99 Jamz
99 JAMZ AND T.E.E.S presents Teen Talks - the Black Music Month edition! If you’re between the ages of 13 and 17, then register to participate where we’ll be taking you behind the scenes of the music industry, giving you House of Mac to grub on, plus games, prizes, celebrity guest panels and more!
Saturday, June 23rd in the 99 JAMZ Penthouse Studios! Space is limited so REGISTER NOW!
Press Release
SMART N’ UP SUMMIT SPRING POP UP TOUR
Miami, FL, March 19, 2018: North Miami Beach, Liberty City and Little Haiti played host to the Smart n’ Up Summit Spring Pop Up Tour this week. The event was coordinated by the local nonprofit Teens Exercising Extraordinary Success (T.E.E.S.).
Special guest speakers engaged with the teens through interactive demonstrations ranging from proper decision making, commitment, and conflict resolution. Deric Muhammad from Houston Texas used a befitting analogy about their current or past life experiences. “Do Not let your past finesse you out of your Future” as he shared his testimonial of growing up without a father and a drug addicted mother.
Silky Slim from Baton Rouge, Louisiana shared his personal testimony of life in prison, bad choices, and his life transformation. The most poignant moment was when he opened his accordion folder to reveal his criminal rap sheet which adorned the floor similar to that of a scroll and also his power point presentation which contained graphic images of the results of gang life. He advised the youth that “there is nothing glamorous about bodies, prison life and how many of the rap artists that they admire don’t do half of the things that they promote, it’s a business not a lifestyle”.
Students, Parents, and their mentors enjoyed complimentary dinner courtesy of Wing Stop North Miami Beach, House of Wings Overtown (Liberty City), and A Purple Leaf Experience (Little Haiti). Each attendee received a Smart n’ Up gift bag containing a Smart n’ Up Miami T-Shirt, a notebook and T.E.E.S. pen which they used to take notes and/or write down questions for the Q&A afterwards. Entrepreneur Community Activist, Football Coach, and Rapper, Luther Campbell was on hand at the Liberty City summit and said a few words to the youth in attendance, including youth from his Optimist program. Icebreaker activities took place where attendees were asked a variety of black history questions. Correct responses won an autographed book from Uncle Luke and/or a 305 Facts t-shirt courtesy of Crave Couture.
On Friday (their only free day), the guest speakers, who always donate their time, were treated to a deep sea fishing excursion courtesy of a private donor and on Saturday they dined at the Prohibition Speakeasy, courtesy of Headliner Market Group. Transportation services were provided by WisingUp Apparel.
Smart n’ Up was a free event and made possible through the financial support of Commissioner Hardemon’s Anti-Poverty Initiative (Liberty City & Little Haiti only), Headliner Market Group, and House of Wings Overtown.
About T.E.E.S. (Teens Exercising Extraordinary Success)
T.E.E.S., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, sponsors weekly Table Talk Sessions for Middle School and High School Students. Our goal is to empower youth to become self-sufficient shareholders in the economic and social fabric of their communities. Focus is placed on personal worth, exercising sound decisions based on evidence, accountability for one’s actions and choices, and discussion of society’s mixed messages.
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It's not too late to register a young man in your life. We have a few seats remaining for Liberty City and Little Haiti edition of the Smart n' Up Black Male Youth Summit!
Don't miss this opportunity to give our young men a chance to change their lives.
Friday, January 5, 2018 kicked off the 2018 Smart n' Up Black Male Youth Summit in Overtown at the Art Africa Exhibit (formerly Clyde Killen's Pool Hall).
Attendees were welcomed with Continental Breakfast and personalized Smart n' Up swag bags. Each attendee received a T.E.E.S. notebook and personalized Smart n' Up T-shirts (courtesy of Imagine That Productions).
Three dynamic and powerful speakers presented the teens with messages about Choices, Consequences, Jail testimonials, Purpose, Passion and Power.
Attendees were introduced to the Art Africa exhibit with the founder, Neil Hall. Afterwards attendees participated in interactive communication activities and dined on lunch courtesy of Purple Leaf Events.
To round out the day, City of Miami Chairman Keon Hardemon, rappers Ball Greezy and Trick Daddy made a surprise pop up appearance to shake hands, take pictures, and share a few words of encouragement.
This tour is made possible by City of Miami Chairman Keon Hardemon's Anti-Poverty Initiative, Headliner Market Group, House of Wings, and the Miami CRA.
Check out the GALLERY for a few images (many of the youth in attendance were from a juvenile detention facility and we are unable to post their photographs here).
We are pleased to announce the return of the “Smart n’ Up Black Male Youth Summit” Tour beginning in January 2018, presented by Headliner Market Group.
The purpose of the Black Male Summit is to expose Black males to critical information presented in a way that INSPIRES them to make better choices in the future. We inspire them to see past mistakes as stepping stones that were once stumbling blocks. In all adversity, there is always opportunity. More importantly, we expose them to resources that give them the opportunity to take advantage of what they have learned onsite.
According to statistics, one in every three Black males will see prison in their lifetime if current incarceration trends do not change. If properly inspired, instructed and redirected young Black men and boys can escape this dreaded fate. We address those issues in a way TAILOR MADE to penetrate the soul and awaken the consciousness of inner-city males.
WHO created the concept for your favorite artists' music video?
WHO put all the pieces together for that album you purchased on line?
WHO created the artwork from your favorite artists' album cover?
WHO created the light show from your favorite concert?
WHO negotiated the touring contracts for your favorite artists?
We want to help create the next wave of powerhouse entrepreneurs that make the MAGIC happen in Music, Art & Entertainment!
Nu Foundation Arts & Entertainment Business Academy is a new initiative for teens ages 13-18 which will help give them a head-start on a path to self sufficiency. Students will engage in soft skill training (communication, problem solving and critical thinking), and then move on to gain the skills, concepts, and methodologies necessary to manage the legal, financial, artistic, and ethical issues that face the contemporary arts & music business professional. The development of soft skills is identified as a critical component for success in activities such as civic participation and youth leadership in addition to school and work-based learning experiences.
We are pleased to announce the return of the “Smart n’ Up Black Male Youth Summit” Tour beginning in January 2018, presented by Headliner Market Group.
The purpose of the Black Male Summit is to expose Black males to critical information presented in a way that INSPIRES them to make better choices in the future. We inspire them to see past mistakes as stepping stones that were once stumbling blocks. In all adversity, there is always opportunity. More importantly, we expose them to resources that give them the opportunity to take advantage of what they have learned onsite.
According to statistics, one in every three Black males will see prison in their lifetime if current incarceration trends do not change. If properly inspired, instructed and redirected young Black men and boys can escape this dreaded fate. We address those issues in a way TAILOR MADE to penetrate the soul and awaken the consciousness of inner-city males.
When did the fear of Big Brother become the desperation for a double tap on our latest Instagram-post update? Once we feared that technology would be the death of privacy. These days we're live streaming the wake. Ever-shrinking cameras are rapidly eliminating the undocumented life, whether it's vanity-driven social-media broadcasters or politically minded activists determined to monitor overzealous police. Three years ago, Peter Austin Onruang's company Wolfcom was supplying body cams to more than 500 police departments in the U.S. when he noticed something strange. "I began to see a consumer wave of people interested in our technology," Onruang says. "There are roughly 750,000 law-enforcement officers throughout the country, so I'm only tapping into a tiny market." So he altered some software and created a device called the Venture that can be worn as a body cam, put on the dash of a car or used as a baby monitor.
The thinking on privacy has changed quickly. Four years ago, the launch of Xbox One was hamstrung by the Kinect, a microphone and camera array housed in a plastic rectangle designed to sit atop your entertainment center, watching your body movements and listening for voice commands. The Kinect drew protests and was separated from the console. But Apple bought the company that helped develop it, and behind the seamless, buttonless front of the new iPhone X lies a bundle of intelligent cameras capable of face recognition so advanced that it can ID a person even if they put on a hat and sunglasses and grow a beard. It's essentially the same technology found in the Kinect. And this time, no protests. Lines around the block instead. B.C.
Source: Rolling Stone
How universities, banks and the government turned student debt into America's next financial black hole
Horror stories about student debt are nothing new. But this school year marks a considerable worsening of a tale that ought to have been a national emergency years ago. The government in charge of regulating this mess is now filled with predatory monsters who have extensive ties to the exploitative for-profit education industry – from Donald Trump himself to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who sets much of the federal loan policy, to Julian Schmoke, onetime dean of the infamous DeVry University, whom Trump appointed to police fraud in education.
Americans don't understand the student-loan crisis because they've been trained to view the issue in terms of a series of separate, unrelated problems. They will read in one place that as of the summer of 2017, a record 8.5 million Americans are in default on their student debt, with about $1.3 trillion in loans still outstanding.
In another place, voters will read that the cost of higher education is skyrocketing, soaring in a seemingly market-defying arc that for nearly a decade now has run almost double the rate of inflation. Tuition for a halfway decent school now frequently surpasses $50,000 a year. How, the average newsreader wonders, can any child not born in a yacht afford to go to school these days?
In a third place, that same reader will see some heartless monster, usually a Republican, threatening to cut federal student lending. The current bogeyman is Trump, who is threatening to slash the Pell Grant program by $3.9 billion, which would seem to put higher education even further out of reach for poor and middle-income families. This too seems appalling, and triggers a different kind of response, encouraging progressive voters to lobby for increased availability for educational lending.
But the separateness of these stories clouds the unifying issue underneath: The education industry as a whole is a con. In fact, since the mortgage business blew up in 2008, education and student debt is probably our reigning unexposed nation-wide scam.
It's a multiparty affair, what shakedown artists call a "big store scheme," like in the movie The Sting: a complex deception requiring a big cast to string the mark along every step of the way. In higher education, every party you meet, from the moment you first set foot on campus, is in on the game.
America as a country has evolved in recent decades into a confederacy of wide-scale industrial scams. The biggest slices of our economic pie – sectors like health care, military production, banking, even commercial and residential real estate – have become crude income-redistribution schemes, often untethered from the market by subsidies or bailouts, with the richest companies benefiting from gamed or denuded regulatory systems that make profits almost as assured as taxes. Guaranteed-profit scams – that's the last thing America makes with any level of consistent competence. In that light, Trump, among other things, the former head of a schlock diploma mill called Trump University, is a perfect president for these times. He's the scammer-in-chief in the Great American Ripoff Age, a time in which fleecing students is one of our signature achievements.
It starts with the sales pitch colleges make to kids. The thrust of it is usually that people who go to college make lots more money than the unfortunate dunces who don't. "A bachelor's degree is worth $2.8 million on average over a lifetime" is how Georgetown University put it. The Census Bureau tells us similarly that a master's degree is worth on average about $1.3 million more than a high school diploma.
But these stats say more about the increasing uselessness of a high school degree than they do about the value of a college diploma. Moreover, since virtually everyone at the very highest strata of society has a college degree, the stats are skewed by a handful of financial titans. A college degree has become a minimal status marker as much as anything else. "I'm sure people who take polo lessons or sailing lessons earn a lot more on average too," says Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice, which advocates for debt forgiveness and other reforms. "Does that mean you should send your kids to sailing school?"
But the pitch works on everyone these days, especially since good jobs for Trump's beloved "poorly educated" are scarce to nonexistent. Going to college doesn't guarantee a good job, far from it, but the data show that not going dooms most young people to an increasingly shallow pool of the very crappiest, lowest-paying jobs. There's a lot of stick, but not much carrot, in the education game.
It's a vicious cycle. Since everyone feels obligated to go to college, most everyone who can go, does, creating a glut of graduates. And as that glut of degree recipients grows, the squeeze on the un-degreed grows tighter, increasing further that original negative incentive: Don't go to college, and you'll be standing on soup lines by age 25.
With that inducement in place, colleges can charge almost any amount, and kids will pay – so long as they can get the money. And here we run into problem number two: It's too easy to find that money.
Parents, not wanting their kids to fall behind, will pay every dollar they have. But if they don't have the cash, there is a virtually unlimited amount of credit available to young people. Proposed cuts to Pell Grants aside, the landscape is filled with public and private lending, and students gobble it up. Kids who walk into financial-aid offices are often not told what signing their names on the various aid forms will mean down the line. A lot of kids don't even understand the concept of interest or amortization tables – they think if they're borrowing $8,000, they're paying back $8,000.
The average amount of debt for a student leaving school is skyrocketing even faster than the rate of tuition increase. In 2016, for instance, the average amount of debt for an exiting college graduate was a staggering $37,172. That's a rise of six percent over just the previous year. With the average undergraduate interest rate at about 3.7 percent, the interest alone costs around $115 per month, meaning anyone who can't afford to pay into the principal faces the prospect of $69,000 in payments over 50 years.
So here's the con so far. You must go to college because you're screwed if you don't. Costs are outrageously high, but you pay them because you have to, and because the system makes it easy to borrow massive amounts of money. The third part of the con is the worst: You can't get out of the debt. Since government lenders in particular have virtually unlimited power to collect on student debt – preying on everything from salary to income-tax returns – even running is not an option. And since most young people find themselves unable to make their full payments early on, they often find themselves perpetually paying down interest only, never touching the principal. Our billionaire president can declare bankruptcy four times, but students are the one class of citizen that may not do it even once.
We found this great article that EVERY parent needs to read. Working with teens for years and through our own personal experience this article is very on point!
I spent nearly five years at a nonprofit focused on getting students in and through college. Many of the students we got were not on track to graduate high school when we got them yet we did a great job of getting students caught up and on the right track. I spent much of my time working closely with counselors, parents, and principals to make that happen.
What we wanted to accomplish was passing on a skill set to parents so they could continue the work without us or with their other children that were not in our program. Many of the children I’ve worked with over the years have been like me, meaning they’re parents weren’t college graduates. Advocating for your student can be tough when you have your insecurities regarding education. It can be especially tough when you have a valid level of distrust in any education system based on the education or lack there of a parent may have experienced. I found that it was also difficult for parents with degrees to sometimes navigate education on behalf of their children. So here are some questions we used to ask to get what we needed for our students.
Keep in mind this article is a general set of questions that work regardless of the age and grade. It is also for any governance model of school, meaning it works across traditional public schools, charters schools, and private schools. This article doesn’t ignore that education systems need to improve. I just personally believe parents should have a full toolkit. Add this to it.
When there is a relationship, you’re shooting the teacher a text when your son had a rough weekend for reason X. When there is a relationship, the teacher is letting you know when your child has been acting out of character. It’s a way to create harmony when things are rocky and for most people, there will be rocky times.
When I was working with my students, I got a host of text messages and emails from teachers and parents about these things, and we were able to work with them at a level 2 rather than a level 10. Relationships matter.
Again, this article is pretty general to reach a large audience. This isn’t a political piece. What I’m not here for is to discuss charter vs traditional public. I’m not here to discuss testing. I’m here as an advocate that rolled up those sleeves and helped teachers, kids, and their families get the education and support they needed.
Author: Charles Cole
Source: HuffingtonPost
Courtesy of Ted Talks
How many times have you heard someone tell you to be realistic? Those people you talk to about your plans to create a business or about a career or personal goal? Often times they are people who maybe mean well, but probably gave up on their own dreams and goals. Now they are advising you out of their own fear or failure. If you find yourself listening to them...you slowly start to look at your goal as unstable or maybe even unattainable. It’s important to know who we are talking to when we share goals and dreams. Are these people successful? Have they met a goal or dream of their own? If not, maybe they aren’t they aren’t the best person to talk to about what you desire.
Learning what and when to share has been on one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned. I remember sharing goals with associates and even family members who quickly shot them down. They had questions and comments like “how are you going to do that?” or “there are a lot of people trying to do the same thing”. They would follow up with “I’m just trying to help” I had to realize it wasn’t about me, it was about them and their inability to dream big. .
The reality is when you have a goal it’s your goal and you shouldn’t concern yourself with anyone else who may be trying to do the same. You have to focus on you. You don’t have control over anyone else. The people you share with will either encourage or discourage....and you should be weary of the ones who say nothing at all. If you engage with naysayers they can kill your spirit and your enthusiasm. People who want to see you do well will offer thoughtful advice....but you’ll still feel positive. You have no doubt when you have had a negative or discouraging conversation...you walk away feeling deflated. When the negativity comes from people you are close to, often times you wonder if what you’re feeling is true. It is....you can’t deny it. Acknowledge it and know that maybe that person is not someone you can share with in the future. There’s nothing wrong with constructive...but you get a feeling in the pit of your stomach when it becomes destructive. You cannot let the negativity get into your heart...that’s dangerous. Let it go and reset your mind.
When I look at people like Oprah, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Steve Harvey their underlying theme is always “ surround yourself with positive people”. Big dreamers need good support. If not, you become crippled by the naysayers....especially if they are close to you. You must stay focused on your goal and stay the course. The goal is to succeed, but you can’t do that if you never try. Get rid of the negative voices around you. Some people just can’t handle your dreams and that’s ok. They belong to you.
The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, says college students who did not go to bed or wake up at consistent times every day were more likely to have lower grades.
For the study, 61 students from Harvard College kept online diaries of their sleep schedules for 30 days. Researchers identified two groups: regular sleepers, or those who went to bed and woke up about the same time every day, and irregular sleepers, who had different sleep patterns every day.
There were several differences between regular and irregular sleepers, including significant differences in grade point averages. Using a unique scoring index from zero to 100 to calculate a student's sleep regularity, students with very irregular sleep patterns were given lower scores close to zero, while more regular sleepers were given higher scores close to 100. The researchers found that for every score increase of 10 on the regularity index, the student had an average increase of 0.10 in their GPA.
Andrew Phillips, lead author of the study and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said the findings show that irregular sleepers have a delayed release of the sleep hormone melatonin.
"Our body contains a circadian clock, which helps to keep time for many biological functions," he said. "One of the key markers of the circadian clock is melatonin. Usually, at nighttime, our circadian clock sends a signal that tells us to release melatonin overnight."
Depending on what time melatonin is released, it helps to set both the sleep and wake cycles for our bodies. So with irregular sleepers, melatonin is released later in the night, pushing the circadian clock later as well. Phillips found that the irregular sleepers in his study had much later circadian rhythms -- by almost three hours, on average.
Dr. Charles Czeisler, another study author and chief of the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said that can make your body feel like it's in another time zone.
"That means that if the student had an 8 a.m. class, it would actually be happening at 5 a.m. biological time," he said. "It's as if they were traveling from the East Coast time zone to the Pacific time zone."
Irregular sleepers were also found to have less exposure to light during the day but more exposure at night, which also can affect the circadian clock, whether it's sunlight, fluorescent light in a classroom or artificial light from a phone or another electronic device.
"We know the human circadian clock is very sensitive to light. Your patterns of light exposure are also what set the timing of your body's circadian clock," Phillips said.
Kristen Knutson, an associate professor of sleep medicine at Northwestern University and expert in sleep patterns and their relation to health, said the study emphasized an aspect of sleep that people don't usually think about: regularity.
"Much attention has been paid to sleep quantity and quality, which are important as well," said Knutson, who was not involved in the new research. "But the importance of sleep doesn't end there. So, other factors like sleep timing and like sleep regularity are important to provide a more holistic perspective that includes all these dimensions of sleep health."
And the importance of sleep regularity is what Phillips and Czeisler want to emphasize, too.
"When circadian rhythms are disrupted, it degrades many different physiological systems in the body and makes individuals much more vulnerable to adverse health outcomes," Czeisler said. "That could be everything from catching a cold to gaining weight to diabetes, and here in this study, we're showing it can degrade academic performance as well."
But Knutson, as well as Phillips and Czeisler, notes that the study can't say irregular sleep definitely causes bad grades -- though it's very likely the factors are related.
"It's possible that students who have bad sleep habits also have other bad habits that are the reasons behind their poor grades," Knutson said. "That being said, if it is possible that irregular sleep could impair a student's ability to do well in school, we really need to understand this further."
So what can tired college students -- or those about to start college -- do to improve their sleep regularity?
First, decide on a reasonable sleeping and waking time, and then stick to it. Signing up for classes around the same time every day could help students to be consistent.
"It's so simple to address, that's why I call it a secret weapon," Czeisler said. "Regular sleep and adequate sleep is the best secret to student success."
It could also help to maintain a consistent sleeping schedule on the weekends -- and maybe not sleep in so much.
The study said there was no difference in the number of hours of sleep regular and irregular sleepers got.
Czeisler says that means an early bedtime is not a requirement for making your sleep pattern more regular: "The results of this study are not suggesting everybody has to be a goody-two-shoes. So if you go to bed at 2 and get up at 9, that's fine. You just have to consistently do the same thing."
Whether you're on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, What's App or Twitter, the way you communicate with friends today is changing.
Keeping in touch is no longer about face to face, but instead screen to screen, highlighted by the fact that more than 1 billion people are using Facebook every day.
Social media has become second nature -- but what impact is this having on our brain?
In a recent study, researchers at the UCLA brain mapping center used an fMRI scanner to image the brains of 32 teenagers as they used a bespoke social media app resembling Instagram. By watching the activity inside different regions of the brain as the teens used the app, the team found certain regions became activated by "likes", with the brain's reward center becoming especially active.
Americans devote more than 10 hours a day to screen time, and growing
"When teens learn that their own pictures have supposedly received a lot of likes, they show significantly greater activation in parts of the brain's reward circuitry," says lead author Lauren Sherman. "This is the same group of regions responding when we see pictures of a person we love or when we win money."
The teenagers were shown more than 140 images where 'likes' were believed to from their peers, but were in fact assigned by the research team.
Scans revealed that the nucleus accumbens, a part of the brain's reward circuitry, was especially active when teens saw a large number of likes on their own photos, which could inspire them to use social media more often.
As part of the experiment, participants were also shown a range of "neutral" photos showing things like food and friends, and "risky" photos depicting cigarettes and alcohol. But the type of image had no impact on the number of "likes" given by the teens. they were instead more likely to 'like' the more popular photos, regardless of what they showed. This could lead to both a positive and negative influence from peers online.
Sherman believes these results could have important implications among this age group.
"Reward circuitry is thought to be particularly sensitive in adolescence," says Sherman, "It could be explaining, at least in part, why teens are such avid social media users."
Adolescence is a period that is very important for social learning, which could explain why teens are often more tuned in to what's going on in their respective cultures. With the rise of social media, Sherman thinks we may even be learning to read likes and shares instead of facial expressions.
"Before, if you were having a face to face interaction everything is qualitative. You use someone's gestures or facial expressions, that sort of thing, to see how effective your message is," she says.
"Now if you go online, one of the ways that you gauge the effectiveness of your message is in the number of likes, favorites or retweets, and this is something that's really different and unique about online interaction."
However, the study may not be applicable to everyone, according to Dr. Iroise Dumontheil, at Birkbeck University.
"[The study] only has adolescents and so they can't really claim anything specific about whether it's adolescents who react to this differently compared to adults."
Dumontheil does, however, concur that social media is affecting our brain, particularly its plasticity, which is the way the brain grows and changes after experiencing different things.
"Whenever you learn something new or you experience something, it's encoded in your brain, and it's encoded by subtle changes in the strength of connections between neurons," says Dumontheil.
For example, one study showed that the white matter in an adults' brains changed as they learned how to juggle over a period of several months. "They found that if you scan [the brains of] adults before they learn how to juggle, and then three months later, you can see changes in the brain structure," says Dumontheil.
Time spent on social media could, therefore, also cause the brain to change and grow.
"We might be a bit less good at reading subtle expressions on faces that are moving, but we might be much quicker at monitoring what's going on in a whole group of our friends," says Dumontheil.
So are these new skills a good or a bad thing? Neither, she says. "It's just a way we have of adapting to our environment."
Source: CNN
Hurricane Irma swept through the entire State of Florida up to Georgia damaging homes, and businesses. In Miami Dade County about 530,000 of the estimated 3 million residents live below the poverty line. On the surface, Hurricane Irma seemed to spare most of South Florida the brunt of the storm when it comes to structural damage. But days without power and unpaid time off — or no work at all — casts a harsh spotlight on the poverty that existed in Miami-Dade’s most vulnerable communities long before Irma made landfall.
While some grassroots efforts are trying to bring food to our communities after the storm, it does not always get to everyone who needs it, and some families report they’re going hungry.
Over the past 2 days we along with Headliner Market Group, Luther Campbell, House of Wings, House of Mac, City of Miami Commissioner Keon Hardemon and countless others, have fed nearly 3,000 seniors and families in District 5's Liberty City Community and we'd like to do more with your help & support!
We’re raising funds to purchase groceries (for seniors and families with small children) to replenish their food supply once power is restored.
We ask for your help and support.
Moving from high school to college can be a big transition for students. If you're stressing over this new life chapter, there are ways you can prepare before even head out. Read More
When she was just eight years old, Penn began designing bright floral headbands using hand-dyed, organic materials. Now 17, the Canton entrepreneur has expanded her brand, Maya’s Ideas, from an ecofriendly clothing line to a creative nonprofit focused on humanitarian and environmental issues. She may not even have her driver’s license yet, but she’s already an animator, coder, published author (her inspirational book You Got This! came out last year), and TED speaker.
Favorite subject
Art history. My favorite artists are French painter Odilon Redon or van Gogh; his work always looks like it’s moving. I often paint flowers on scarves in my shop.
Vintage inspiration
I love the 1920s through 1960s. There’s so much craftsmanship in the dresses and coats. Every piece has a backstory and character. And it’s ecofriendly to repurpose something old.
Favorite look
A bright-green 1960s floral dress that I got at an online vintage shop, Cherry Crush Retro. I wore it when I met Oprah for SuperSoul 100.
Style icon
Iris Apfel. She’s always so out-there with what she wears. I want to be like her when I grow up.
Ecofriendly brand
Edun. I have some really cool pants in a splatter print.
Teen cause
I was a youth ambassador for the Ian Somerhalder Foundation, which focuses on environmental and animal rights and humanitarian issues. I’ve written posts and made videos to teach teens to be good stewards of the environment.
First concert
I saw U2 when I was 11 in Nashville. My parents are both musicians, and I use their music in my animations.
Beauty picks
I use brands that don’t contain parabens and are made with natural ingredients. I like IT Cosmetics and 100% Pure.
TV obsession
Stranger Things was really awesome. I loved the writing, the acting, and how they avoided CGI to capture the look of the 1980s.
Next up
I’m passionate about pollinators, like bees and hummingbirds. They’re disappearing, but they’re crucial to our ecosystems. I have an animation series coming out this summer called The Pollinators. The bees are a superhero team fighting bad guys that are harming the environment.
Source: Atlanta Magazine
