innovators

At Devcon’s 2022 Sustainable Blockchain Summit in Bogotá, Colombia, I met innovators harnessing blockchain to offset carbon emissions, preserve the Amazon Rainforest and curb deforestation and pollution.

As he spoke of his deep connection to Africa last week, Prince William said he wanted this year’s prize to provide a platform for innovators to bring about change for their communities and inspire young people across the continent.

The seeds of these failures were planted decades ago, at the dawn of online fact-checking, when scholars and news innovators still believed that new media might be a boon to both journalism and democracy—and almost no one was willing to entertain the proposition that the internet might actually make everything worse.

The arc of Jones’ long career stretched from smoky jazz clubs, where he collaborated with innovators such as Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, to his Los Angeles power base, where, like a titan, he watched over his musical empire from a mansion atop Bel-Air.

Harvard historian and literary critic Henry Louis Gates Jr. said he viewed Jones’ influence and career milestones as being on par with American innovators and big thinkers like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Bill Gates.