291:, to bring fan-curated content to international audiences. In 2018, AMP Global was selected as one of 11 top startups in the world for Google Demo Day and is now bringing The Mic: Africa, the first-ever TV format born on the continent to be exported around the world, to TV screens across Africa and small screens around the world via the company's proprietary app, Take Back the Mic, which builds communities around the continent by rewarding fans for engaging.
283:, which was a 2015 and 2016 Emmy finalist in the category of Original Interactive Programming, opposite names that included Taylor Swift, backed by AmEx, and Oculus Rift, owned by Facebook. As a result of AMP Global's early success, Ashong attracted major production partners, including Flame Ventures, run by
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As a child growing up in the Middle East, Derrick Ashong had to sleep in a sealed room and wear a gas mask to school during the first Gulf War. One day at school, a sonic boom overhead resembled the sound of a bomb going off. Ashong and his classmates ducked for cover. He had to decide in a split
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and Afro-American studies, until Dave
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second whether to put on his gas mask or offer it to a friend who did not have one. He attributes that experience, along with his pediatrician father and nurse mother, with the social conscience that has been the through line of his life's work.
270:. Surprising the interviewer who expected a short soundbite (perhaps based on Ashong's casual appearance), Ashong gave a measured and protracted analysis of Obama's campaign. The video has been viewed more than a million times.
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music, which ultimately led him to found his company, amp.it that drives and measures digital video engagement by rewarding and recognizing fans for discovering, sharing and curating great content.
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104:, for which he won awards, before forming a band called "Black Rose". The band later became known as Soulfège. Ashong has worked with such established artists as
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Derrick Ashong has lectured on music, technology, the free market, and individualism at over a hundred institutions in the
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and leader of Soulfège, under the name "DNA", producing works that have aired globally via outlets including
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for his senior thesis. After being naturalized as an
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Ashong's musical career started while at
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in 1975, Ashong is the son of a pediatrician. He attended school in
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and were nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy Award for their work on
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He received another Emmy nod in 2015, and yet another in 2016, for
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on Fusion (ABC/Univision). In 2012, Ashong and his team won a
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245:FREE THIS CD!!! - The FAM Manifesto
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175:The Derrick Ashong Experience
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444:"Angola 3"
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264:Democratic
197:The Stream
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