Latest news with #Groundbreakers
eNCA
a day ago
- Business
- eNCA
Youth Month - Empowering the future, today
June is Youth Month, and South Africa shines a spotlight on its youth – acknowledging their struggles, celebrating their achievements, and amplifying their voices. At AVBOB, we proudly stand with the country in honouring young people not just this month but every day – recognising their vital role in shaping our organisation and society at large. As a mutual society, AVBOB exists not to serve shareholders but to serve its members: our policyholders and the communities in which they live. This allows AVBOB to reinvest in people and create meaningful opportunities for them. Backed with eight consecutive Top Employer awards, AVBOB has built a reputation as a workplace where talent, including young people, can thrive. Creating opportunities for the youth AVBOB understands the significant challenges that South African youth face, particularly when it comes to unemployment. This informs the learnerships and internships that AVBOB designs to give young people hands-on experience and a foot in the door. We encourage the youth to regularly visit our website ( and follow our social media platforms to stay informed about these opportunities and about permanent job openings available nationwide. Empowering young entrepreneurs Beyond employment, AVBOB is also passionate about entrepreneurship. Through our Enterprise and Supplier Development (ESD) Programme, we support small and growing businesses, helping them access the tools they need to succeed, such as funding, market access and skills development. This initiative doesn't just help individual entrepreneurs; it strengthens the broader economy. Launched in 2021, the ESD Programme focuses on collaboration and long-term impact. Through partnerships with inspiring entrepreneurs like Neo Monareng (founder of Gadifele Communications) and Sibusiso Sibanyoni (founder of AVBOB contributes to offering young business owners benefit not only from access to markets and infrastructure but also from vital business expertise and continuous professional guidance. Introducing Groundbreakers: A youth employment solution In 2025, AVBOB introduced an exciting new initiative under the ESD Programme, specifically designed to address youth unemployment. The Groundbreakers initiative creates short-term job opportunities for young people aged 18-35 by placing them at AVBOB Funeral Service branches, starting with three in Mahikeng, Temba and Tzaneen, respectively. Their role involves assisting with essential grave services such as grave opening and closing, grave site cleaning, and other related grave site services in the surrounding communities. Importantly, they will be remunerated for their contributions, while gaining work experience, community respect and economic participation. The Groundbreakers initiative demonstrates how business-led solutions can drive meaningful change in line with United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Decent work and economic growth. AVBOB is committed to advancing job creation, empowering local talent, and fostering inclusive economic participation that aligns with the SDGs, reflecting AVBOB 's values of building resilient communities and driving long-term socio-economic impact. At AVBOB, Youth Month is more than just a commemoration – it's a call to action. Whether it's through employment, enterprise support, or empowerment initiatives like Groundbreakers, AVBOB remains committed to investing in the future of South Africa: its youth. ABOUT AVBOB MUTUAL SOCIETY
Yahoo
18-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Here's your first look at the rebooted Digg
The rebooted version of Digg's news aggregator has entered testing, offering users a first look at what this would-be Reddit competitor, built for the AI era, has in store. At its height in 2008, Digg's site was valued at $175 million, but it was split up and sold for parts a decade later. In March, Digg's original founder, Kevin Rose, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian teamed up to bring the brand back and reinvent the site for a new generation of internet users. The founders think that the internet is being flooded with bots and AI agents, which will create demand for online communities like Digg that foster real human connections. They've said they're also looking into using technology to establish ownership, like zero-knowledge proofs, alongside other tools that could verify whether someone is human before they're able to post and join conversations. On Friday, Digg launched its iOS app to testers who are a part of its Groundbreakers community of early adopters. The app, which is in alpha testing, provides a first look at the direction the rebooted Digg is headed. The app itself has a clean design with a navigation bar at the bottom for moving between the different parts of the service like the Home feed, Search, Leaderboards, and user profile page. Similar to Reddit, Digg offers a selection of feeds that allow you to view the site's content in different ways. There are feeds to see the site's most popular content (Most Digg), the Newest, Trending, and content that's 'Heating Up.' These filters can be used across either All of Digg or just your own Feed, which is based on the communities you follow. Unlike Reddit, there are only a handful of communities to join for the time being, including those focused on interests like art, entertainment, sports, finance, food, music, science, and technology, as well as those for asking questions (AMA), tracking news, or chatting about Digg itself. (The company says the ability to create communities will roll out in later tests.) As users share posts to these various communities, others can upvote or downvote them, save posts, and leave comments. Beneath posts, Digg is leveraging AI to summarize the article's content. This news summarization trend has been popularized in other apps like Artificat, which sold to Yahoo, and modern-day news readers like Particle. However, AI-based news summaries can be hit or miss, which is why some publishers have been wary of implementing them on their own sites. Digg hasn't yet added any other AI summarization tools, like the ability to have the story explained from both sides or in a simpler format, like 'Explain it like I'm 5,' like these earlier AI news apps had done. In trying to differentiate its upvote and downvote buttons from Reddit, Digg is using icons that are meant to resemble hands. This design still needs work, though. As some have pointed out, it's not clear which icon is meant to be the upvote or downvote; the icons could be read either way. The app also features user profiles with bios, stats, posts, and achievements. For instance, users can earn 'Gems' by being the first to Digg a post that then trends across the platform. The earlier you are to discover and dig these posts, the more Gems you earn. There are also leaderboards in the mobile app that highlight the top daily posts, comments, and Gem-finders, though Digg says it's responding to user feedback and has been dialing back gamification elements on the desktop. More importantly, Digg has learned from its past mistakes and is making its new leaderboards time-bound — that is, they refresh every 24 hours. In the prior version of Digg during the Web 2.0 era, Digg's leaderboards became dominated by certain individuals who then had outsized influence on what trended. Users organized to promote or bury pages en masse, and some even began charging to get stories to the front page. While the rebooted Digg may want to avoid these types of problems, including leaderboards in the app at all may send the wrong message. Though the new app is in good shape — especially considering it's an alpha — what it's not yet demonstrating is why anyone would leave Reddit to use Digg instead. That push may come in time, as Digg allows users to create their own communities and customize them to their liking. Rose suggested during a recent AMA that Digg would like to turn to AI to help in community design further down the road. 'We see a world where eventually you have a conversation with a built-in LLM on Digg and say, hey, I want my community to show up like this … I want to be this widget over here, or this be structured,' he explained. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Christian Selig, Founder of Reddit iOS App Apollo, Teams Up With The Internet's Original Troublemakers, Kevin Rose & Alexis Ohanian, To Advise On Digg's Mobile and Developer Strategy
Download hi-res images HERE. LOS ANGELES, May 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Digg made a new friend. He's very good at apps. Christian Selig, the developer behind the now-defunct and deeply mourned Apollo app for Reddit, is joining Digg as an advisor, marking a major step in the platform's reinvention alongside internet pioneers Kevin Rose (yes, that Kevin, the guy who originally launched a raccoon Digg from his apartment), and Alexis Ohanian (yep, that Alexis, Co-founder of Reddit and, for a while, Kevin's internet arch-nemesis). Digg, the news aggregation platform once billed as the internet's homepage, is getting a reboot and the new leadership team is looking to bring back the good vibes of the old internet. Digg is saying it loud and clear: community, builders, and moderators, we're here for you and we want to do the right thing. The public beta launches in the coming weeks. In 2023, Selig famously posted the bombshell: "Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing. Bad news for third-party apps, their announced pricing is close to Twitter's pricing, and Apollo would have to pay Reddit $20 million per year to keep running as-is." Apollo, the app millions actually loved using, was priced out of existence. Rose recently said in an off-the-record interview: "Yeah, it was a total [redacted]-show. What in the flying [redacted] was Reddit thinking? These folks, the unpaid labor force, are the lifeblood of their community, they should always be the priority. This is off-the-record, right?" Digg CEO Justin Mezzell chimes in: "We're excited to have Selig bring that same craft and community-first thinking to Digg, helping us build something that feels good to use and even better to be a part of." When pressed on the Apollo/Reddit drama, Mezzell said in a publicly recorded interview: "I simply won't comment on that. We're charting our own course here at Digg. But if I did comment, I would probably say '[redact] me sideways, what a fumble.' But that would only be if I did say something publicly." In March 2025, Rose and Ohanian announced they were teaming up to bring Digg back into the spotlight. The goal: make the internet fun again, or at the very least, less exhausting. A month later, Digg launched an early-access community called Groundbreakers, giving members first dibs on usernames, early influence on product development, and a peek behind the curtain as Digg rebuilds from the feed up. Joining Groundbreakers cost a one-time $5 fee, not for exclusivity, but as a quick humanity check. Proceeds went to nonprofits chosen by the community itself, including The Nature Conservancy, Thorn, and The cover charge kept the bots out and proved the company does, in fact, give a damn. Christian Selig is one of the first to join Digg's small group of advisors. Also announced last week on Diggnation, Jaci Hays has joined as an advisor. More names are on the way. Digg's Board of Directors includes Justin Mezzell (CEO), Kevin Rose (Founder/Chairman of Digg and Partner, True Ventures), Alexis Ohanian (Founder, Seven Seven Six), and Tony Conrad (Partner, True Ventures). Strong internet energy, well-contained. ABOUT DIGGDigg, the revolutionary social news platform founded in 2004, helped define the early internet by introducing user-powered content curation through upvotes and community-driven discussion. At its peak, Digg attracted tens of millions of users and shaped the Web 2.0 era. In 2025, Digg relaunched, backed by OG founder Kevin Rose and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, with CEO Justin Mezzell at the helm. The revived platform aims to use the very best of technology, including AI, to bring humanity back to the internet by fostering the spirit of discovery and genuine community that made the early web a fun and exciting place to be. Media Contacts:Chelsey Northern / The Untoldcn@ Alana Battaglia / The Untoldab@ View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Digg Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Express Tribune
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Billie Jean King becomes first woman to earn star in new Hollywood Walk of Fame category
Tennis icon Billie Jean King made history on April 7, 2025, by becoming the first woman to receive a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame's newly created Sports Entertainment category. The 81-year-old legend was celebrated in a ceremony on Hollywood Boulevard, where she reflected on her early memories of playing tennis in Los Angeles and encountering stars like Lucille Ball and Doris Day. Created in 2023, the Sports Entertainment category honors individuals who have demonstrated excellence and longevity in both sports and entertainment. King joins previous recipients Michael Strahan and the late Carl Weathers. 'Sports are entertainment, and as athletes, we love performing in front of an audience,' King said. She also emphasized the importance of celebrating women in sports and urged for more female representation on the Walk of Fame. Speakers at the event included NBA legend Magic Johnson and actor Jamie Lee Curtis. Johnson praised King's influence beyond the court, while Curtis called her a symbol of power and advocacy. King's illustrious career includes 39 Grand Slam titles and pivotal roles in founding the Women's Tennis Association and World Team Tennis. She was also an executive producer for PBS's Groundbreakers and appeared in several TV shows, including Law & Order and The Odd Couple. Her Walk of Fame star honors not only her tennis achievements but her broader contributions to entertainment and equality.
