Meet your 2021 Jacksonville Image Awards winners
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After months of anticipation, the wait finally came to an end as we revealed the winners of the 2021 Jacksonville Image Awards presented by the Porter Firm.
Our winners of these annual awards, which recognize remarkable achievements in Jacksonville’s African American community, range from a lifelong family services provider to a teacher who’s done more than his part to put books in schools to an up-and-coming musical artist who recently dropped her debut single.
After months of watching civil rights demonstrations through the country and on the streets of Jacksonville at times even participating themselves the students were surprised when in February the school district didn t seize the opportunity to use Black History Month as an education tool to drive lessons about local racial justice movements and Black history.
Instead, the school district launched its own inaugural month-long campaign for mental health and suicide awareness called You Matter Month. While that campaign had its own issues because it encouraged students to #TakeOffYourMask during a global pandemic, some students worried the language minimized Black Lives Matter campaigns and hijacked the attention from the sole month annually centered around Black lives.
05:20 AM EST Share They all say they started their ventures by identifying a need and setting out to fill it.
Younger entrepreneurs have a lot in common, the experts say.
They don’t fear technology. They have fewer obligations, so they can take risks. And, like all entrepreneurs, they are driven by an idea.
Karen Bowling, the inaugural director of the University of North Florida Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, said startup founders under the age of 30 can offset their lack of life experience and a professional network with a solid business plan and “fire in the gut.”
“Many of them know no fear, and they’re at a point in their life where they can take risks,” Bowling said.
Hometown: Jacksonville (Originally from Kerala, India)
Quote: “With COVID I found a better way to work, a better way to bring my clients in. My company has grown because of how I have had to rethink it and strategize about it.”
Riju Thomas promises that he sleeps. In bed most nights by 11 p.m. and up at 4:30 the next morning, he crams the most into every waking moment.
At 27, he is the president of RNJ Tech, a company he created in June 2017 that custom-builds computer web servers. He has two full-time sales staff and employs four to five contract workers as needed.