Brandon Nicholson, The Hidden Genius Project

from the Oakland Hills to Jack London Square from the port to the Coliseum this is Talk of the Town an in-depth conversation about the people and issues important to Oakland hello I'm Dave Clark I am so glad you're here welcome to another edition of Talk of the Town I've got a great program a great guest he's one of the truly Great Men of the city of Oakland and I'm happy to be able to sit down with him for just a little bit please meet Brandon Nicholson your program The Hidden genius project caught my eye the first time I heard of it in a nutshell first of all thank you for being here thanks for having me appreciate it thank you for having the hidden genius project if you had to put in the nutshell what it is what is it sure will you know we always start with our mission and uh we always make sure all of our Geniuses have it memorized yeah but it's uh to train a mentor black male Youth and Technology creation entrepreneurship and Leadership skills to transform their lives and communities um since 2012 we've been working intensively with black boys and young men in high school the cohort based model in our intensive immersion program where they spend about 15 months and 800 hours with us to learn the fundamentals of computer science Business and Entrepreneurship and Leadership all centered hopefully on their own interests and passions but you know allowing them to build a rich peer Network you know sense of commitment and belief in themselves and then also a commitment to you know serving their communities in various ways while also you know transforming you know their own circumstance and uh you know we've been doing it starting in Oakland you know since 2012 again with first cohort of five young people and now uh this year we've gosh got four cities already up and running and two more along the way which cities are we talking about Oakland Richmond Los Angeles Detroit Michigan Chicago Illinois Atlanta Georgia Bravo man yes that's incredible no it's been a great run and then ultimately we're here to inspire and encourage our young people Elevate their potential as leaders and help them get to where they want to go so a lot of people associate us with technology and you know talk about as transforming you know opportunities or Pathways to Silicon Valley and things like that but honestly that's that's more of a byproduct and if it happens at all if we have an entire cohort of young people who want to be chefs or plumbers and that's their dream then that's what we're here to support them to do what we really want to do is make sure they can get as much exposure as possible understand the opportunities that are available to them stay ready so this week so they don't have to get ready and and then you know and the best scenarios and certainly leverage the skills they acquire to help them be better plumbers or chefs or whatever it is and technology is in and around everything we do and so there's always opportunities to build on that and also to be entrepreneurial in the process that that is so great to hear but let me just throw in real quick yeah I love what I do being on television right but I was also a licensed plumber nice I was a 16 year old journeyman plumber in Philadelphia many years ago so I I'm all four of those skills but I tell people about the hidden genius project all the time how does a young man get into that right well yeah thank you for spreading the word yeah I do um you know uh they get get into it any number of ways you've got a host of phenomenal Partners we've been working with for years uh and then some new partners especially when we're getting into new communities um but you know word of mouth is critical so much of what we do centers on not just our young people but our young people in that intensive who then turn into alumni yeah those alumni go on to then facilitate additional programming in the community be it single events known as our Catalyst programs or a series of events and uh program series known as our Community Partnership programs where we're actually collaborating with local organizations that will then allow our alumni to facilitate programming at their sites so you look at East Oakland Youth Development Center a ball to see different organizations we have partners with our Partnerships with where our alumni will actually effectively be resident Educators there you know two times a week for six weeks or sometimes even year round so you know we have different ways to get our tentacles into the community and then people get to know who our young people are right and that's the best uh marketing of all right that's them being kind of the proof of concept and so you know people will refer young people we even you know at this time right now we're sending both our alumni and also some of our staff out in the community to make presentations to invite the next wave of young people and Community to apply to our next cohorts um and you know there's always going to be family members and you know faith-based uh you know leaders in you know School leaders and Educators and the whole thing who are always telling our young people about us and that's really our ultimate goal you know we started here and so we've got some incredible traction and over certainly in Richmond as well as we continue to build we really always want every Community to feel a sense of investment in what we do we want them to feel like it's their program yeah and so that means that the work we do to connect young people to our program to help people understand the opportunity it's got to start you know at the Grassroots yeah and everybody's going to understand and believe in what we do but talk about the young men the ages of the young men how young are they how old are they and if a parent and I do hear from parents who sing you know well you talk about that hidden genius project how do I put in an application how do I mean what do I do sure well certainly uh you know we've got young men from all walks we're very intentional even as we serve black boys and young women specifically yeah we're very intentional about trying to build heterogeneous cohorts meaning we're going to have a a mix of young people from you know those who have two parents in the home and they're going to be the second or third generation possibly to you know attend higher or enroll in higher education to you know young people into foster care who may maybe doing any number of things for the first time in their family and everyone in between and so with that they all have something they can learn from each other you know a lot of times people sometimes funders or people in the community or whatever might be kind of use a shorthand in the sense that they'll say well you know who are you serving um you know hopefully you're not just serving all the guys that are going to make it anyway right yeah and for me just to be honest you know I I think and immediately respond you know if you know a bunch of black boys or young men who are going to make it anyway uh just because then make sure you can introduce them to me because they've never met them right we all need some work yeah I had incredible support and resources growing up and yet nothing's a given can't take anything for granted right we all need a stronger Network and so you have young men really who have such esoteric interests such varied interests and and dreams and and beliefs and it's all about bringing them together so really if there's just a young person you know who's identifying as a black boy and young men were trying to create space for them to be at the uh front and center in the class photos of this week right here in a safe space where they can make mistakes um try things on Annoy Us but you know not be you know penalized for it right yeah be given an opportunity to try again Excel and and then support others and so you know when young people are thinking about coming to our program or sometimes they're in middle school or younger you know they may be able to find us at some of the partners um that we work with around the city of Oakland and elsewhere and so you know again I named a few different centers and there's other places where we've been fortunate to work in so sometimes they'll look up and realize that their children might be in the third grade and have been learning from hidden Geniuses and just didn't know it and then we have events we put on the community sometimes on our own every you know Computer Science Education week in December we have an annual event called brother's code on the Saturday of Computer Science Education week it'll be in 2023 it'll run on December 9th that's a great opportunity for boys young men of color middle school and high school to come out and get exposure to the space and do Hands-On workshops connect with all our partners um you know and then for the folks who are entering our immersion we're serving High school-aged young people so usually age you know 14 to 17 or we sometimes meet them at 13. so you can apply as an eighth grader going into ninth grade and so uh you know we always encourage families to apply online at our website and of course we actually leave our application open pretty much year round now so you know even if you know whenever this airs and we miss a cycle yeah you can try and catch the next one right so um you know for that we're just looking at young people who are willing to do it try it on and hang in it's it's a long time when you're 15 years old and you're giving up 15 months and two summers that are seven weeks Monday through Friday seven to eight hours a day really you can feel like a serious commitment yeah um so we want to know that folks are willing to hang tough and at certain times they're going to not want to do it they might miss a couple days and we're going to hang in there with them as well yeah um but also I would say you know it's not just about the folks that are in the program uh or in session as it were you know it's very important for us to support our alumni and as I mentioned we have a number of alumni who work for us yeah um but also uh you know we always live by the Mantra genius for life so we're always trying to support young men as they're trying to get to the next step complete high school you know figure out what they want to do afterwards it's in college entrepreneurship employment All the Above and then you know continue from there and make sure they can get all the supports they need but also support others it's not also point out just that we've got six alumni now working for us full time in a couple dozen at least who are working with us part-time so we take that part really seriously and you now have a building we do here in Oakland we do uh it's our national headquarters in Oakland you know uh in Downtown Oakland uh at a 1441 Franklin Street and you know it's it's been such a journey for us having started at a donated space in the old Community Bank of the bay building 17th and Broadway yeah and then having shifted after about a year and a half to donated space at 17th and Telegraph in the old Latham theater building and just kind of moving around and kind of always being in an awkward situation that's based and finally moving to a office of Our Own in 2017 with another partner Oakland natives give back and you know us being in a situation where we're still emerging trying to have the means and resources to and be in and build a comfortable space and Oakland natives get back was actually kind of the big sister to us to you know make sure we could come along because we were basically being pushed out of our previous space here at 17th and Telegraph so to fast forward to 2022 and you know see us now being able to actually acquire a building that can you know house with all of its 20 21 000 square feet you know multiple organizations including Oakland natives give back now who we can support in organizations like team Inc and representative leadership and then we have even additional organizations working in a community co-working space so really we have eight or nine black-led Community organizations in our space right now and we're extremely proud of that and um just knowing that there's a you know a space for our young people and our team our community just to come to and know that it's theirs is definitely really exciting and rewarding so you bought that building we did we had a lot of great help uh and not the least of which was from the uh sister Butner Family Foundation you know developed us you know jump into uh it was an incredible man he's an incredible man absolutely and we're grateful for hazel for it yeah um you know he's instrumental really inspiring us to do it and effectively seating us uh to you know uh be able to kind of start to work the logistics as a work but it was something that sounded extremely terrifying to me yeah um you know I just wanted to find a new lease in the middle of this kind of shift uh in the in the midst of the pandemic as folks are trying to get out of their leases all I was thinking about with our team was you know how do we find some habitation exactly yeah yeah and you know uh I would say CES was the one who said hey maybe you should think about finding space that you can you know required to build stability for what you do but also to create that same stability for your partners and offer an opportunity to have a real beacon in the community for our young people and the community writ large just to be able to come and be proud that it's there and so that was a much different type of exercise and a lot more responsibility but we're definitely grateful to him and everyone who supported us along the way because there have been many supporters for inspiring us to do it and continue on with it and now you know every day we're learning something new but it's been great yeah we're talking to Brandon Nicholson of the Hidden genius project in Oakland and in cities just constantly expanding where did you come from are you a native of Oakland I am anyway uh proud native of Oakland and you know proud to be talking about the town of course right um yeah I think you know for me I've always loved this city and I always knew I I wanted to do whatever I could to build here be here create as many opportunities as possible yeah and you know it was hard even growing up and even still today imagining you know not being here I definitely love to travel I love to see new places and meet new people there's nothing like the flight uh coming home you know right when you land and you get home after a great visit and and I think that's always been you know my posture my affect and so I've done this as much as I could you know growing up in Oakland schools through eighth grade and actually attended a prep school in Marin County for high school and that's really cemented my interest and passion for educational equity and policy you know just understanding the you know disparate opportunities available to young people and communities across even just the Bay Area right and uh you know from there I decided okay this is probably what I'll commit my life to and it studied public policy and undergraduate and in graduate school I studied educational policy and uh you know just kept going from there but yeah I love it here all the ups all the Downs it's home for me and it's you know interesting phenomenon because I think growing up so many of us when I say as myself and my friends and just people in my generation I think we probably take for granted that Oakland was uh expectation or a choice for us what's been interesting I think in the last 10 to 15 years right yeah we've seen so much transition and shifting and then you actually can't take take it for granted that you can be here and so I think then that shifted some of my awareness and Consciousness around what opportunities can I help support how can I be part of this ecosystem and make sure that as many of our community who want to be here and want to stay here can so I definitely don't take it for granted or don't take it lightly now that I still get to be here in this town that I grew up in and love so much all right you know I'm really proud of you I'm really proud of you talk about the Partnerships that you have you have a variety of Partnerships Business Leaders who help you and companies and tell me about those well it's definitely an anxiety-inducing exercise you know because there's no way that you could have a a great show that people will continue to watch if I just sat here and listed out for the next 17 18 minutes all our partners but we haven't accomplished anything of note on our own and so just starting back in 2012 we were very much seated with the little bit of money that we had and that which didn't come out of our Founders Pockets by the Alumni Association of a scholarship program that I and two of our founding group were Partners or uh alumni of the Ron Brown scholar program named for Ronald H Brown yes late secretary for Commerce Administration and that was huge as his legacy you know basically you know dying in a plane crash in the Balkans and within a year having a scholarship named in his honor that would afford forty thousand dollar scholarships to 20 or so young people of African descent entering College every year and I was fortunate I believe to be in the sixth class 79 but fifth class but just understanding that Legacy and the Mantra the value of one the power of all yeah you know that was the first partnership that made all this go because it was the power of all these alumni coming together to try and build the hidden genius project right that created all of this one of our earliest Partners from there the cape War Center and Cape War Foundation yes it's a just again give us a quick kick start we were a volunteer driven Organization for our first two and a half years and so keep horse really one of the first Orcs to Believe in Us and start putting us on the path and then over the last decade it's been just a Cascade of Partners I would just call out a few which is again ridiculous and anxiety induced because my apologies in advance right no but I don't apologize I would say when we started in Oakland I mentioned we were moving around in spaces and eventually in 2015 we started to build a staff and build a team and then expand our offerings and increase our cohorts but we needed space and infrastructure to do it yeah and it was the Brotherhood of Elders Network and partnership with occur and the David E Glover education Technology Center that offered us an opportunity to be able to host our programming and our cohorts at the David E Glover Center in summer of 2015 so we could have shared space and we had no planner no means to do anything else so that was huge for us and it's just been from there you know in Richmond the rise enter uh you know looking at you know our partners as I mentioned Oakland natives give back East Oakland Youth Development Center who was critical and instrumental in us being able to train our young people as youth Educators and youth facilitators even to this day you know we piloted one of their first rounds of curriculum planning and educator training young people and now we've had this relationship almost seven or eight years which has been incredible um I would talk about certainly of course some of our corporate partners and funder Partners we know that that Google has been such a big part of what we've done and gave us one of our first big shots in the arm you know the Golden State Warriors have been huge helping us move around and be active and and increase our visibility the San Francisco Foundation was one of our earliest investors uh smaller foundations like Miranda Lux foundation and and just All-Stars helping kids riding lots of organizations exactly yeah so we have so many and then you start running around the country right and we have so many partners Nationwide as well so many schools so many just people in the community who have worked extremely hard for us you know Kaiser Permanente just so many organizations Comcast and we see Universal that have been with us going back seven eight nine years and you know we're extremely grateful for all of them and for everyone who wants to know more about our partners you can always visit us you know but but uh we have many we're very fortunate paint a picture if you can of what the young man are doing in that building in your building now at the hidden genius I I just want to imagine right what they're doing and explain to some people who don't know what coding is Right sometimes I'd rather not think about what a bunch of adolescent boys are doing in our building right now you know especially yeah but I'm not there but I know I think you know we have during the summer as I mentioned seven weeks of intensive programming during the school year we have them all come together weekly and one Saturday a month and during all of that time they're effectively escaping around between learning the fundamentals of computer science programming coding as it were designed sometimes game development so we're always having them first anchor and who they are who they are and what they want to do yeah so they're building websites about themselves they're building their very first calculators or you know their very first games to help them understand basic and fundamental concepts around algorithms or order of instructions that make a process happen right and then from there they're also thinking about how they can do so in a way that allows them to be entrepreneurial whether that's starting a business or just understanding how to innovate create problem solve and build even in structures where you may be an employee or you may be in school or whatever it might be you can still be entrepreneurial but that all is woven together around our third pillar of leadership when you look at which is what it means to be a young person in our community what it means to identify as black in our community what it means to commit to trying to elevate not just ourselves but others in alignment with the concept of umutu or I am because we are therefore we are because I am and we see these all as symbiotic as mutually yeah it all works together and then from there we ask them to spend the latter part of their 15 months building their own Capstone project whether it's their own app or business model or whatever it might be and we've seen some incredible projects as you mentioned you know we look at coding for programming it's really just building the infrastructure to you know develop a software or some programmer application that'll operate usually on our phone or the computer or website what have you um and it's really just a set of instructions we're plugging in um they're referred to as languages usually coding languages and many of them might be somewhat distinct but follow very similar either syntax or uh order or Frameworks as it were and so a lot of times you can learn one language and that makes it easier to learn the next or what have you but again it's all different ways to try and get a machine to you know bang out a few instructions so you making something really cool having on the back end so can the young man ever fail out of hidden genius excuse me you know I would say there's probably a few young men who've tried okay but you know ultimately your goal is to keep them well no yeah we believe genius for life and yeah excuse me each of us has our own Journey our own trajectory yeah and if life for linear then the hidden genius project probably wouldn't need to exist and so we've had young people who've started and left started and hung around but not completed their Capstone project um started and we don't know what to call it but that we continue to reach out to them or have them come back and you're still part of them absolutely and to this day you know when we do the Capstone project we actually offer a closing stipend to complete that project and it's a graduate scale so if you complete it on time at the very end of your second summer you know you get a certain amount if you complete it the following week it's 50 viewer completed the following week it's fifty dollars for your complete it the next week is 50 fewer but from then on it's the same amount even if you do it three years four years later and so we've had young people who got through their 15 months didn't finish their project but since it's a requirement to train and be hired as an alumni youth educator they came back maybe three years later they're like hey you know I'd love to get hired I'd love to go with you all in one of your International trips what do I need to do we say you got to finish your project still we'll still give you the stipend and they've done it so um we know that in our society in our spaces the educational spaces tend to be far too punitive and lack a real sense of compassion and sense of support for our young people we very much still believe in accountability as an act of love to have expectations to hold people accountable even to their own norms and standards that they build as a community and yet we can do all that without having to you know ship guys out or suspend them or what have you so we're always here to keep that conversation going and we've got a great team including our Support Services team we have people in each site who are working specifically on what we call Care Management you know making sure our young people have the support they need and they can get some of the things that might be in the way out of the way so they can be successful you know as we start to winding down what do you see down the line five years 10 years 30 years 200 years how big and how important particularly in forming the lives of young black men how big could this be or do you want it to be right well I think ultimately we want to be in a position to rise to the occasion answer the bill meet the needs of our communities you know across the African diaspora um starting of course with Oakland and you think about California then we think of course National and we've been able to have the privilege of traveling to Johannesburg South Africa and London England and program with young people there and youth of Keller there black children there and have had our minds blown so in reality that the sky's the limit I think it's so critical for us to Anchor our work in an assets-based framework meaning looking at our young people for what they are and who they can be not what they're not not what the gaps are not with the data you know the data tell us is just not enough or compared to so-and-so and that's important at first I think for the obvious reason nobody wants to sit around and be talked about like something's wrong with them all the time yeah it's really hard to get to what's right when we're stuck there but secondly when we think about our longevity we hope that we're addressing evolving challenges right and not just having address and solve the same ones like you said if you're thinking 200 years out I think we'd love for the hidden genius project to be an entity an organization an institution that's driving what it means to elevate honor Center and Inspire young people and watch them continue to you know take all the challenges that may arise head on but that we're not stuck on the same one with that we don't need that same challenge to exist in order for us to survive so to speak right that really that we can be a leading organization and inspiring young people black boys and young men and others but especially those of the African diaspora to be their best to innovate to be able to have access to the resources and networks to bring all that to Bear because it's all there we see it every day in our society we see young people especially now with the Advent of social media we always see our young people innovating being creative and doing incredible things and building things that we never could have dreamed of so we know the potentials there we just need to keep affording them a platform and tell people how to contact you how to contact hidden genius and how easy that is sure well we're very fortunate to have a fantastic presence both online at our website hiddengeniusproject.org certainly on just about any social Channel but certainly at Hidden genius Pro on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook slash the hidden genius project we're on LinkedIn as well now we do have some Tick Tock I'm just not in there nearly as much but for anybody watching for sure and of course you know we've got a newsletter that you know we release every month that tells a story of a new genius and their journey to becoming an Alum and you know all the cool things they've been able to accomplish and we've been able to run a new Genius of the month story every month since May of 2017 so yeah I think it's just for that it's worth signing up we'll try not to spam your inbox too much but um yes and of course uh look out for us you know and ask ask your schools about us or ask your other community organizations and perhaps you're already collaborating or perhaps that's the spark that'll catalyze is being able to build together and collaborate and maybe we'll have Geniuses uh you know coming to a neighborhood near you who are facilitating programming for your seven-year-old or your 11 year old so definitely check us out um and you know we just appreciate all of our communities certainly in Oakland Richmond the bay area but you know beyond everyone is supporting us continuing to spread the word we we always appreciate it and it matters a great deal to Our Success well let me just say again I I am so proud of you I've been proud of you for a long time for what you do what you represent and I love getting the emails from the young men from hidden genius telling me about this event is coming up and Dave Clark you should be there and I my schedule's been Wild I haven't been able to do everything I wanted to do but I planned to and I want to see your new building you got to come check it out for sure and I'll certainly say you know you've been a tremendous support for us and we're proud of you as well thank you for being out there for us and setting that example thank you Brandon Nicholson the hidden genius project thank you for being here thank you for spreading the word of hidden genius and I'll just congratulate you on credit for even greater things thank you and the best to you and your family absolutely likewise same for yours thank you thank you and I thank you for joining us we'll see you next time on talk at the town thank you

Channel: KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco

Views: 315

Keywords: Talk of the Town, KTVU, Dave Clark KTVU, Brandon Nicholson, Hidden Genius Project

Id: 2wxZuESsTZA

Length: 34min 6sec (2046 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 24 2023