AFRC302 - Sustainable Entrepreneurship

This course is designed to introduce students to the multiple methods of engaging Africana entrepreneurship, public service and philanthropy. Alongside a thorough review of both popular and independent activist media, students will be trained to use accessible technology to participate in international communications networks. "Big ideas," will be translated into succinct artistic statements. We will look intimately at the architecture of David Adjaye, Adjaye Associates; the initiatives of Majora Carter for Sustainable South Bronx and Majora Carter Group; the philanthropic equity of Vista Equity Partners and C.E.O. Robert Smith, and the political work of Mayor Ras Baraka, City of Newark among other examples from the public and private sector throughout the African Diaspora. Prior to the development of our own app ideas, we will focus on the urban market advertising strategies of majority companies that are lauded for their sustainable initiatives including Nike, Hewlett-Packard and Apple. We will also use as secondary resources macro approaches to sustainability from the United Nations Foundation. This course makes an argument for inclusion of race, class and gender equity in the evolving definition of sustainability. Our argument, consistent with the growth of so many of these professionals inside of and clearly influenced by hip-hop culture, is that they are best prepared, culturally, to "make something out of nothing."