Former HIV/AIDs researcher turned media producer Vanessa Ford co-founded the women-led children?s entertainment company Kukua in 2018. Since then, she has become the driving force behind Super Sema, the first animated superhero TV series to feature African characters and have a focus on science and technology. (Lupita Nyong?o voices the grown-up Sema, whose younger self fights villains using ?technovating? powers.) Once based largely in Hollywood, Ford?s industry is being increasingly decentralized: She?s from Toronto and now lives in Lisbon, while Kukua is based in both Nairobi and London. The series has amassed 70 million views since its debut on YouTube Originals in 2021. Now, Ford is building a full-blown franchise around the characters?a Super Sema toy line and Penguin book series will hit the market later this year. Based in: Lisbon, Portugal

Degrees: B.Sc. in human biology (University of Toronto) and M.Sc. in global health (Oxford University)
My goal in life:
To figure out how to get people to see that we are more alike than we are different. What I know for sure is that I?ve become increasingly comfortable with showing who I am. It wakes up others to their own truth and brings people together.
My earliest memory:
I was three years old in a predominantly white French-immersion pre-school. I was the only Black child in the class. My best friend took me to the bathroom and started scrubbing my face and hands with wet paper towel. I asked why she was doing it and said ...