either by going back to work in the continent or by investing in the capital markets which have returned record profits in the recent past.
Notable speakers at the conference includes James Makawa, Co-Founder of the African Channel, Ola Karim, Group Managing Director & CEO of Shoreline Power Company, Dr Titi Banjoko - Founder & Director of AfricaRecuit, Jacques Els - Head of Bonds, Convertibles and Hybrids for Sub-Sahara Africa - ABSA Capitals, Abimbola Olashore, Executive Director at Ecobank, Nwaji Jibunoh - Phillips Consulting Limited and Zewud Debebe of Zebrajobs.com.
Black Herald is pleased to bring you pictures from the event. Click on the first picture and double click to navigate through the image gallery.
