“Access to capital is a bigger problem in the African-American community than in non-minority communities,” said founder Nathan Bennett-Fleming in an interview with VentureBeat. “Crowdfunding is a powerful solution to address its unique set of challenges. I want to promote the idea of community reinvestment and provide people with a dedicated way to not only achieve innovation within the space, but also address social systemic problems.”

A University of Michigan study found that while African-Americans are almost twice as likely as Caucasians to begin the new business creation process, businesses owned by Caucasians exist at more than twice the rate of those owned by black individuals. Fleming calls this the “black startup gap” and outlined multiple factors that perpetuate it, with a lack of funding as the first. He said  most members of the black community start businesses on personal savings, credit, and the support of their friends and family because they have historically been discriminated against in terms of loans, funding, and resources. While these problems are getting better, people within the community still have limited interactions with angel investors and venture capitalists, and don’t feel there are viable financial channels bring their business to the next level.

Bennett-Fleming worked at Goldman Sachs during a college summer, attended law school, and worked on crowdfunding legislation surrounding the JOBS Act. He witnessed the difficulty that people in the African-American community had trying to find financing and realized that crowdfunding could help democratize access to capital as well as draw on the strength of the community. Along with classmates of his from Morehouse - Olugbolahan Adewumi, Elgin Tucker, Kyle Yeldell, and Christopher Hollins- they set out to build BlackStartup.

“Our community is under-valued and highly profitable,” he said. “There is already a strong affinity within the community on the ground and the ability to market directly to a community that is under-marketed creates a significant value proposition. There is already a trend towards more focused, niche crowdfunding platforms. It is a vehicle to better use the tremendous consumer and wealth power of a specific community to take on its challenges.”

The site takes a standard approach to crowdfunding- a selection of vetted projects are featured on the homepage with a project description, background about the founders, and specific goals. Members of the community back projects that pique their interest and if the goal is successfully reached, the project owners get the money to carry it out. Seven projects went live with the launch today, including a site that drives commentary on news of the day, a math curriculum taught through playing the piano, a family business that makes handmade hair products, and a mobile bakery that teaches people how to make desserts.

BlackStartup recently won the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute’s Fellowship, which invokes $20,000 in seed capital, an elite mentor, and a 10 week business boot camp in New Haven, Connecticut. Bennet-Fleming said his ultimate goal is to provide a funding solution that extends to all marginalized communities on a local and national level, to help them overcome obstacles attracting capital. BlackStartup is based in Washington, DC.

Photo Credit: BlackStartup 

It turns out that real soldiers don’t regenerate and machine guns don’t have unlimited ammo. Who knew?

It’s no secret that first-person shooters — in all their Hollywood-inspired clamor and spectacle — don’t simulate the realities of war very well. From basic rules of engagement, to gun safety (such as “don’t flag your buddies”), and the dynamics of combat, first-person shooters are more akin to interactive action flicks than a proper re-creation of armed conflict.

Of course, no one wants to play a hyper-realistic military simulator, as this hilarious Onion sketch illustrates.

No one wants to fill out endless paperwork, take mandatory sexual harassment training, write NCOERs (noncommissioned officer evaluation reports), sit through Powerpoint presentations with the potency of 10 Valiums, or stand 12-hour watches. No one wants to experience “hurry up and wait.”

Because that would be boring. Too realistic.

People want an escape from the mundane. But surely we can find a happy medium between silly action flicks and boring reality.

With the recent release of what will probably be the best-selling video game of the year, Call of Duty Black Ops II (for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PC), I thought it instructive to get the low-down from a real soldier, a veteran who deployed in support of the Global War on Terror. Sergeant Dave Mull deployed to Iraq in support of the Global War on Terror three separate times: ’04-’05, early ’07-late ’07, and ’08. His Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) is Cavalry Scount (19D), which essentially means that his job is enemy, area, and route reconnaissance. Altogether, he served 12 years.

Our conversation yielded some fascinating insights, and some of it may surprise you.

GamesBeat: What are some of the most basic details that your average military shooter gets wrong?

The author firing the M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon). The barrels get really hot and have a tendency to overheat.

GamesBeat: What inaccuracies seem the most jarring? Is there anything that would prevent you from playing such a game?

Dave Mull: Hmm … they seem to be trying far too hard to make everything “epic” in campaign mode. It can sometimes be a chore trying to figure out which enemies actually count and which ones are the infinitely respawning cannon-fodder bots.

It won’t stop me from playing it, but you’d think they could remember that sometimes nothing happening can be just as, if not much more, suspenseful.

GamesBeat: It does seem like the goal of many shooters — Call of Duty especially — is bigger setpieces, bigger explosions, and bigger bodycounts. Which naturally makes them more like a Michael Bay movie than anything resembling reality.

Dave Mull: Remember in the Metal Gear Solid games, it’s intended that you don’t kill anyone. Of course, you can, but it’s not the way [series creator Hideo] Kojima envisioned it.

GamesBeat: Indeed. And a reader on Bitmob, GamesBeat’s sister site, pointed out that MGS4 is one of the few games to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder. In many ways, it’s a more realistic depiction of war than any first-person shooter.

Dave Mull: Very much so — specifically toward the end with Adam’s adoption of Liquid Snake’s personality and with the four gals of the Beauty and the Beast unit.

Pages: 1 2

If you’re one of the young women entrepreneurs behind Black Girls Hack in Atlanta, Georgia, you organize a hackathon. But not your run-of-the-mill standard white male sausage-fest hackathon — this is going to be a “blackhack.”

And it’s a blackhack for women.

Inspired by Black Girls Code in San Francisco, four women founded Black Girls Hack to inspire African American women (and girls) to be software developers and startup founders, as well as to gather, communicate with, and connect all those who already are.

I talked to one of the founders, Amanda Spann, who also serves as the PR coordinator of Black Girls Hack.

“We’re all African American, and we all have tech startups,” she said. “One thing we all struggle with is feeling like we’re the only ones … there are so few blacks in technology.”

Spann is starting up Glamobile, a review and recommendation community in the fashion and shopping space that is currently in stealth mode. Another founder, Kat Calvin, is starting Character’s Closet, a startup that will allow fans to find and eventually purchase their favorite TV and movie stars outfits.

Instead of bemoaning the fact that it can be tough to find black developers — especially female ones — and accepting it as the status quo, the women decided to do something about it.

The first thing they’re doing is #blackhack, and it’s happening November 16-17 in Atlanta. Spann expects about 100 African American women coders to show up, and she’s already excited with the early enthusiasm.

“We’re really amped to have people on board,” she said. “And MailChimp came on only two days after we announced as a title sponsor.”

The event is being run as a charity, and all proceeds from ticket sales will go to Black Girls Code.

photo credit: kk+ via photopin cc

---

Big Data and Predictive/Real-time Analytics startups: Are you looking to jumpstart development & accelerate market traction? Sign up for the SAP Startup Focus program to receive technology, support, resources and community to help you develop new applications on SAP HANA, a cutting edge database platform. Get started here, and enter promo code “VB2013″ on the form.

---