Mathematics is embedded in the DNA of Nkechi Madonna Adeleine Agwu. Her father, Jacob Agwu, was an economist and her mother, Europa Wilson Agwu, was a mathematics teacher.

My brother and I started a very successful specialty foods business a couple of years ago. We’re not rich, but we’re making enough to support ourselves and our families. Recently, a major distributor that wants to take our products nationwide approached us, selling them in supermarkets, gourmet groceries and specialty food stores.

Cameroon President Paul Biya’s remarks as he opened the Africa 21 Yaoundé International Conference in his country’s capital city were a necessary reminder of the global context in which Africa has been developing for the past 50 years.

Employees often are at a loss about what to do about questionable management behavior or outright corruption at the companies they work for. Here’s some advice for two situations that were brought to my attention.

Major stock indices in Africa and the Caribbean are riding an upturn in corporate earnings and on expectations for higher economic growth to regain the investment capital ceded to the bond market in last year’s recession.

Nothing is sweeter than the cry “Fight!” on a warm day in grade school. As summer temperatures tug at lawmakers in Washington, a fight has broken out between Sen. Byron L. Dorgan, a North Dakota democrat, and Anthony Travers, chairman of Cayman Finance, voice of the Cayman Islands’ financial services industry.

Three words explain why many former corporate executives prefer to buy a franchise rather than starting a business from scratch: safety, security and support. But behind every successful franchise, there is a supportive team of people who make the model work.

The Oct. 18 issue of The Chronicle of Philanthropy confirmed what we in the nonprofit sector already knew: The nonprofit and philanthropic sector doesn’t do a very good job at this thing called diversity.

Like crabgrass in spring, debt-settlement firms are spreading fast all over the country. Tempting radio commercials tell you they can negotiate with your credit-card issuer so you’ll pay as little as 40 percent of what you owe. Don’t fall for it. Most debt-settlement companies require you to divert your current payments to a savings account giving them the leverage to negotiate.

U.S. companies looking to access medium to long-term reconstruction opportunities in Haiti must register with the United Nations Global Marketplace (www.ungm.org), the Inter-American Development Bank (www.iadb.org) and the World Bank (www.worldbank.org).

On June 2, some 650 business executives, elected officials, nonprofit leaders and high-profile New Yorkers — longtime partners, friends and constituents of Abyssinian Development Corporation — joined parents and kindergarten-through-twelfth-grade students in Shepard Hall at the City College of New York for ADC’s Harlem Renaissance Day of Commitment Leader-ship Breakfast.

If you’re a businessowner looking to get a piece of the $150 billion that the country’s transportation system received in economic stimulus funds, or if you’re looking for a job in the transportation industry, you may want to follow the TIGER.

Care Cab L.L.C. operates in the fast-growing market for non-emergency transportation. Paul J. Ravenell bought the company two years ago from its previous owners, who had run it for four years.

Because its large touch-screen is interactive and inviting, Apple’s iPad offers media companies, game makers and other content providers a way to display material that consumers supposedly will be more likely to pay for.

The extraordinary artifacts created by African artists have fascinated the world over for centuries. Probably the most notable objects are the masks and figurative sculptures, with their distinctive carvings, evocative features and uniquely expressive meanings.

You know that exercise is the cornerstone to a healthy lifestyle and disease prevention, as well as a cheerier outlook because of all those happy hormones a good workout creates, but how motivated are you to get on that treadmill day after day?

Playwright Layon Gray captures a moment in the history of the United States Armed Forces with the compelling drama Black Angels Over Tuskegee. It is the story of Black men who dared to dream of joining the United States Air Force in the 1940s and became the first Black men to be trained at Tuskegee Institute/Moton Field air base in Alabama.

 Summer reading