Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Welcome to Into Africa. My name is Mvemba Phezo Dizolele. I'm a senior fellow and the director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. This is a podcast where we talk everything Africa; politics, economics, security, and culture. Welcome.
The high unemployment rate among black male youth is quite concerning. To address this issue, the Hidden Genius Project, a nonprofit organization, was founded with the overarching goal of revealing the true potential of black male youth. It was established by five black male entrepreneurs and technologists who develop a program to train and mentor black male youth in technology creation, entrepreneurship, and leadership skills to transform their lives and communities at large. In October 2019, the organization hosted its second International Catalyst program experience in London, and for the first time in Johannesburg, South Africa. Through this experience, a total of 736 students were reached. Along with offices in Richmond, California, Los Angeles, and Detroit, Michigan, Hidden Genius has plans to expand to additional states within America, including Illinois, Georgia, and eventually reach out to Africa.
Joining me on Into Africa today to discuss this important initiative is Dr. Brandon Nicholson, founder and chief Executive Officer of the Hidden Genius Project. Hello Brandon, and welcome to Into Africa.
Dr. Brandon Nicholson: Thank you for having me.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Hidden Genius Project sounds like an entire brand unto itself. The message itself, when I hear Hidden Genius Project, it catches my attention. What is the Hidden Genius Project about?
Dr. Brandon Nicholson: Absolutely. Well, I appreciate your point. First of all, just the opportunity to be here and to speak with you and, your audience of course, but also just your point about our brand, the Hidden Genius Project. Our mission is to train and mentor black male youth in technology creation, entrepreneurship and leadership skills to transform our lives and communities. I do think the work we've been able to do over the better part of the last 12 years has been tremendous, but it's very hard to find things more tremendous than our name, to your point. And so, with that, we actually have a formal practice within the organization not to abbreviate our name, especially in dialogue and in speech because those words are so powerful.
And to constantly remind us that we exist here to help our young people achieve their dreams, to advance them towards opportunity, to expose them to new experiences, to create networks for them and relationships that will allow them to move down pathways that will hopefully support them to thrive in their communities or even in new communities and not just thrive, but lead. And so all of that we believe to be captured in the name The Hidden Genius Project. And so, calling it, you know, HGP or THGP would be a big loss. We'd be cutting ourself off at the knees, if you will.
But yes, we are excited to be headquartered in Oakland, California since 2012, operating in Oakland, Richmond, California, Los Angeles, California, Detroit, Michigan, Chicago, Illinois, Atlanta, Georgia, and now in Baltimore, Maryland. As you mentioned, we've been able to do multiple activations overseas, including now three in London, thanks to us getting back out of COVID. Of course, as you mentioned, one in Johannesburg, South Africa. We've just returned from Senegal, namely Saly, Senegal, and also visited Dakar. We anticipate returning to South Africa very soon with our partners there and returning to the UK this fall. So, we very much see our mission as global and see the capacity for our young people to lead, our young men to lead as unlimited.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: You work at a dissection of a few things, very important things. One is just the technology itself. It's a very peculiar field requiring peculiar skills that you're trying to pass on to these young men and women. And that intersects with life values. People are gonna engage in entrepreneurship and others, they need to be able to set goals and follow through, but you're also working at the intersection of various cultures. How do your programs at large engage with youth in those fields?
Dr. Brandon Nicholson: That's a- another great question. You're two for two so far. I'll, I'll start keeping count-
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: (laugh)
Dr. Brandon Nicholson: Just (laugh)... Just in case, you know, make it to three for three. You know, so our, our mission at its core is unapologetically focused on elevating the potential of black male youth holistically so that they can be able to be in space to explore, connect, make mistakes, be silly, be children, grow into young men, follow lead, collaborate, all the things. Within that, to your point though, multiple dynamics, recognizing our young people as a community, as a diaspora, we're not a monolith even though we may share many common experiences and many brilliant opportunities and a great deal of common potential. And then of course, recognizing that we've had different backgrounds, we have different needs, but in reality, we all need something. So, we see it as critical to be able to engage when we engage in our most intensive program, which is a 15-month cohort-based program for young men in high school and they spend about 800 hours with us learning the fundamentals of computer science, entrepreneurship, leadership.
But it's all really in the realm of developing quality young people, confident young people, healthy, fully well young people who can lead. So, in that respect, yes, the tech is critical, but it's really about making sure we have healthy and happy young men first. Then the next layer is that we, as you mentioned, are serving a broader population; uh, girls, young women, young people, non-binary young people, people with different racial ethnic national backgrounds, different age groups, et cetera. And so, the way we do that is actually overwhelmingly through the leadership and facilitation of our alumni. So if you think about the old refrain, rising tide lifts all boats, as we rise the tide for our young men and our intensive cohort, as varied as their experiences may be, we aim to then lift all boats to put those young men in positions to lead and facilitate programming and provide inspiration to other young people who can then see I can do it as well, and give them an opportunity to build and to explore as well.
And that's what we see, you know, when we're traveling overseas and when we're just providing our young people with various opportunities to make an impact.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: To make an impact, you talked about healthy, happy young people and you hope to keep them there. If we just stay on the healthy and happy young people, one, I want to know, how do you recruit these people, these youngsters? What's the profile that you're looking for? Certainly, you said they are in high school, I presume they range from 13 to 18 or so, maybe slightly younger. This program caters to black youth. Why black youth when in fact when you're in these big cities that you were working in, there's a selection and really a spectrum of young people facing the challenges that you're trying to address?
Dr. Brandon Nicholson: Absolutely. Well, certainly starting with the second question, why black youth? We believe we've got a great opportunity since we were founded 12 years ago to build an experience for young people and, and pay it forward in ways, right? As so many people have poured into us and have invested in us over time. You know, now we're adults of course, but still need support and still need investment. And we recognize that the entire community needs opportunities top to bottom. You know, everybody deserves love, everybody deserves support, everybody deserves to be believed in, especially our young people, and they intend with a great deal every day. That having been said, we recognize in our case we may not be meant or best positioned to connect and deliver effective service and programming to everyone.
So, we wanted to start with a group that we thought we knew the best and that we could offer the most to, in black male youth. We've got shared experience and we also wanna bring the proverbial back of the class photo to the front. So, the young men, you know, be it because of height or social dynamic, whatever it is... You know, sometimes our young men in more heterogeneous environments may find themselves kind of shifting out of the way trying to shift themselves from center. So, we want these young men to be front and center and then again, be in a position to lead, to really inspire, to take responsibility and to take accountability. And we'll do that part. And then we wanna link arms with our allies and our co-conspirators who will take on their part for whichever communities, including our girls, young women, including folks from other backgrounds, et cetera.
When we think about the profile for our intensive immersion program, we're looking for black boys and young men. They're usually going to be entering ninth grade through 11th grade as we're promoting because our programming starts in summer. So, after that first summer of their 15 months, they'll be entering ninth through 11th grade. So, to your point, usually we're finding them anywhere between age 13 and then maybe 16 or 17. And then by the time they leave us, they may be anywhere between 14 all the way through 17 or 18. But ultimately, they never really leave us. We're deeply invested in our alumni strategy, and I can speak more to that later, but when we think about who are- who we profile and how we recruit, we're looking for young men with an interest and willingness to make the investment of their time, energy, and resources. And, and really the resource is just their human resources, their focus into this program, into this opportunity.
We don't pre-screen for grade point average or academic achievement. We don't pre-screen for prior experience in any of our related areas, including STEM. We don't means test around income and indicators of that nature. You know, we ultimately want a group of young men that's diverse, even within that black male youth stratum and come together to learn from each other, support each other. They're all gonna have different strengths, different experiences, different areas where they need to grow. And so we want to teach them to lean on each other and we want them to be able to see the brilliance and the beauty of their diversity even as they all may, you know, identify as black male youth.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: The target audience, was it set because you felt that the community was at disadvantage somewhat?
Dr. Brandon Nicholson: It's really because we believe there's unlimited and limitless and tremendous potential for our young people. So, we just wanted to make sure they could get access to the resources and opportunities to bring that to bear. And definitely we, we're not blind to any of the challenges, you know, our young men experience and, and you know, maybe some of the statistics that stand out about the experiences of black men and black boys in the US or across the world. And yet what gets us outta bed every day are not the challenges. It's the potential, it's the opportunities, it's the growth we see in these young men. It's, you know, their eyes lighting up, the joy they experience, the times when they're driving us crazy but they're having a blast together, you know, and really enjoying each other's company while simultaneously, uh, knowing each other as well.
Creating that space where no one's seen as violating the space or no one's seen as a threat to the space, no one's brilliance is a threat to the leaders, the educator in the space. The questions they have, sometimes critical as they may be, aren't seen as a threat or potentially undermining the, you know, wellness or the, you know, functioning of the class. And sometimes either the experiences that they may often have in their academic environments, especially if they're not, you know, in spaces with as many people will look like them. So, it just depends on their situation. But sometimes there's plenty of people look like them and, and they still have these challenges, but it's really what energy they bring to circumnavigate and overcome all that inspires us and motivates us and, and those are the opportunities we wanna continue to provide going forward.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Staying a little bit with the, uh, selection process. So, a city like Los Angeles is pretty big and even if you try to foster diversity within that group, then if you're getting them from schools or going to school to recruit them, do you focus on specific zip codes? I mean, there gotta be accessibility.
Dr. Brandon Nicholson: Right. Right.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: How do you structure your programs in terms of location? Are they all over the city or are they in one specific location and people converge there?
Dr. Brandon Nicholson: That's definitely a fair question. We're willing to draw from as far away as folks can reasonably be and still attend programming regularly, avoid ongoing and, and chronic transportation and attendance issues, things of that nature. So yes, ultimately, you know, we have to kind of draw boundaries. We don't tend to use zip codes, it's just understanding for any given environment, any given community, what would it take to get to where our program site will be, what's realistic. And then there are always gonna be folks who are seeking to effectively be an exception as well. And they say, "Well, you know, we'll make the extra trip. I work on that side of town and even though we live on the other side, I can bring them and you know, pick them up every day." And so, in some instances we have those conversations, but yes, to your point, we try and use some wisdom and common sense.
And it depends on the environment. You know, in, in Oakland and our other site in the Bay Area, Richmond, we can pull combined from three, four, five counties to be able to have folks participate in our programming because the nature of movement around, uh, these communities, transportation, public transportation, et cetera. In some communities, we're only just gonna be on one side of town supporting a 30 to 40 block radius. And we're comfortable with either. At the end of the day, we recognize there will be opportunities as we continue to build, to create opportunities and programs in other parts of town as well. And that's for our most core and intensive work. So we also have entire, you know, vertical of programming just focused on collaborating with community organizations and having our alumni facilitate programming for young people who operate at those organizations.
And those cases we may send then our team to the other side of town or to an area immediately outside of our core or home area so that young people there can get access to programming. So we're always trying to be creative and intentional to make sure that there's opportunities.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Your program is 15 month, I think you said that there's a 800 entrance fee or engagement fee. What-
Dr. Brandon Nicholson: Oh, 800 hours. It's all free.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Oh, 800 hours. Okay.
Dr. Brandon Nicholson: Yes.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Sorry, I stand corrected.
Dr. Brandon Nicholson: Sometimes we wish we would've charged $800.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: (laugh). All right, so a 15-month training program, 800 hours. What is on the menu? What do you offer these young people specifically in terms of training?
Dr. Brandon Nicholson: So, we anchor in fundamental training and programming around computer science, technology, building technology, basic programming languages, web design languages. Then over time, more advanced application development, video game development, data backend programming, business entrepreneurship and design thinking, problem solving by way of creative and innovative design, just period even independently of tech. Um, really trying to meet young people where they are in their interests and their passions and building projects, but then weaving in these concepts and ideas that they can leverage and use hopefully to advance their thinking and production around the areas and issues that matter most to them. Thinking through their identity as individuals, as a collective, social issues, time together, even spent now more and more in play and having them spend more time just, just in fellowship.
You know, we make sure we, we feed them every program so they can break bread. Making sure they're able to connect with different organizations and companies in the community that may be doing important work or similar work and thinking through the meaning of that, the impact of that. So that could be, you know, in the Bay Area, visiting companies around the Bay, Silicon Valley, et cetera, and other cities. Checking out major companies, be they, you know, largely considered tech companies or not, in those communities, but just thinking about different ways to keep connecting young people with opportunity is the biggest charge for us. And so really bringing just a space together for them to learn and grow and we watch 'em do just that. And then as they complete the 15 months, they enter alumni status and we continue to, as I mentioned, invest in our alumni engagement strategy. We believe they're geniuses for life, so giving them opportunities to work with us and for us, or making sure they get connected to post-secondary education and training opportunities, internship.
Uh, we have alumni accelerator for alumni entrepreneurship accelerator for entrepreneurs from over 18 years old and different pathways they can continue to explore almost as if they were participating in a graduate program. So, trying to be creative, intentional, and find different ways to move the needle.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Geniuses for life.
Dr. Brandon Nicholson: Absolutely.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: That concept, how do you intend to keep that with your alum?
Dr. Brandon Nicholson: So, it was actually, I think, very much borrowing from the ethos of an organization that's been central to our founding story, the Ron Brown Scholar Program that was founded almost 30 years ago now in honor of the late Secretary of Commerce, Ronald H. Brown. And shortly after his passing, you know, in a tragic plane accident, friends, family, concerned community members were able to quickly spin up a scholarship program in his honor serving young people of African descent and supporting them to access higher education with scholarship funds, but under the larger umbrella and theme of developing a lifelong network for social change. And so, in many respects, you would come for the funding and the program and stay for the network. And so, they always have told us... and I have the great fortune of being an alum of that program and two of our other founders are as well. That's what effectively brought us together.
Their mantra is the, the value of one, the power of all. And they always say you're, you know, a scholar for life. So, we certainly wanted to build on that right away. You know, as we were founded in 2012, roughly a decade after two of our founders, Jason Young and Tracy Ty Moore II, you know, had met through the Ron Brown Scholar Program, roughly a decade after that, that we'd been able to get the Hidden Genius Project in motion. And it was very fortuitous timing, I think, in so many ways, but that's a decade removed from us having this core experience of receiving the scholarship and this was what was able to happen. So, bringing these young men together who could be in community for even more hours, to learn much more together side by side, build together, have tough times and get through those and all that together. We believe that they have unlimited potential, and it would be no limits to whatever ideas they could put together, whatever power they could generate as a collective.
So, the idea of, you know, genius for life is about them staying together and continuing to build that network and then continuing to support each other. And then we have a number of Geniuses now who, as I mentioned, work for us and facilitate as alumni part-time. And then we have a handful fo- who even work for us full-time as educators and staff members, even supporting our development team, so... And we're very proud of that fact that these young men continue to carry the culture and carry the mantle for what quality looks like in our program.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: 2012 to today, that's 12 years. Yeah, your program has been working with young people that long. How many of you trained and how many are you currently engaging with?
Dr. Brandon Nicholson: Yeah. So, over the course of the past 12 years, uh, we've reached, you know, something on the order of, as we've now gotten into this summer, close to, uh, between six and 700, I think, young men in our most intensive programming, actually closer to 700. And then, you know, over all of our programming, about 12,000 young people, including our international programming, our programming with community partners, our single events and everything in between. One of the most proud aspects of that is that we hear for that 12,000, most of those numbers have been served by alumni of our program. And that's been just a, a, a huge point of pride for us over the years just to know that again, you know, we keep talking about the rising tide lifting all boats, but that our young people are ultimately leading the charge around the world. So, it's a huge benefit for us, uh, a huge point of pride.
We're so excited to keep building on this legacy. We actually just hosted last week for the first time ever our first ever what we call a Genius for Life Summit, so our first ever alumni summit for young men, particularly our alumni over 18, since they could travel and you could support them without having to have too much chaperoning, but you know, as a convening nationally, right, of our young men. Some of them flew in directly from taking their finals in college, whatever it might be, but we're, you know, extremely proud to have had that opportunity and it was a tremendous time for us. So, seeing what the future holds and knowing that we had... You know, we had a short, small career expo. We had volunteers and different folks come up and participate in and demonstrate kind of what they do or connect with our young men one-to-one.
One of the coolest things was also having some of our alumni who are now working represent their companies at that same expo. And so we hope to keep building on that idea and that energy going forward.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: This is a big community that you've built. I presume many have gone on to universities. You mentioned that in passing some are now all working. 12 years is a long time. What is the ratio, girl to boy, in this program?
Dr. Brandon Nicholson: So, for the intensive, it's, you know, 100% black male youth who are boys and young men. When we get into the community, the ratio probably gets fairly close to 50/50 for most of our programs, unless we're doing a targeted program for boys. So, for example, when we went to Senegal, you know, working with the John Barnes Institute, which is the academy system and the surrounding educational and support infrastructure for young men in the academy system for the John Barnes FC Football Club in Saly, in Senegal. Of course, so that would've been an all-boys opportunity, but for example, when we went to down to Johannesburg, when we went to London, when we've programmed in other parts of the Bay Area or Michigan or Georgia, whatever it might be, typically those programs get pretty close to 50/50 in terms of gender balance.
We even have a number of select opportunities we're working primarily with girls and young women in partnership with organizations there, such as, you know, Compton Girls Club in Los Angeles, and still, it's our young men who are collaborating and our young alumni who are supporting facilitation. So, it's about having this very targeted and deep focus on boys and young men, you know, at our core, our most intensive program, but then creating as many opportunities as possible for the larger community who absolutely need and deserve it going forward. And we wanna make sure that we can help support advocacy for our girls, young women, non-binary, whomever it might be, to receive maximum support, maximum engagement as they continue from the best people who can provide that. And we want to be in partnership with those individuals.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: You are pioneers in many ways, blazing a trail in this space. What are the challenges that you still face after you've had a horizon out to look over? What are the main obstacles you're facing to get to where you need to get domestically, but also as you engage overseas?
Dr. Brandon Nicholson: Well, probably the number one challenge is that life is hard. The world is a big place and a small place, and it just takes every bit of our energy every day to be able to show up, do all the things we need to do in our lives, and then try and contribute value, whether that be in work, school or anything else. But I get excited by the challenge, gets me outta bed and ready to go early in the morning every day. Certainly, beyond that, we think about what it looks like to make sure we have adequate resources available to support young people holistically. And I, I should have mentioned that, that when we work with our most intensive program, you know, our cohort-based program, we have a support services strategy and dedicated team members, folks who can be there to provide, again, holistic supports to our youth participants, to work to remove barriers to not just their participation, but to their advancement and their ability to thrive and programming to support and engage with their families, adults, parents, guardians, et cetera.
So, making sure we have all the resources to be able to do that work and be able to support young people as they need, you know, is huge and, and we wanna make sure we can, you know, navigate that all the time. And then of course, we need great human resources all the time to hire people who believe in our mission, believe in our work, who believe in our young people and won't apologize for it and understand what it means to invest in a single group, for example, black boys and young men, and how that results in a much deeper, broader investment in a much larger group. So, starting there, you know, that's a huge piece. And I would say then of course, making sure people know who we are, making sure we can build the infrastructure and the partnerships necessary to continue to build and expand.
And then especially as we want to continue to do more in community, you know, whether it's building capacity with partners, uh, whether it's direct service, whether it's all of the above, making sure we have the wherewithal and the resources to understand the context in every community and make sure that we can operate. We, we recognize, for example, being in Africa, being in United Kingdom in Europe, you know, there's different rules, different political dynamics, and, and we're gonna have to be able to continue to learn that and probably bump our heads a few times recognizing that everything is like operating in the US or in the Bay Area or in Baltimore, Maryland for that matter. S, we've got to just keep developing and building so we can do more.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Keep developing and building so you can do more. On that note, I'd like to thank you Dr. Brandon Nicholson for joining us today to talk about this program that you're undertaking with the youth across the Atlantic.
Dr. Brandon Nicholson: Thank you. I definitely appreciate, and I should mention, you know, we are very excited to be collaborating with, as mentioned, John Barnes Institute, also LEAP Science and Maths Schools in South Africa. And we'll send a contingent back there to implement our curriculum and start phasing in our curriculum in their secondary schools in South Africa. And we're always trying to make sure we can get the word out about our work, but certainly that of our partners. And so, people can always check us out at our website at hiddengeniusproject.org or check out our social channels. You can subscribe to our newsletter at our website, but we're on, uh, Facebook and X and LinkedIn, I believe even TikTok and Instagram as well. So, if that's where you are, hopefully we'll find you there as well.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Thank you, Brandon Nicholson. Thank you.
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