ScenicPlots

Racism still remains the greatest hinderance to black equality in America. As we speak, several states in the US are passing laws to make it harder for blacks and other minorities to vote. 

Racism is not based on any scientific fact. It is a learned behavior and the remedy is a systemic exposure and knowledge of black people contrary to stereotypes and fabrications. However, this new narrative has to be developed by blacks themselves. Black people have to tell their own stories about who they are, their history, culture, lifestyle and mores. These narratives have to be aggregated for easy access to publishers, film producers and newsmedia.

My solution is a social media app called SCENICPLOTS available on the android and iOS platform. It enables storytellers of any pedigree to tell their story in a thousand words or less, in any genre, setting, location or language.

on a global scale, Africa and blacks continue to lag behind in economic development and this can be traced back to a combined impact of 500 years of exploration, exploitation, slavery and colonialism. And in America, where blacks do exceedingly better than blacks on the continent of Africa, they still lag far behind their white counterpart, all as a result of systemic racism. What exacerbated the notion of slavery was the publication of The Passing of the Great Races by Maddison Grant in 1916. It enabled every form of mass media to portray blacks as inferior to whites, and Hollywood continues to use the same playbook. In order to remedy the situation, there needs to a platform that would enable blacks to tell their own story both in fiction and non-fiction, and these narratives can be adapted for production as documentaries and feature films for a mass audience. There is no doubt that people get emotional connection to what they on the screen over what they read in a book.

Anyone with an android or iOS mobile devise can download my app Scenicplots, for free and read the numerous stories. For film producers looking for African themed content, they are presented according to genres, location, titles, authors and it is translatable in 4 languages at the moment. Writers who want to showcase their stories would pay a token fee to add their stories. Stories are accepted in 3 categories of 1000 words, 5000 words and unlimited. 

The target population that this would help is the minority population in the USA and by extension of history, blacks in the diaspora. Because our solution presents them a gateway to share their story. Mass media organizations such as book publishers, radio, TV and film is owned by whites. There are not many black decision makers in the boardroom of these organizations. As a result, the portrayal of blacks historically have been detrimental and stereotypical, and that continues till this day. Our solution, makes it possible for blacks to showcase their own stories and make decisions on how those stories are projected on the big screen. One of the vestiges of a negative portrayals of blacks stems from the misinterpretation of the Curse of Ham in the Bible. That narrative, though biblical was used to justify the enslavement and colonization of black people. Imagine if a black filmmaker has the resources and the clout to redress that narrative? Ham may eventually come across as the most blessed of all the sons of Noah, and the “cursed.” Hence, we can say Black Stories Matter, especially if told by blacks. Our app would be the aggregator where such narratives can be found.

Racism is still a problem for the minority population in America. It persists because people have stereotypical views of blacks that are based on what they learned, mostly wrong. If there is a convergence of factual narratives about how patriotic blacks have been since arriving in America in 1619, how they participated in the revolutionary war against Great Britain, how they volunteered to fight for the Union during the civil war, World Wars 1 and 2, Vietnam, it would mitigate the other point of view to irrelevance. 

We have tested our product and services in Nigeria and it is working and ready for a roll out. We currently have 25 writers who have submitted a total of 110 stories on the platform. Two of the stories have been optioned by film producers. One is already produced and is in post-production.

There are several ePub platforms that enable writers, authors self publish their books but none of them is geared for enabling writers target film producers who are specifically looking for stories by black writers.

By our projections, we intend to reach thousands of users in the next year. But when their stories are adapted for the big screens, it could impact millions of people across the universe.

It is very difficult for any writer anywhere to meet with a publisher or film producer without going through an agent. Our solution cuts through the huddle. We are going to market the app to producers and publishers who can access the stories directly.
The results are not in yet but one of the stories in our app has been adapted and produced as a movie. We expect to have a distributor by the end of the year. Following that, we can determine how much a writer on our app can earn from his story and what impact it has on the general public.

3 full time

2 part time

2 contractors 

The team includes:

1. Chinazor Onianwah - Chief Creative Officer, Journalist, writer, self-published author, certified network engineer, filmmaker, social media app design, UI/UX

2. Charmaine Lee - Chief Financial Officer, Accountant and business analysis

3. Rita Okereke - Chief Operations Officer, MBA

4. Jendy Jasper, UI/UX, design, Agile deployment, AWS Cloud Infrastructure, Data, Security, Push notifications

5. Silas Ogar - Chief Technology Officer, JavaScript, HTML5, Cross-Platform capabilities 

Due to financial difficulties, I had to go to Nigeria to find my development teams. It so happens that our Chief Financial Officer is a biracial female, and the rest of the team is black or African.

If we get selected to participate in pitching our solution, it would give us publicity and perhaps access to partnership that can help us get off the ground. However, we do not need venture investors who are only interested in selling the project for profit. This is a life mission.

Our solution is a lifetime commitment to changing behavior and attitude. We need partners and investors to help us get going but not in the long run. Our products and services would sustain itself because it is designed to generate revenue as we go with minimum overhead. Our talents are spread over 3 countries. We do not have an office space. We meet via zoom. Covid-19 has proved businesses can be done across different time zones 24/70 without overhead.

At this time we do not need a partner. What we need is a financial grant to help us get off the ground. We do not need an overseer looking over our shoulder. We work best as a creative community. Any pressure from outside partners to make profit would get in the way of our creativity.

The purpose of our work is to create understanding across cultural divides. If we receive the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Prize, it would help us promote and developing narratives that tell the actual stories of minority populations in the United States and across the globe. 

We are a minority owned company. The HP Prize would enable us create space for minority high school kids who want to engage in the technology industry.

We are a minority owned company with little access to capital. The prize money would enable grow and expand our talent pool of other minorities.