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NewswireTODAY - /newswire/ -
San Francisco, CA, United States, 2008/01/12 - The founder of imDiversity has been chosen as Pinnacle Award winner among the 50 Most Important African-Americans in Technology, chosen by Blackmoney Worldwide. Preston Edwards was also featured on NBC's Weekend Today Saturday, Jan. 12.
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Preston Edwards has faced Hurricane Katrina, cancer and a takeover attempt by venture capitalists in the past six years.
However, his signature educational and employment online and publishing business IMDiversity is still going strong, more than 37 years after he launched THE BLACK COLLEGIAN magazine.
With employment and earning one of the major challenges facing African-Americans, Edwards has been selected as a winner of the Pinnacle Award among the 50 Most Important African-Americans in Technology. Edwards was featured Saturday, Jan. 12, 2008 on NBC’s Weekend Today with Lester Holt to discuss his latest book.
eAccess Corp. has selected the list for the eighth consecutive year to highlight those African-Americans who create the most significant impact on American and global society through technology.
John William Templeton, executive editor of Blackmoney Worldwide, which selects the list, says, “Preston has been an innovator who has made the gains of the civil rights movement widely distributed not only among college students, but also he has thought ahead to their post-collegiate careers to provide the career guidance that keeps them moving forward lifelong. His courage has been so vividly on display over the past three years that it is a shining beacon to all black entrepreneurs and all black people.”
Edwards was washed out of his downtown New Orleans office, his staff dispersed around the country after Hurricane Katrina, but IMDiversity, a site which matches major employers with minority job seekers, and THE BLACK COLLEGIAN magazine continued to operate.
Although THE BLACK COLLEGIAN has been an icon for black higher education since the 1970s, Edwards sought to expand his market by creating IMDiversity, which required bringing in outside investment from venture capitalists. That created a new challenge when the investment group sought to wrest control of the company from Edwards. It took a court battle to retain his company.
Cancer of unknown primary added another stumbling block for Edwards to overcome. Not only has he joined the ranks of survivors but joined with Ronald P. Bazile, Sr., Benjamin M. Priestley and the late Ellis M. Brossett, Sr. to create the new book You Have Cancer which emphasizes early detection for African-American men. “There’s hardly a day that passes when I don’t talk to someone who doesn’t have a friend or loved one dealing with cancer,” says Edwards.
Edwards created THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Magazine in 1970 on an investment of $3,500 operating out of his brother’s shoe repair and printing shop, taking eight years to turn a profit. Since going online in 1995, the company has provided powerful tools for career development, self-development and job opportunities. The expanded IMDiversity has Multicultural Villages geared to different population groups. The company now owns a three-story downtown office building designated by the Louisiana Division of Historical Preservation as a historical structure.
In a 35th anniversary editorial, Edwards wrote, “If Preston Edwards – raised with five brothers on a dirt street in New Orleans, by parents who had only a third-grade education—can do what he did, so definitely can you.
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executiveeditor[.]blackmoney.com 
