Friday, April 29, 2016

Meet {Angélique Kidjo} Today

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Angélique Kidjo was stoned when she was in school and she went home crying  her grandmother was with her mom when she arrived and she hold her after Kidjo explain to her and she replies "Loot at me, talk to me , what do you care about what people think about you? You have to learn one thing in live you cannot love everybody and appropriate everybody and it goes both way if you don't learn that now you gonna always be a fool of somebody live your live to the full as long as you don't hurt anybody and you're happy doing what you do let them talk" This change her life for good. Enjoy the rest of her wonderful story and be inspire....    
Angélique Kpasseloko Hinto Hounsinou Kandjo Manta Zogbin Kidjo, known as Angélique Kidjo (born July 14, 1960), is a Beninese-born American Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter and activist, noted for her diverse musical influences and creative music videos. Time magazine has called her "Africa's premier diva". The BBC has included Kidjo in its list of the African continent's 50 most iconic figures. The Guardian has listed her as one of its Top 100 Most Inspiring Women in the World and Kidjo is the first woman to be listed among "The 40 Most Powerful Celebrities In Africa" by Forbes magazine. The Daily Telegraph in London described her as "The undisputed queen of African music" during the 2012 Olympic Games River of Music Festival In March 2013, NPR, National Public Radio in America, called her "Africa's greatest living diva". Kidjo is listed among the "2014 Most Influential Africans" by New African magazine and Jeune Afrique.[10][11] Forbes Afrique put Angelique on the cover of their "100 most influential women" issue in 2015.[12] On June 6, 2013, Kidjo was elected vice-president of the Confédération Internationale des Sociétés d´Auteurs et Compositeurs (CISAC). She now resides in New York City,[13] where she is an occasional contributor to the New York Times.[14][15][16] Angelique has received Honorary Doctorates from Yale University, Berklee College of Music and Middlebury College.[17][18][19]
Her musical influences include the Afropop, Caribbean zouk, Congolese rumba, jazz, gospel, and Latin styles; as well as her childhood idols Bella Bellow, James Brown, Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Miriam Makeba andCarlos Santana. She has recorded George Gershwin's "Summertime", Ravel's Boléro, Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Child" and the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter", and has collaborated with Dave Matthews and the Dave Matthews Band,Kelly Price, Alicia Keys, Branford Marsalis, Ziggy Marley, Philip Glass, Peter Gabriel, Bono, Carlos Santana, John Legend, Herbie Hancock, Josh Groban, Dr John, the Kronos Quartet and Cassandra Wilson. Kidjo's hit songs include "Agolo", "We We", "Adouma", "Wombo Lombo", "Afirika", "Batonga", and her version of "Malaika". Her album Logozo is ranked number 37 in the Greatest Dance Albums of All Time list compiled by the Thump web site.[20]
Kidjo is fluent in Fon, French, Yorùbá and English, and sings in all four languages; she also has her own personal language, which includes words that serve as song titles such as "Batonga". "Malaika" is a song sung in the Swahililanguage. Kidjo often utilizes Benin's traditional Zilin vocal technique and jazz vocalese.
Recently, Angelique added 'Actor' to her long list of accolades as she featured in 2015 Nollywood movie, 'The CEO.'
Angelique is the recipient of the 2015 Crystal Award given by the World Economic Forum of Davos in Switzerland[21]
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Kidjo was born in Cotonou, Benin. Her father is from the Fon people of Ouidah and her mother from the Yoruba people. She grew up listening to Beninese traditional music, Fela Kuti, Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela, James Brown, Manu Dibango, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, Osibisa, and Santana. By the time she was six, Kidjo was performing with her mother's theatre troupe,[22] giving her an early appreciation for traditional music and dance. She started singing in her school band, Les Sphinx, and found success as a teenager with her adaptation of Miriam Makeba's "Les Trois Z", which played on national radio. She recorded the album Pretty with the Cameroonian producer Ekambi Brilliant and her brother Oscar. It featured the songs "Ninive", "Gbe Agossi" and a tribute to the singer Bella Bellow, one of her role models. The success of the album allowed her to tour all over West Africa. Continuing political conflicts in Benin prevented her from being an independent artist in her own country and led her to relocate to Paris in 1983.
ACTIVISM
Angélique Kidjo found The Batonga Foundation a non-profit organization that aims to provide African girls a secondary school and higher education. It was founded in 2007 and is now working in five African nations: Benin, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mali, and Sierra Leone.
The foundation is run by a board of directors, the members of which are Angélique Kidjo, her husband Jean Hebrail, Mary Louise Cohen and John R. Phillips.[3] The organization attempts to achieve its goals through granting scholarships to girls, founding schools, and improving teaching standards. The foundation also provides schools with supplies.[4] Batonga's current countries of focus are Benin, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mali and Sierra Leone.
Kidjo has been a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 2002. With UNICEF, she has travelled to many countries in Africa. Reports on her visits can be found on the UNICEF site: Benin, Senegal, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Syria, Malawi, Uganda, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Haiti.
Along with Mary Louise Cohen[35] and John R. Phillips,[36] Kidjo founded The Batonga Foundation, which gives girls a secondary school and higher education so that they can take the lead in changing Africa. The foundation is doing this by granting scholarships, building secondary schools, increasing enrollment, improving teaching standards, providing school supplies, supporting mentor programs, exploring alternative education models and advocating for community awareness of the value of education for girls.
She campaigned for Oxfam at the 2005 Hong Kong WTO meeting, for their Fair Trade Campaign and travelled with them in North Kenya and at the border of Darfurand Chad with a group of women leaders in 2007 and participated in the video for the In My Name Campaign with will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas.
She hosted the Mo Ibrahim Foundation's Prize for Achievement in African Leadership in Alexandria, Egypt, on November 26, 2007, and on November 15, 2008, inDar Es Salaam, Tanzania, on November 14, 2009, and in Mauritius on November 20, 2010. She hosted the "Africa Celebrates Democracy Concert" organized by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation in Tunis on November 11, 2011, and sang at the Award Ceremony on November 12, 2011, also in Dakar on November 10, 2012, Addis Ababa in November 2013 and Accra in November 2015.
Since March 2009, Kidjo has been campaigning for "Africa for women's rights". This campaign was launched by The International Federation of Human Rights(FIDH).
On September 28, 2009, UNICEF and Pampers launched a campaign to eradicate Tetanus "Give The Gift Of Life" and asked Kidjo to produce the song "You Can Count On Me" to support the campaign. Each download of the song donates a vaccine to a mother or a mother-to-be.
With Jessica Biel and Peter Wentz, Angélique Kidjo was a LiveEarth Ambassador for the 2010 Run For Water events.
Kidjo has recorded a video based on her song "Agolo" and on the images of Yann Arthus-Bertrand for the United Nations SEAL THE DEAL Campaign to prepare for the Copenhagen Climate Change summit.
The Commission of the African Union (AU) announced on July 16, 2010, the appointment of Angélique Kidjo as one of 14 Peace Ambassadors to support the implementation of the 2010 Year of Peace and Security programme.
She appears in the Sudan365: Keep the Promise video to support the peace process in Darfur.
In June 2010, she contributed the song "Leila" to the Enough Project and Downtown Records' Raise Hope for Congo compilation. Proceeds from the compilation fund efforts to make the protection and empowerment of Congo’s women a priority, as well as inspire individuals around the world to raise their voice for peace in Congo.
In 2011, Kidjo collaborated with Forró in the Dark and Brazilian Girls on the track "Aquele Abraço" for the Red Hot Organization's most recent charitable album Red Hot + Rio 2. The album is a follow-up to the 1996 Red Hot + Rio. Proceeds from the sales will be donated to raise awareness and money to fight AIDS/HIV and related health and social issues. Kidjo recorded a version of Fela Kuti's "Lady" with Questlove and Tune-Yards for the Red Hot Organization in 2012.
In September 2012, she was featured in a campaign called "30 Songs/30 Days" to support Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, a multi-platform media project inspired by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s book.[37]
On February 18, 2013, at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, Kidjo was the host of a night of celebration for the cultural heritage of Mali. The event included performances by many Malian artists. [38]
On May 22, 2014, Kidjo met with First lady Michelle Obama to discuss international girls' education, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building of the White House.[39]
On September 21, 2014, Kidjo was one of the endorsees of the People's Climate March.[40] She joined the march in New York, along with Mary Robinson, and was interviewed by Amy Goodman for Democracy Now.[41]
November 2014 saw Kidjo collaborating with many other artists in Band Aid 30, the 30th-anniversary version of the 1980s supergroup.
In 2015 she signed an open letter which the ONE Campaign had been collecting signatures for; the letter was addressed to Angela Merkel and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, urging them to focus on women as they serve as the head of the G7 in Germany and the AU in South Africa respectively, which will start to set the priorities in development funding before a main UN summit in September 2015 that will establish new development goals for the generation.[42]
Angelique is a contributor to the Art Of Saving A Life Campaign initiated by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.[43]
On Sept 25th, 2015, she sung Afirika at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in support of the launch of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development along with Shakira after a speech by Pope Francis and before Malala.



Wednesday, April 27, 2016

(Can Anyone Tell How Many Live Niels Bohlin Safe) Inventor of the Three-Point Seatbelt

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On July 10, 1962, the US Patent Office issued Swedish engineer Nils Bohlin (July 17, 1920 – Sept. 26, 2002) a patent for the three-point seatbelt. Bolin worked for the Volvo Car Corporation and designed his three-point system in less than a year. Volvo first introduced the seatbelt on its cars in 1959. Consisting of two straps that joined at the hip level and fastened into a single anchor point, the three-point belt significantly reduced injuries by effectively holding both the upper and lower body and reducing the impact of the swift deceleration that occurred in a crash. [Source]
Volvo released the new seat belt design for free to other car manufacturers and it quickly became standard worldwide. The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 made seat belts a required feature on all new American vehicles from the 1968 model year onward. The use of seat belts has been estimated to reduce the risk of fatalities and serious injuries from collisions by about 50 percent [Source]. A Volvo research team recently found Bohlin’s invention had saved about 1 million lives. [Source]
In 1974, he was awarded The Ralph Isbrandt Automotive Safety Engineering Award, and in 1989 he was inducted into the Hall of Fame for Safety and Health. He received a gold medal from Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science in 1995 and in 1999, was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame. He retired from Volvo in 1985 and was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. [Source]
Achievements
The three-point seat belt changed the world by preventing injuries during a car crash. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that the seat belt saves about 11,000 lives each year in the USA alone. There are also seat belts in airplanes, buses, and is heavily used in sporting races.
In addition to designing an effective three-point belt, Bohlin demonstrated its effectiveness in a study of 28,000 accidents in Sweden, and presented a paper at the 11th Stapp Car Crash Convention. Unbelted occupants sustained fatal injuries throughout the whole speed scale, whereas none of the belted occupants was fatally injured at accident speeds below 60 mph. No belted occupant was fatally injured if the passenger compartment remained intact.[2] This study resulted in the U.S. Department of Transportation requiring three-point seat belts in American cars. In 1968, the new seat belt design was made free for the public to use. In most industrial countries, occupants are required by law to use seat belts.