Monthly Archives: August 2021

The new space race: Big takeaways for software and product innovators – VentureBeat

Posted: August 4, 2021 at 2:13 pm

All the sessions from Transform 2021 are available on-demand now. Watch now.

This post was written by Scott Castle, VP & general manager of products at Sisense

The new space race is grabbing headlines and driving public interest in the potential of space exploration. For tech innovators, it opens the doors to a world of possibilities. It has brought in a fast-moving, Silicon Valley- and product-led paradigm to a sector that was previously the governments domain. As a product leader with more than 25 years experience in software development and product management in both technology and analytics, I believe there are some big takeaways for product innovators and business leaders in this exciting technology milestone.

The advent of SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic generated a highly entrepreneurial, private sector-led new space technology ecosystem, with startups offering services and applications that are highly innovative and customer-focused. Morgan Stanley, which predicts the global space industry will generate revenue upwards of $1 trillion in 2040, identifies this as a big investment opportunity for venture capital and private equity.

In Q2 of 2021, new space exploration received an infusion of $4.5B, setting it on track to beat 2020s total investment of $9.1B, reports Space Capital, a venture capital firm focused on the sector. The report estimates a total of $199.8B of equity investment across 1,533 companies in the new space ecosystem over the last decade. By factoring in the product innovations downstream that impact our daily life on Earth thanks to technology transfer, there is good reason for this optimism.

In many ways, the new space ecosystem and its constellation of space tech startups and unicorns ready to boldly go where no one has gone before follow three of the golden rules of product innovation that we strive toward:

SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic have ushered in radical and disruptive innovation into the aerospace and space technology sector. SpaceX was listed as the top disrupter on the CNBC Disruptor 50 List in 2018, upending both aerospace leader Boeing and the rocket industry with its reusable rockets, becoming one of the most valuable companies in the world.

Product leaders might typically be inclined to go for incremental innovation because it appears sustainable. However, your product could miss the mark, lose product/market fit, and eventually, customers if you dont innovate quickly. During a crisis recovery period, this is of critical importance, reports McKinsey. Their recent survey of more than 200 executives revealed that over 85% think that the pandemic will have a lasting impact on customer needs over the next five years, but only 21% report they have the commitment and resources to face the challenge.

By following agile, data-informed methods, product leaders can test and iterate while keeping management informed with a high-level road map. By moving fast, with analytics at speed and reduced time to insights, product leaders can innovate to stay ahead of the competition.

Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin have said they want to lower barriers to mass adoption of space travel. Space X has stated its single vision of reducing the cost to launch. While these sound like lofty aims, they follow the right questions and have an impact on technological progress on the ground. Cost of launch is the crucial barrier to product innovation in space technology, and reusable rockets pave the way for new space pioneers to experiment, test, iterate, and launch products and technology more frequently.

Product leaders are equally focused on mass adoption of their products. A key reduction of cost to launch on that path is with the use of white-labeled embedded analytics. Think about how you can make it easier for your customers to interact with their data on your app. What if they could simply ask a question using plain language and have your app present analyzed insights in a user-friendly format? That is now an attainable differentiator and value proposition for customers to keep returning to your product.

Virgin Galactic leader Richard Branson and Blue Origin chief Jeff Bezos are bringing their famous customer and data obsession to a sector that traditionally focused on technology first, and the user experience next, with little incentive for change. New space startups and their backers, however, expect profitability from innovation, and have a laser-sharp focus on customer-centric innovation. For example, Virgin Galactics stated customer goal for its fully crewed test flight on July 11 was to assess everything from the seat comfort to the weightlessness experience, aiming to ensure the customer experience of the complete wonder and awe of space travel.

Product leaders are customer-obsessed but often rely on instinct rather than quantifiable data to drive their innovation decisions, missing opportunities to win customers. Bring that back into your court by using data derived from continuous testing so you can arrive at a solution that meets customer needs and ensures product stickiness.

For example, offering traditional reporting tools to your customers with static visualizations and dashboards simply dumps metrics onto your customers rather than providing actionable insights, leading to dissatisfaction and poor engagement. Instead serve contextual insights to your customers in a revolutionary way, by embedding them into your products to achieve a seamless and intuitive user experience. At Sisense, we call this infused analytics, and it empowers your customers with actionable insights where they spend the most time, in their communication apps or CRMs.

You can further enhance user experience with native app visual interfaces that help customers take action on their insights without jumping to and from workflows. By going beyond data delivery to make analytics an intuitive and integral part of decision making, product leaders can innovate to make a difference.

The new space race brings home Captain Picards famous line from Star Trek: The Next Generation. As a product leader, I am always excited to see innovations lead the way to more discoveries. Product innovation is arguably rocket science. Just as they did with the new space race, scientists must think big, ask the right questions, and constantly test. And product leaders must aim beyond the stars to create visionary products with long-lasting and universal impact.

Scott Castle is an analytics infusion pioneer bringing more than 25 years of software development and product management experience to his role as VP & GM of products at Sisense. Castle previously held technology positions at companies including Adobe, Electric Cloud, and FileNet.

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The new space race: Big takeaways for software and product innovators - VentureBeat

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Bezos, Musk, and Branson Should Boost Democracy on Earth, Not Flee to Space – Barron’s

Posted: at 2:13 pm

About the author: John Austin is director of the Michigan Economic Center and a nonresident senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the Brookings Institution.

The three billionaire space-exploration amigos Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk are getting some critical reactions to their uber-expensive space flight projects.

While some lament the vanity, others point to the lack of scientific merit. But the criticism hasnt yet mined the vein of deepest irony, as well as the looming danger that makes their space games such a distraction from our most fundamental challenges. As they race to space, back on earth the global economic system created by democratic regimes that allowed them to get rich in the first place is under assault from without and within. And these winners in globalization arent doing much to preserve it, but instead funding their own ego-driven projects.

The threat from without comes as China uses its corrupting, dependency-building Belt and Road development initiative, surveillance state, restrictions on free speech, and attacks on democratic institutions and norms as tools to replace the open, rules-based, economic and trade regime organized by the U.S. and its democratic allies, with its own closed model of authoritarian politics and economic development.

The threat to democracy from within comes from our failure to diminish yawning geographic economic disparities and opportunity gaps. Gaps individuals like our space billionaires have too often exacerbated, what with their own wealth-hoarding, alleged nonpayment of taxes, and resistance to providing decent pay, working conditions and bargaining power for their employees. These wealth differentials are politically dangerous as the gap grows between thriving global city regions and struggling communities in heartland regions of our democraciesenabling anti-democratic populism that poses an imminent challenge to the stability of our political order here and abroad .

Unless wealthy elites in Europe and North America, including these space cowboys who have profited so enormously from the West-led international capitalist system, put their money and influence to work to reduce wealth inequalities at homeand partner to strengthen the economies and polities of democracies abroadthey may soon witness the death of the goose that has laid their golden eggs.

These billionaires were made because of the West and democracies principles for organizing the world economy: freedom to innovate and create businesses with disruptive new ideas and technologies; to have these ideas and technology protected by laws and patents; to benefit from a very light touch of state regulation and control; to take advantage of a relatively free and mobile market for labor; as well as the unencumbered free flow of goods and information across the globe. These are all tenets of the post-World War II liberal trade and political order constructed purposefully by the U.S. and our democratic partners.

All of these conditions are imperiled by the rise of authoritarian anti-democratic leaders and models like Chinas, which empowers corrupt leaders, actively dismantles democratic institutions, throws up barriers to the free flow of ideas, people and trade in favor of self-service and obeisance to autocrats and hollow nationalist sentiments.

In their 2012 book Why Nations Fail, economists Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue that even prosperous civilizations can fail when exploitive elites keep grabbing the spoils for themselves versus redistributing wealth in the form of opportunity-building investments like education and infrastructure, which benefit all and build a healthy middle class. They also argue that when you combine rotten regimes, exploitative elites and self-serving institutions, it is a national recipe for disaster.

Unfortunately, that is what we have seen recently in the U.S., and even among once strong and West-leaning allies like Turkey, Hungary, Poland and Brazil. Support for parties with disturbing anti-democratic tendencies has grown and become alarmingly high even in democratic stalwarts like Germany with its Alternative for Germany right-wing party, and in France with Marine Le Pens nationalist movement.

The tragi-comic race to space among billionaire business elites is not really that funny. These elites could use their outsized influence on our culture, our politics, and their big bucks to fight for democracy and capitalism. Look at what Bill Gates, with a similarly sized ego and pocketbook has accomplished in the arena of global health.

And we know what we need to do to help democracies win.

Yes, we must work together as allies, as President Biden has been urging, to focus on winning the strategic competition with China for global political and economic high ground..

But a major priority lies at hometo attack the root causes of anti-democratic populism with a people and place-focused economic development policy within our own democracies. These moguls and other global business leaders should be at the front of the parade seeking a minimum corporate international tax, a hike in the tax rates for millionaires and billionaires, and expansive national investments in education, child care, infrastructure and clean energy and higher education, akin to those proposed by Biden here in the U.S.

Closing gaps in wealth and opportunity also need to have an important focus, with particular attention to the once mighty older industrial regions of our Western democracies.As I have written before, these are the geopolitically significant places where many residents feel ignored or, even worse, looked down upon and patronized. As we learned at a recent trans-Atlantic symposium on populism and place, this, coupled with economic anxiety, concern about losing ones place in a changing world and perceptions that their communities are in decline, leads proud residents of industrial regions to embrace messages of nativism, nationalism, isolationism and economic nostalgia that are peddled by right-wing populist leaders. These movements encourage anti-democratic behaviors, such as distrust of institutions, the press and a breakdown in support for the civil rights of others. This nurtures the fierce political polarization that is undermining Western democracies.

These anti-elite and anti-democratic populist sentiments will not change until their root causes are addressed:the real and perceived decline of once-thriving industrial communities. There is good evidence demonstrating that when older industrial communities continue to decline, residents are receptive to the polarizing messages of populists and nativists. At the same time, accumulating evidence suggests that when older industrial communities secure new economic footing, anxiety and fear among their inhabitants give way to optimism and hope for the future.

After World War II, Western government and business leaders worked hand-in-glove to invest in and rebuild economies, many broken by war, in part to fend off communist movements and the then seeming appeal of the since-discredited Soviet economic and political model.International-minded business leaders supported political leaders in building the open, rules-based, international economic and trade regime that brought decades of relative peace and more prosperity for more people around that world than ever before. It is this regime that made it possible for Branson, Bezos, and Musk to innovate and fly.

Our democracies could use their help on the ground.

Guest commentaries like this one are written by authors outside the Barrons and MarketWatch newsroom. They reflect the perspective and opinions of the authors. Submit commentary proposals and other feedback toideas@barrons.com.

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What is SpaceX’s official name? Elon Musk just revealed space company’s real name & goal – Republic World

Posted: at 2:13 pm

Every wondered why SpaceX is called so? It literally does not have a meaning. Here is Elon Musk, the CEO of the commercial spaceflight organisation, to clear the cloud surrounding its name. Read to find out.

SpaceX is actually called Space Exploration Technologies Corporation. Yes, heard it right! SpaceX is the acronym for its broader full name. Elon Musk took to the microblogging site, Twitter to share this information about SpaceX official name. He informed that SpaceX is the abbreviation of the"official name"Space Exploration Technologies Corporation.

According to Britannica, SpaceX is an American commercial aerospace company founded in 2020. It maneuvres space aerospace transportation services and communications. The company has its headquarters in Hawthorne, California. The goal of SpaceX, as stated by Musk is "reducing space transportation cost to enable the colonisation of Mars."

The company entered the spacecraft-making business with Falcon 1 rocket, a two-stage-fuelled craft designed to send small satellites into orbit. As per reports, the Falcon Rocket was much cheaper to build and operate in comparison to its competitors. The company also developed the Merlin engine, a compact, energy-efficient system that enabled an inexpensive budget for the spacecraft. In the coming times, the company also looks forward to making reusable space launch vehicles for more sustainable space travel.

In a milestone, SpaceX launched its first crewed flight in a Dragon Capsule on May 30, 2020. Astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken were the first humans to travel to space in commercial spaceflight.

The company began with Flacon 1, which made its first attempt to space in March 2006. However, it failed due to a fuel leak. Subsequently, it made two more attempts in vain, in March 2007 and August 2008. Nevertheless, in September 2008, it made its first successful attempt to send a liquid-fuelled rocket to orbit. Following this, the commercial spaceflight company bagged a $1.5 billion contract from the National Aeronautics and Space and Space Administration (NASA).

The journey from Falcon 1 to Falcon 9 was a milestone for SpaceX. In December 2010, the company became the first commercial spaceflight company to launch the Dragon capsule into orbit successfully and return it to Earth. Interestingly, Falcon 9 was designed so that it could be reused. When the first rocket stage returned to Earth, it was reused during a re-launch in 2017. Meanwhile, the company developed a Falcon Heavy Rocket, which took its first test flight to space in 2018. It placed into orbit around the Sun a Tesla Roadster with a mannequin in a spacesuit. The company now aims to shoot settlers to Mars by 2023.

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What is SpaceX's official name? Elon Musk just revealed space company's real name & goal - Republic World

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‘I am honoured to be one of the first Black men to have my work sent to space’: Amoako Boafo to paint triptych on rocket – Art Newspaper

Posted: at 2:13 pm

Amoako Boafo Courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim gallery and the artist

The 37-year-old Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo's rise at auction has been meteoric.

And now, he is actually going into space. Or at least, his painting will be.

To launch its new art program, the Utah-based company Uplift Aerospace has asked Boafo to paint three exterior panels of a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket that will launch on a roundtrip space mission this autumn. This is the same type of rocket that carried the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (also a big art collector) into space earlier this month.

Boafo will travel out to Texas in the autumn to paint his work, titled the Suborbital Triptych, on three removable panels which will be attached to the apex of the rocket. "There are special paints. I cant say more at this stage about the materials but soon!", Boafo tells The Art Newspaper.

"I am drawn to the idea of my works going into a new orbit, literally," Boafo says. "This will further push my vision for my practice. I am honoured to be one of the first Black men to have my work sent to space. Im very excited to be a part of this from a historical standpoint."

Boafo is conscious of his home country's attitude towards space exploration in creating this piece: "Ghanaian people are interested in learning and observing faraway galaxies... and I think more importantly we are interested in relating it back to earth, by solving local problems. Ghana has one of the most advanced research programs, our national space agencys history stretches back over a decade."

The Blue Origin New Shepard rocket launches earlier this month Courtesy of Blue Origin and Uplift Aerospace

For now, Boafo says he cannot give much away about the work he is creating, other than to say: "When we think of space exploration and space research, we think of the future. So, it is important to me that this joyful representation of Blackness is honoured, and in this way will be cemented in history. This will be clear in the work I am creating, for future generations."

Being a part of the Uplift art project, Boafo says, "signals to the rest of the world that Africa, African art and African artists are valuable enough to be a part of that [space travel] history. Also, it means a lot to me that my message of Black joy and self-determination is a part of it."

Boafo's gallerist Mariane Ibrahim, who has galleries in Chicago and Paris, was involved in the project from the start, "coordinating logistical aspects and making sure the artist's vision is fully preserved in the project," Ibrahim says. "Since this is the first project of this kind, there are no precedents, no road map, so we worked with Amoako Boafo, Uplift and Blue Origin to align our goals for the success of the 'mission'."

Ibrahim is interested in the meeting point of art, exploration and science: "Much like science and exploration, art is also about solving problems, whether through the evolution of techniques and materials, or through new aspects or representation. Amoako, is involved in both."

Uplift will make a charitable donation to some (yet to be announced) non-profits, chosen by Boafo, that support "conservation and healthcare", according to a statement.

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'I am honoured to be one of the first Black men to have my work sent to space': Amoako Boafo to paint triptych on rocket - Art Newspaper

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Former NASA astronaut joins Everett company in expedition to the Titanic – KING5.com

Posted: at 2:13 pm

Scott Parazynski, who has completed five spaceflights and even summitted Mt. Everest, joined Everett's OceanGate to travel to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.

EVERETT, Wash. Former NASA astronaut Dr. Scott Parazynski loves to explore.

"I'm driven to go to places that are difficult to reach, that really involve commitment," he said.

After completing five spaceflights, traveling across Antarctica and even summitting Mt. Everest, Parazynski's newest adventure took him to the ocean floor to document the world's most famous shipwreck.

"Everyone around the world knows the Titanic. And the fact that it's 12,800 feet beneath the ocean and really inaccessible, it's sort of the Everest of submersible diving," Parazynski told KING 5.

Parazynski joined OceanGate, an Everett company which owns and operates submersibles, to travel to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean with a team of mission specialists to capture new images and video of the shipwreck.

The company has already completed four expeditions to the Titanic this summer and is currently on the last one for this season.

"There's so many things under water to explore, and by taking people to the Titanic and getting the awareness of what can be done underwater, I hope we'll get a cadre of mission specialists that say, 'look, I want to go every year,'" said Stockton Rush, who is the CEO and founder of OceanGate.

The most recent footage from OceanGate shows the ship is rapidly deteriorating. The video shows what's left of a first class balcony and the telemotor where the ship's wheel once was. There is also footage of the collapsed forward mast and the Titanic's bow.

Click below to view the footage:

On the most recent mission, Parazynski was also joined by his wife, Professor Meenakshi Wadhwa, who is the director of Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration, and the NASA Mars Sample Return program scientist. Wadhwa is in charge of making sure the samples being collected by NASA's Perseverance Rover are brought back to earth in good condition.

"Robotic exploration is incredible at being able to do that, but the human experience is something that's totally different, and being able to see it with your own eyes is going to be transformational," said Wadhwa about the Titanic expedition.

The mission also included P.H. Nargeolet, who is on OceanGate's team of experts. Nargeolet was the leader of six expeditions to the Titanic wreck site between 1987 and 2010 and was in charge of retrieving more than 5,500 Titanic artifacts.

OceanGate is embarking on its final expedition to the Titanic this week to continue gathering footage. The goal is to make a precise 3D image of the Titanic to better track the ship's decay and possibly predict how long it will be there.

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60 years later, Bobcats reflect on OHIO learning, living and ‘the best years of our life’ – Ohio University

Posted: at 2:13 pm

For Dr. Bernard Kokenge, PHD 66, Ohio University isnt just the place where he earned a doctoral degree he never intended to get. Its the community where he and his wife started their family and continue to make memories. And its where some sage advice from a professor led to a career that took his workand his nameto the moon and beyond.

The older you get, the more you look back, says Kokenge, who resides in Springboro, Ohio, with his wife, Joy. We look back on our days at Ohio University and how it was so formative for usnot just the academic part but the living. It helped us to prepare for the future.

The newlywed couple arrived in Athens 60 years ago this month, with Joy expecting their first child and Kokenge accepted for graduate studies in the Department of Chemistry. They moved into old military barracks on East State Street that had been converted into married student housing14 units total, each housing eight families, and all without air conditioning.

Kokenge came to campus with a goal of earning a masters degree and becoming a college professor. A qualifying exam given to graduate students at the time instead landed him in the chemistry departments doctorate programOHIOs first PhD program, established in 1956.

There might have a been a little bit of disappointment in the sense that it looked like I was going to be there a little longer, Kokenge remembers. Joy chimed in right way, saying, Lets stick it out. We were there, and we wanted to make the most of it.

Kokenge was one of approximately 15 graduate students in the program that yearall men and only two of them married. He studied under the direction of the now late Professor Emeritus of Chemistry Dr. James Tong whose research was supported by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. It was research that not only proved valuable in his future career but provided Kokenge a summer grant that supplemented the $1,800 stipend he earned during the rest of the academic year.

We didnt have much, and we really had to scrape by, Kokenge says. But it was the best years of our life.

The Kokenges were there in 1963 when comedian Bob Hope touched down at the Ohio University Airportthen located near their military barracks apartment off East State Streetfor a performance on campus. They watched as President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered his Great Society speech on The College Green in May 1964. And, like all Athens Campus students in those days, their OHIO years were marked by regular flooding of the Hocking River, which the Kokenges remembered turned Peden Stadium into a lake and buckled the floors of Grover Center.

Their fondest memories, however, were of OHIOs annual Homecoming festivitiesand those of 1964 in particular. That was the year that Joy, seven months pregnant with their second child, was named Mrs. Ohio University through the Universitys chapter of the National Association of University Dames, an organization for the wives of married students. Joy served as president of OHIOs affiliate of the National Association of University Dames from 1963-64.

Homecomings were always a big thing, and we always enjoyed them, Joy says. We got to ride in the Homecoming Parade in 1964, so that was a real highlight. We were also invited to President Aldens home for the National Association of University Dames Putting Hubby Through program.

Indeed, Joy did help get her husband not only through, but to Ohio University, where, Kokenge proudly says, We pursued my PhD.

It was Joy and a professor at the University of Dayton, where Kokenge earned his bachelors degree in chemistry, who convinced him to pursue graduate studies. And it was Joy who took to the typewriter, using two sheets of onionskin paper separated by carbon paper, to compile all the chemical formulas and research in her husbands 126-page dissertation.

When it came time for Kokenge to look for jobs, the now late Professor Emeritus of Chemistry Dr. Robert Kline steered the soon-to-be OHIO graduate in a life-changing direction. With several job offers in hand, Kokenge came to Kline for his advice.

Having worked with the U.S. Department of Energys Los Alamos National Laboratory, Kline recommended that Kokenge accept an offer from the Monsanto Research Corp.s Mound Laboratory in Miamisburg, Ohio, a facility operated by the Atomic Energy Commission.

He said, Bernie, I can only recommend what I know about, Kokenge remembers of his conversation with Kline. He had an idea of what Mound was doing, and he said, Youre going to have a unique opportunityone that not too many people will haveif you work there.

Kokenge started his career as a senior research chemist at the Mound Laboratory, which at the time was engaged in the development of nuclear weapon componentsas an offshoot of the Manhattan Projectand the creation of a new way of generating power. Scientists at Mound had invented what was known as radioisotopic thermoelectric generators (RTGs), a type of nuclear battery fueled by plutonium-238. Kokenges work at Mound focused on the RTG batteries and, most notably, improving and refining plutonium-238 fuels, a task and a challenge he successfully completed, earning him a patent on the modified fuel form in 1972.

I was fortunate to join Mound at a time when this concept of plutonium-238 heat sources was just starting, Kokenge says. Dr. Kline told me Id have a chance to do some things that are very unique, and, boy, was he right on.

Some of the plutonium-238 RTGs produced at Mound, and later fueled by Kokenges improved plutonium-238, powered spacecrafts and scientific instruments of several NASA missions. RTGs used during the Apollo missions and moon landingand still on the lunar surfacestudied everything from the bodys atmosphere to its seismic activity. 1975s Viking Mars Landers, the first missions to land on Mars, included RTGs that operated for four to six years. And Pioneer 10, NASAs first mission to the outer planets, continued to send signals back to Earth for more than 30 years, powered by Kokenges plutonium-238 fuel.

Kokenges achievements at Mound literally launched his name into space. His signaturealongside those of NASA workers and contractorscan be found on scientific instruments on the moon and on the Galileo spacecraft, which plunged into Jupiters atmosphere in 2003.

None of this would have been possible without those RTGs, Kokenge says. They were the sources of power, the onboard power utility if you will, for all these scientific probes. We were only one small part of an overall effort, but you feel good about contributing to what the United States has been able to do over the years in space exploration. Youve done something thats left a footprint on our scientific endeavors.

Kokenge moved into management at Mound, eventually becoming associate director of the laboratory, responsible not only for the space program but also for the research, development and production of nuclear weapon components.

In 1986, Kokenge finally landed the career he had set out for when he enrolled at OHIO. He accepted a position as vice president of strategic planning and program development at Kentucky Christian College, where he was also afforded the opportunity to teach chemistry and physics. He went on to become a consultant for the U.S. Departments of Energy and Labor, using his college education and work at the Mound Laboratory to help index the chemicals and toxic materials workers had been exposed to over the years.

Kokenge retired in April 2020, and as the couple embarked on a new chapter in their lives, they couldnt help but think back to where it all began.

It was a sad day when we moved out of the barracks, Joy recalls. We had such great friends down there. Wed do limbo in the yards and have parties in the evenings. We just had a great time, and it was like a big familyand great memories.

Those memories have continued over the years. The Kokenges stayed in touch with some of the friends they made in Athens and with Dr. Tong, last visiting with him in October 2010 when they returned to campus for a football game. And theyve kept up with visits to their first home as a family.

In May, they participated in the OHIO @ home series, taking a virtual tour of the new Chemistry Building on the Athens Campus. The couple returned to campus this summer to see the new 34,000-square-foot facilitythe 21st-century version of the research labs and classrooms Kokenge experienced back in the 1960s when the chemistry program was housed in a building across from Bentley Hall.

Im personally grateful to Ohio University and its professors for the training, the encouragement and the recommendations I received over the years, Kokenge says. Joy and I have been blessed to be able to do a lot of things over the years, and we are so grateful to Ohio University for the experience we had. It was the best experience.

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Freedom Walk kicks off Igniting Hope conference – UB Now: News and views for UB faculty and staff – University at Buffalo Reporter

Posted: at 2:13 pm

An ongoing battle. Thats how Pastor George F. Nicholas describes the health disparities that African Americans are still trying to overcome.

Its an ongoing battle for our own liberation, says Nicholas, pastor of Lincoln Memorial United Methodist Church and convener of the African American Health Equity Task Force. As long as we in the African American community still have these very real health disparities, theres a level of bondage were still in.

Thats why Nicholas and his colleagues on the African American Health Equity Task Force and the Buffalo Center for Health Equity are joining with UB and its Community Health Equity Research Institute for Igniting Hope: Healing Historical Trauma from Racist Research, Policies and Practices. The two-day conference is supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health and by several community sponsors.

The conference kickoff event on Aug. 13 will be a two-mile Freedom Walk from the Michigan Street African American Heritage Archway along Michigan Avenue to the Freedom Wall at the corner of East Ferry Street. The walk is open to the community. Alternative transportation will be provided for those who are unable to do the walk. Conference sessions on Aug. 14 will take place virtually from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Registration and additional conference information is available online.

The purpose of the walk is really to symbolize that people are gathering in the community again, says Nicholas, a member of the board of directors of the UB Community Health Equity Research Institute. Theres a level of celebration in terms of the good work weve been doing.

He notes that if it had not been for the collaborations between the task force, the center and UB and all of their partners, he believes the COVID-19 outcomes in the African American community would have been significantly worse.

But much more needs to be done, and this is the point of the conference, which, the organizers point out, is focused less on health care issues themselves and more on the systems and the infrastructure that create disparities in the first place.

They note that collaborations between UB and the community partners have been solidly based on the idea that it is the root causes of health disparities that exist outside the health care system that so desperately need to be addressed.

This is the fourth year of the Igniting Hope conference series. Each of the first three years attracted approximately 300 attendees. This conference series is becoming an annual summit that brings together community and university stakeholders to understand health disparities and discuss viable solutions to this systemic problem in our community, says Timothy Murphy, director of the UB Community Health Equity Research Institute.

Weve said we will identify clearly whats driving these disparities, and then we will start to chip away at them, says Nicholas. It takes time. Its not sexy, but its the work that needs to be done, to do the research and get the data on whats really driving these things. Its the work that needs to be done so that our children and grandchildren dont have to be dealing with this stuff.

Keynote speakers are:

Breakout discussions will focus on topics raised by the keynote speeches, as well as the environment, fines and fees, historical trauma and healing, and nutrition.

In addition to Nicholas, other speakers addressing the conference are:

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Freedom Walk kicks off Igniting Hope conference - UB Now: News and views for UB faculty and staff - University at Buffalo Reporter

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60th Anniversary of the Freedom Rides: The ‘Accidental Freedom Rider’ Locked up in Parchman at 13 – Jackson Free Press

Posted: at 2:13 pm

Hezekiah Watkins was looking for a hero. As a 13-year-old middle schooler in 1961 in Jackson who had lost his father three years earlier, he thought that seeing and possibly touching a Freedom Rider would fulfill him.

U.S. Supreme Court rulings in 1949 and 1960 that racial segregation in interstate buses and route facilities was unconstitutional emboldened young Freedom Riders. In the summer of 1961, the mixed-race Riders braved severe beatings, imprisonment, maiming, and death from white mobs, supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, and the government. They rode on interstate buses, trains and planes into southern statesVirginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisianastopping at various spots to integrate facilities and face arrest.

More than 400 Freedom Riders made the trip south, beginning on May 4, 1961. Twenty days later, they started a journey to Jackson, Miss. By the end of the summer, 328 ended in Mississippis Parchman Prison after police arrested them for breach of peace for moving into the segregated waiting areas of the bus stations.

On Saturday, July 10, Watkins, now 73 years old and a guide at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, met the Jackson Free Press inside the museum to talk about how he was arrested at such a young age.

How It Started

My journey started on July 7, 1961, which was 60 years ago, I think Wednesday of this week, here in Jackson at the Greyhound Bus Station (at 239 N. Lamar St.), Watkins said.

Before then, he had heard of the Freedom Riders, but he met a brick wall when he asked his teacher, mother and pastor about them. None of them wanted to say anything about it to the 13-year-old.

I was interested in the Freedom Riders based on what I saw (happen) in Alabama on TV, and it became interesting to me seeing Blacks and whites work together, being beaten, all these types of inhumane things happening to them, and it just caught my attention, Watkins said.

He and his friend checked the local news every day to keep up with the Freedom Riders and Alabama. They eventually became our heroes and sheroes, Watkins said. He did not name the friend.

We thought they were just fighting against the police officers; we didnt know their mission, Watkins explained.

The Riders met violence as they reached the Deep South, with white mobs firebombing a bus in Anniston, Ala., beating Riders in Birmingham, attacking in Montgomery as police did nothing. Federal marshals were called in.

Watkins friend later informed him about a Freedom Riders meeting on July 7, 1961 at the Masonic Temple on Lynch Street. When they got there on their bicycles, the event was almost over.

But the announcer was asking if there was anyone here who would like to join forces with the Freedom Riders? If so, meet us at the Greyhound Bus Station, Watkins said as he related the story. So I looked at my friend, my friend looked at me, and we both just nodded.

The boys wanted to see what a Freedom Rider looks like, talked like, dressed like. And if weve got an opportunity to reach out and touch one, man, you know, thats glory, Watkins said.

But they found downtown deserted. State authorities had already arrested the Riders and sent them to Parchman.

Two teenagers started goofing around at the bus station. Being Black and youre downtown, you dont get a chance to enjoy downtown, Watkins explained about the segregated capital city then. You dont get a chance to walk the sidewalk because if you walk on the sidewalk and a white person comes along, you have to step into the street. We didnt have to do that because no one was down there, Watkins said.

So webeing 13-year-old kidswere really enjoying ourselves. There was a water fountain that read White, Colored. We had never drunk from the white fountain. Weve been told that the water from the white fountain was much colder, kind of had a better taste to it, and it was somewhat sweeter, and it reminded you of Kool-Aid. They had their fill of the white-only water fountain and played with the water with no one around.

Then They Were Arrested

The teenagers went back to the bus station, and Watkins friend pushed him inside. They started laughing until a police officer grabbed Watkins on the shoulder.

Why are you in here? the officer asked Watkins.

My friend out there pushed me in here, he replied politely.

What friend? the officer asked.

Hes out there, Watkins replied.

The officer grabbed Watkins by the wrist and led him outside the bus station, and asked, where? Watkins looked left and right, but he could not find the friend, though the two bicycles were still there. His friend had run back home.

At the bus station, the officer asked Watkins his name and place of birth.

It just so happened that my birthplace was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Watkins told the Jackson Free Press. His father left for Wisconsin shortly before his birth; his mother returned with him after he died to be with her relations in Jackson.

Watkins tried to explain that he lived in Jackson. He told me to shut up, Watkins said. At 13 years old, I was arrested and taken to Parchman prison and put on death row. Not only was I on death row, but I was put in a cell with two other inmates; those inmates had been tried for murder. They had been convicted, and they had been sentenced to die.

Ross Barnett, the Mississippi governor in 1961, thought sending the Freedom Riders to Parchman would stop the movement, but it did not work.

Confined Creature at Age 19

Jackson resident Frederick Douglas Moore Clark Sr. was 19 at the time of his arrest in 1961 at Tri-State Trailways Station on West Capitol Street soon after Watkins arrest. He would eventually spend more than 40 days in Parchman. Clark told the Jackson Free Press of his experience on June 19, 2021, at a Black Voters Matter event at Tougaloo College.

Clark went to Georgia, where the Southern Christian Leadership Conference trained him in their non-violence principles in 1958: I was indoctrinated in understanding the philosophy of direct action and peaceful, peaceful demonstration as Martin Luther King Jr. practiced.

Civil rights icons James Bevel and Diane Nash later sought him to desegregate the bus stations waiting rooms. He took 10 people with him to the Trailways station. He said those younger than 18 in his group did not go to prison.

I had just turned 19. I went to prison, and we were placed on death row, he said. We stayed on death row for approximately 40 days where they tried to kill usthey cut our food in half, and they put out cold air on us at night.

The only things we had were Salvation Army shorts and shirts and nothing else, he added. They took all of our sheets and pillowcase, mattress and everything we had in our cell.

Clark related how correctional officers beat them with sticks and locked 38 of them in a 6-feet-by-8-feet steel vault, where they could hardly breathe with the only ventilation coming from under the vaults door. So I called on the guards for four or five hours and got us out, he said.

The others did not like that he cried for help because they were not supposed to give in. I was breathing on the crack under the door, and I was able to call those people to get us out of there, he said.

We had to say, yes sir to get out of there, Clark added.

After getting out of jail, he could barely walk and suffered health problems. When I got out, it took me two months to be able to walk the streets because we hadnt been walking; we were just confined creatures, he stated. All of us got pneumonia. I had double pneumonia, both lungs.

I was glad to get out, very glad to get out, Clark added.

How Watkins Got Out

Watkins said he was at the prison for five days, which he felt was as long as five months. And here I am in the midst of these two (he paused)am just going to say two brotherswho gave me the blues at 13 things that I had to go through being in jail with them, he said, sighing heavily.

Watkins remembers Gov. Barnett, who died in 1987: Ross Barnett was the most racist person, in my opinion.

He hated all Blacks. And he hated poor whites. I can recall him being on television or radio uttering these words: If you are white and youre poor, aint got nothing for you because thats your fault. And if youre Black, I surely dont have nothing for you, Watkins said.

And during the sixties, Parchman prison was the worst prison in these United States, he added. It was still being run as a slave camp; you were working, people were being beaten. All of these things are still happening. Im told that the governor wanted to send a message to the Freedom Riders, and that message was, if you come to Mississippi, this is the type of treatment youre going to get.

Watkins believed Barnett asked for him to be released after President John F. Kennedy called him. Im told that the governor made a call to the prison for my release, and I was released and brought back to Jackson, he said. They called my mother to come pick me up.

Before then, his mother thought her young son was dead, having not seen him for days after spending much effort to search for him. Im told that when she received a call from the Jackson Police Department she thought she was going to identify my remains.

When his mother came into the jail, Watkins, with bruises, was in handcuffs standing against the wall at the back of the room. She jumped over desks and chairs in Fa flash and hugged him tightly.

And since I couldnt do anything because Im handcuffed behind my back, we fell to the floor, and we both were crying and just enjoying each other.

One day, after school later that year in September, Bevel sought out Watkins. Under his tutelage, Watkins participated in various protests for the next six years, starting with picketing the A&P Grocery Store in west Jackson and forcing the manager to employ Black people. He went to various counties for such civil rights work and was beaten, jailed and shot.

I was the youngest person arrested at 13, and I had the most arrests at 109, so they say. To be honest with you, it could have been 110, maybe 99, I dont know.

It was a good run. Im 73 as we speak. Ask me, could I do it again? The answer is yes. I can do everything except Parchman prison. Never, ever want to go there again. I wouldnt wish that on my greatest enemy.

Email story tips to city/county reporter Kayode Crown at [emailprotected]. You can also follow him on Twitter at @kayodecrown.

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60th Anniversary of the Freedom Rides: The 'Accidental Freedom Rider' Locked up in Parchman at 13 - Jackson Free Press

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Rev. Osagyefo Sekou and the Freedom Fighters playing Levitt AMP in Woonsocket August 13 – What’sUpNewp

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An uplifting gospel show is headed to Woonsocket next Friday, August 13th when Rev. Sekou and the Seal Breakers hit the Levitt AMP for a free show.

A noted activist, author, documentary filmmaker and theologian, Sekou offers a new vision for what Southern blues, gospel, and rock can mean today. Raised in the deep Arkansas blues and gospel traditions, Rev. Sekou was selected by Ebony Magazines Power 100, NAACP History Makers (2015). Disregarding his activism, his music is incredible on its own merit and has earned praise from NPR, Vice NOISEY, Oxford American, the Bluegrass Situation, Afropunk, WNYC, Paste, Colorlines, BBC, and No Depression. I saw him a couple of years back in Memphis and show was seriously incredible.

Sekou is an activist teaching non-violent resistance tactics around the country. His song Resist, begins with a rousing speech given by Rev. Sekou at a rally in Ferguson, Missouri, protesting the murder of Michael Brown. Upon hearing about Browns death, Sekou immediately returned to his hometown of St. Louis, MO, taking to the streets in a series of protests and interfaith demonstrations that led to his being arrested multiple times.

Reverend Sekou served as Pastor for Formation and Justice at First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain, Boston for two years. He has protested the second Iraq war; served as a delegate to the World Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia; co-led an interfaith delegation to Haiti one month after the tragic earthquake; and spent 6 weeks on the ground in Charlottesville, VA training clergy in response to the Unite the Right rally.

Click for an inspiring Tiny Desk performance: Rev. Sekou And The Seal Breakers: Tiny Desk Concert : NPR

Click here for More informationhttp://www.revsekou.com/

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Rev. Osagyefo Sekou and the Freedom Fighters playing Levitt AMP in Woonsocket August 13 - What'sUpNewp

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Bioethicist: Right to Transgender Healthcare Akin to Freedom of Religion – National Review

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A person holds up a flag during rally to protest the Trump administrations reported proposal to narrow the definition of gender to male or female at birth at City Hall in New York City, October 24, 2018. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

Critics of the transgender moral panic have been arguing that the movement is akin to religion. Now, that criticism finds support in the Journal of Medical Ethics only rather than a criticism, the author contends that there is a right to GAH gender-affirming health care that is equivalent to freedom of religion.

The author, R. Rowland of the University of Leeds, identifies the so-called religion in question as the right to live with integrity: From Integrity and Rights to Gender-Affirming Healthcare:

Many states permit exemptions to laws for those with particular religious beliefs. For instance (unlike non-Sikhs), Sikhs in the UK are permitted to ride motorcycles without wearing a helmet and to carry ceremonial daggers in public. InSherbert v Verner the US Supreme Court ruled that individuals who refuse Saturday work due to their religious convictions cannot be denied unemployment compensation even though others who refuse such work without such conviction can be. Other religious exemptions involve exemptions from uniform policies (to wear headscarfs or jewellery). The most popular account of rights to religious exemptions grounds these rights in our right to live with integrity.

This is sophistry. The right to free expression prevents the state from forcing people to do that with which they disagree because of their faith, and to worship as they choose. It does not require the rest of society to pay the costs of our religious practices or ensure we have the elements we believe necessary for the practice of faith. For example, there is no right for Catholics to have a church building. Or, to use the Sikh example, to force society to pay for the believers turban.

Moreover, religion involves a belief in a higher power as the source of truth and the establishment of standards to which the believer must adhere. Enforcing the right to free expression, for example, requires objective evidence of the objectors faith precepts, for example, that abortion is a sin under Catholic dogma.

But true to the spirit (if you will) of our era, the right to live with integrity as a transgendered person and to receive GAH is totally subjective and centered in the solipsistic self:

To have or live with integrity, in the relevant sense, is for there to be a congruence or fit between the commitments, projects or principles that are constitutive of ones identity or identities and ones actions. One acts with integrity on this picture whenever one acts in line with ones ideal of the kind of person one should be and the kind of life that onebut not necessarily everyone elseshould live. One marker of a commitment, project or principle that one cannot sacrifice without sacrificing ones integrity is that one cannot sacrifice it without feeling guilt, shame or remorse.

Well, that would create a right to live ones life as a white supremacist wouldnt it?

Rowland argues that if freedom of religion is a fundamental human right that permits the believer to deviate from the general norms of behavior, so does the right to live with integrity for transgendered people meaning they have a positive human right to transition and access other forms of gender-affirming health care, even if not depressed or suffering mental illness:

If our rights to live and act with integrity ground a pro tanto claim right to religious accommodation, then our rights to live and act with integrity ground a right to GAH for many trans and non-binary people . . .

Integrity grounds a prima faceright for many trans and non-binary people to access and be provided with GAH. And thisprima facieright to GAH may well (at least sometimes) yield an all-things-considered right to GAH (section VI). This means that trans people do not need to have an illness or be suffering from a particular form of harm or distress in order to have rights to GAH and that we have rights to GAH even if we are not suffering from gender dysphoria. No one is not trans enough to have a right to GAH on this view. And there is a good case that all trans people whose desired transition involves GAH have at least an importantprima facieright to GAH.

So, there you have it. The right to have medical interventions to support ones transgenderism is now akin to freedom of religion.

Our intellegentsia have lost their marbles. It is going to take resistance by and the common sense of real people to keep our society on an even keel.

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Bioethicist: Right to Transgender Healthcare Akin to Freedom of Religion - National Review

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