For six years, Horace Williams has been waiting for this moment.
Williams is the founder and CEO of Atlanta-based Empowrd, a social impact startup with a free app that helps users stay up-to-date on local voting information and ways to contact elected officials. Launched in 2015, Empowrd has only recently gained traction with investors, landing one of 10 spots in Techstars s Social Impact Accelerator program earlier this year. The reason, Williams says: Rampant voter disinformation and suppression efforts over the past year have caused investors to search for startups with ideas to heal the nation s political divide.
Georgia is currently at the center of that divide. The state s new voting law, signed by Republican Governor Brian Kemp in late March, has been referred to as Jim Crow 2.0 for making voting significantly harder, particularly in predominantly Black districts. Proponents of the law say it will cut down on voter fraud, despite Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger
The film at the core of a Vermont fraud case has been completed and released, opening a pathway for hundreds of wronged investors to recover some of what they lost.
Well-known Vermont storyteller Malcolm Mac Parker raised $28 million for the meditative art film, Birth of Innocence, which cost about $1 million to make.
Parker s silent partner and spiritual mentor, Louis Soteriou, spent more than $4 million of the money on luxury hotels and cars as he pursued a spiritual quest he believed would allow him to transcend earthly life and travel through space and time, the Free Press reported at the time of his sentencing.
EMPOWRD supports agents for change in Black lives
Empowered –is 1 of 10 diverse startups currently participating in the Cox Social Impact Accelerator powered by Techstars program. For the length of three months, Cox Enterprises and Techstars works with each of the founders to provide them with capital investment, executive mentoring and networking opportunities to help them achieve their business goals faster. For 2021, each of the participating startups has a focus on creating solutions to curb social injustice and have a positive impact on diverse communities around the country.
Horace Williams, founder of EMPOWRD Apps, and the companies chief engagement officer Greg Clay are corralling resources and data to enhance the work of those engaged in manifesting change. EMPWRD Apps essentially arms those inspired to impact Black lives with relevant information to affect change in community and government.