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Meet 42-year-old Richest US-based Nigerian Who Owns $3bn Rech Company

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Forbes has named a 42-year-old man, Tope Awotona, as the richest immigrant and Nigerian-American residing in the United States.

Awotona is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Calendly, a scheduling software company, worth $3 billion.

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He was born in Lagos but migrated to the US in his teenage years, and previously worked as a salesman for tech firms like EMC (now Dell EMC).

Forbes disclosed that Awotona started Calendly in response to his frustration with the time-consuming back-and-forth emails needed for meeting scheduling.

READ ALSO: Full List: Forbes 2024 Top 20 African Billionaires

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Having self-funded Calendly for an extended period, Tope Awotona secured a substantial $350 million investment in 2021, propelling the company’s valuation to $3 billion.

Before the creation of Calendly, Awotona ventured into other businesses, such as a projector-selling venture and a garden tools enterprise, both of which did not succeed. The majority of his wealth, however, comes from the software he created.

He graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Georgia, Awotona resides in Atlanta, Georgia, with his family.

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Calendly, the software company he founded, specialises in a business communication platform designed for teams to efficiently schedule, prepare, and follow up on external meetings.

READ ALSO: Full List Of Forbes’ 25 World Billionaires In 2023

Awotona started Calendly, after investing all his life savings of $200,000 into it and later quitting his job selling software for EMC.

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As part of the success of his initiatives, the company has 10 million users and counts Lyft, Ancestry.com, Indiana University and La-Z-Boy among its customers.

The American business magazine said Awotona’s revenue last year passed $100 million, double what it booked the previous year.

It further said that the company, which was founded in Atlanta but no longer has any physical offices, has been profitable since 2016.

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READ ALSO: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Named One Of Forbes’ 2022 Most Powerful Women In The world

Last year it raised $350 million in funding from OpenView Venture Partners and Iconiq Capital at a price that values the business at $3 billion.

That means Awotona’s majority stake is worth at least $1.4 billion, after the 10% discount that Forbes applies to shares of all private companies.

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Awotona is one of just two Black tech billionaires in the United States, along with David Steward, the 70-year-old founder of Missouri-based IT provider World Wide Technology.

Attesting to his success, David Cummings, founder of Atlanta Ventures, which led a $550,000 seed investment in Calendly seven years ago, said, “Tope could be the most successful African-American tech entrepreneur of his generation.”

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Gunmen On Motorbikes Kill 22 At Baptism Ceremony In Niger

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Gunmen on motorbikes shot dead 22 villagers in western Niger, most attending a baptism ceremony, local media and other sources said Tuesday.

The shootings happened on Monday in the Tillaberi region, near Burkina Faso and Mali, where jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group (IS) are active.

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A resident of the area told AFP that 15 people were killed first at a baptism ceremony in Takoubatt village.

The attackers then went to the outskirts of Takoubatt where they killed seven other people,” said the resident, who requested anonymity for security reasons.

READ ALSO:Two Nigerians Face Jail Terms In Liberia’s Piracy Trial

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Local media outlet Elmaestro TV reported a “gruesome death toll of 22 innocent people cowardly killed without reason or justification”.

“Once again, the Tillaberi region has been struck by barbarism, plunging innocent families into mourning and despair,” Nigerien human rights campaigner Maikoul Zodi said on social media.

Niger’s military leaders, who came to power two years ago in a coup, have struggled to contain jihadist groups in Tillaberi, despite maintaining a large army presence there.

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Around 20 soldiers were killed in the region last week.

READ ALSO:Nigerian Jailed In US Over $6m Inheritance Fraud

Human Rights Watch has urged Niger authorities to “do more to protect” civilians against deadly attacks.

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The rights monitoring group estimates that the Islamic State group has “summarily executed” more than 127 villagers and Muslim worshippers in Tillaberi in five attacks since March.

Meanwhile, the NGO ACLED, which tracks conflict victims worldwide, says around 1,800 people have been killed in attacks in Niger since October 2024 — three-quarters of them in Tillaberi.

Niger and its neighbours, Burkina Faso and Mali, also ruled by military coup leaders who claim to pursue a sovereignist policy, have expelled the French and American armies that were fighting alongside them against jihadism.

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Serbia Indicts Ex-minister, 12 Others Over Train Station Tragedy

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Serbian prosecutors filed an updated indictment on Tuesday against 13 people, including a former minister, over a fatal railway station roof collapse that has triggered a wave of anti-government protests.

The prosecution said all those indicted, among them former construction minister Goran Vesic, face charges of “serious crimes against public safety” over the tragedy that killed 16 people last November.

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“The indictment proposes that the Higher Court in Novi Sad order custody for all the defendants,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

The roof collapse at the newly renovated station in Serbia’s second-largest city, Novi Sad, became a symbol of entrenched corruption and sparked almost daily protests.

READ ALSO:FG Panel Indicts AFN In Ofili’s Paris Olympics Omission

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Protesters first demanded a transparent investigation, but their calls soon escalated into demands for early elections.

The Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Novi Sad initially filed an indictment at the end of December, but judges returned it in April, requesting more information.

The accused were released or placed under house arrest following the decision.

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The prosecutor’s office said it had complied with the judge’s request and had now completed the supplementary investigation.

READ ALSO:NDLEA Arrests Indian Businessman, 3 Others Over Alleged Trafficking Of N3.9bn Tramadol

The prosecutor specialising in organised crime and corruption in Belgrade is leading a separate, independent investigation into the tragedy.

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That investigation is focused on 13 people, including Vesic and another former minister, Tomislav Momirovic, who headed the Construction Ministry before him.

In March, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) launched a third, separate investigation into the possible misuse of EU funds for the station’s reconstruction.

AFP

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Kazakhstan Bans Forced Marriage, Bride Kidnapping

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Kazakhstan has banned forced marriages and bride kidnappings through a law that came into effect Tuesday in the Central Asian country, where the practice persists despite new attention being paid to women’s rights.

Forcing someone to marry is now punishable by up to 10 years in prison, Kazakh police said in a statement.

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These changes are aimed at preventing forced marriages and protecting vulnerable categories of citizens, especially women and adolescents,” it added.

Bride kidnappings have also been outlawed.

REAS ALSO:What To Know About Albania’s AI Minister, Diella

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Previously, a person who voluntarily released a kidnapped person could expect to be released from criminal liability. Now this possibility has been eliminated,” the police said.

There are no reliable statistics of forced marriage cases across the country, with no separate article in the criminal code prohibiting it until now.

A Kazakh lawmaker said earlier this year that the police had received 214 such complaints over the past three years.

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The custom is also present in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, where it mostly goes unpunished due to indifferent law enforcement and stigma surrounding whistleblowers.

READ ALSO:California Lawmakers Approve Ban On Face Masks For Authorities

The issue of women’s rights in Kazakhstan gained media attention in 2023 following the murder of a woman by her husband, a former minister, a case that shocked Kazakh society and prompted President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to react.

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“Some people hide behind so-called traditions and try to impose the practice of wife stealing. This blatant obscurantism cannot be justified,” Tokayev said last year.

AFP

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