Inland Empire Black Professionals

Kappa Alpha Psi is giving back to the community in a big way.

Time to support a worthy cause!

#WeSTANDWITHKALIEF

Solar-Powered Food Carts Helping Poor Black Entrepreneurs to Become Street Vendors Three social entrepreneurs, Manon Lavaud, Nataliey Bitature, and Keisuke Kubota, have founded Musana Carts, a San Francisco-based company, that provides urban street vendors with a cleaner, safer and more efficient solution to their cooking, storage, and financing needs. Their initial launch was in Uganda, and so far, their solar-powered food carts have already impacted the lives of 30 street v...endors, giving them an otherwise impossible opportunity to run their own business. But the company's ultimate goal is to help tens of thousands of street vendors all throughout Africa! Why its such a big deal Food carts are very expensive. The typical price range for a food cart starts at around $5,000, but food trucks can be as much as $30,000. And this cost does not include the price of a power generator. But Musana Carts feature innovative technology that include an eco-friendly stove (that reduces smoke emission and fire hazards), a small refrigerator, light bulbs and phone chargers. Everything is powered by a solar panel, meaning that charcoal is no longer needed. In Uganda, the carts even include a business license because it is difficult for street vendors to obtain a license on their own. Musana also provides vendors with access to finance and business training. Everything a street vendor needs Manon Lavaud, strategic lead for Musana Carts, describes the carts as "a great solution for growing companies." The carts provide everything a street vendor needs to go into business for themselves. Because most vendors cannot purchase the carts outright, they are allowed to pay a small amount each month until the cart is paid off. But vendors keep all their sales revenue! After paying off the cart -- usually within one year -- vendors pay the equivalent of just $10 USD monthly in a franchise fee that ensures they continue to receive further training, branding and support. Thanks to the innovative thinking of a socially conscious tech company, Musana Carts now offer a path to a sustainable, reliable income through street vending. The carts are referred to as "the urban vending solution of the future." For more details about the company, visit www.musanacarts.com

All business owners, you don't want to miss this! The National List Tour LA is here. This Saturday Sept. 16, 2017. go to www.listour.com for ticket information.

If in the Los Angeles area and your business needs more customers or revenue, The List Tour is where you want to be.

Back in 2014, an innovative app company called Oju Africa, based in the country of Mauritius, has introduced a set of African/Black emojis as a solution to the lack of diversity on Apple's popular set of emojis used around the world. The unique emojis can be downloaded from the Google Play Store, and are designed to work on all Android platforms. An emoji (or emoticon), for those that don't know, is a graphic representation of a facial expression, formed by using various comb...inations of keyboard characters. For example, typing in :-) creates a smile. Emojis are generally used in text messages, and on social meda platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and others. Emoji apps are so popular that some of them are making up to $1 million dollars a day! So why the need for Black emojis? CNN recently interviewed Alpesh Patel, CEO of Oju Africa, and during the interview he explains why there was a need for the emoticons: "Oju is an iconic African character -- if you look at the main logo with the tongue sticking out, he's a cheeky, very friendly, cool African character that also works in digital by the smilie, but also works in non-digital by a traditional character licensing. Today Africa does not have its own Mickey Mouse, does not have its own Hello Kitty, there is no African character brand." According to their web site, the company was created to "celebrate Africa", and what better way to do it then to give Africans a digital face that looks like them. Just how big is the mobile phone industry in Africa? Well, according to SmartPlanet.com, since the year 2000, the mobile phone market in Africa has grown from 16.5 million cell phone users to more than 650 million cell phone users. That means that the continent of Africa has more cell phone users than the United States or the entire European Union. Patel comments, "Mobile is basically what makes Africa go round today, what makes Africa work today. We never had any fixed infrastructure so Africa has come from nothing to wireless and in that process we've been able to develop some superior networks in Africa compared to the ones in the western world." Obviously with that many cell phone users in Africa plus the millions of African descendants around the world (African Americans, African Europeans, etc), it would be nice to have a digital set of emoticons that they can identify with. For more details about Oju Africa, visit: www.ojuafrica.com To download the Black emoticons to your mobile phone, visit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details

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WOW if you are in the Inland Empire, Super Clean Laundry is the place to go for all of your laundry needs. It is a black-owned and operated laundry facility that takes pride in giving back to the community. The owner, Leroy Jones is always making sure that the place is exactly what the name of his business is SUPER CLEAN. You will even be offered free coffee and donuts while you wait for your laundry to finish. Please share and let others know about Super Clean Laundry. 1008 N Mountain Ave, Ontario, CA 91762 Phone number (909) 395-5505

Straight Out Of Compton.