Drs. Mireille Liong-A-Kong, a Suriname native with a Master Degree in Information Technology, is an award-winning Social Entrepreneur, author and founder of a series of web communities that highlight the beauty of natural hair and expose the reality of unequal of hair rights.

Overcoming relaxer induced alopecia and learning that the hair loss condition affects an astonishing 73% of African American women, motivated Liong to use her IT-expertise to improve the health of Black women’s follicles and highlight the social injustice behind the numbers.

With the ultimate goal to change the perception of natural hair, Liong published the Amazon bestseller Going Natural; How to Fall in Love with Nappy Hair and created Going-Natural.com, a leading social web and networking website connecting over 80,000 people worldwide.

To promote the beauty of natural hair Liong created America’s Next Natural Model, the first Black natural online pageant widely impacting beauty standards since its start in 2008.

To literally paint a different picture of African hair, the University of Amsterdam graduate produced BAD Hair Uprooted, a real life exhibition that has traveled the world and gained her international recognition as a natural hair advocate and trailblazer.

As the entrepreneurial spirit who has been at the root of the online natural hair movement, Liong followed up with the Black Follicles Matter, an ongoing online documentary that pictures the growing natural hair movement in motion.

Featured on the WABC TV show “Here and Now”, Liong also created the Going Natural Hair Care Line offering Black women therapeutic products revolutionarily designed with a love and understanding of African follicles.

Liong’s latest project is WhatNaturalsLove.com, a Social Cyber marketplace with the best Black businesses throughout the Diaspora have to offer to customers all over the world.

Photo by Keston Duke