Oprah Winfrey and Me (I was chosen as one of her Supersoul 100!!)

Oprah Winfrey and Me (I was chosen as one of her Supersoul 100!!)

:)

:)

publications

publications

TEDTALK!

Maya Penn is a 21 year old award-winning eco-designer, artist, philanthropist, activist, entrepreneur, animated filmmaker, coder, illustrator, writer and author of You Got This! She has been featured in countless publications such as Forbes, Huffington Post, Seventeen Magazine, Cosmopolitan, The View, NPR,CNN, TIME, Essence Magazine, CBS This Morning with Gayle King, O Magazine, The Steve Harvey Show, Entrepreneur Magazine, Ebony, Black Enterprise, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, and many, many more. Maya has given three TEDTalks and her latest TEDWomen Talk has gone viral worldwide and with almost 2 million views and growing. She is known as the youngest female to do two back-to-back official TEDTalks. Maya has been chosen by Oprah Winfrey as one of her Supersoul 100 influencers. Google has partnered with Maya to speak to girls about coding and computer science at their Made With Code events. Magic Johnson chose Maya to be featured in his 32 Under 32 article series.


Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Anime Weekend Atlanta 2015!

I do a lot of reporting and interviews at various sci-fi/anime,gaming,etc. cons in the southeast and most of these are repeat cons for me. But I wanted to check out a new con this year so this September I attended Anime Weekend Atlanta (fondly known as AWA) for the first time. I went two days and it was awesome.


Anime Weekend Atlanta is a four day Anime Convention located in...well, Atlanta! It's usually held in late September and is the largest anime convention in the southeast! Here's my experience and what you should know:




My Overview

There are fun activities for anime fans of all ages! AWA offers concerts, a costume contest, dances, Dealer's Room (where I found some super cute merch!), fashion show, game shows, karaoke, gaming, workshops, and more. Aside from running around documenting the con I checked out a few workshops.

There are an array of panels and meet-ups to attend so it's easier to find more members of your fandom(s)! You can also submit a panel. There's a huge variety in panels/workshop from animation/gaming discussion, to VR, to cosplay help, to character design and much more. There's something for everyone. AWA's guests include professional voice actors, designers, cosplayers, musicians, and artists.

From what I gathered this years attendance was 25,000+. This was a big surprise for me, because while that number may sound a bit scary if you're not used to going to larger conventions, the venue is wonderful (Renaissance Waverly Hotel & Cobb Galleria Centre) and has plenty of space and places to go so the con feels super comfy.

Overall, AWA was fantastic and lots of fun for everyone. I plan on attending again next year and putting together a video of the con for a more visual representation of why you should attend! If you're in the southeast and looking to expand your con experiences then AWA is for you.

Learn more at: http://awa-con.com/

-Maya

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