Jason Young – MindBlown Labs
Harvard graduate, JASON YOUNG, is the Founder & CEO of MindBlown
Labs, ,an education technology company based on Oakland, CA that creates
highly interactive, experiential learning tools to empower young people to make
better life decisions. Its first financial capability solution is Thrive
'n' Shine, a captivating mobile app/game that teaches teens and young
adults about personal finance. This game player creates a
character, chooses a career and then starts making choices about where to live,
what to buy or spend money on, and how to save for things like college, tuition
or mortgages. Young was inspired to start this company after
watching his mother, a single parent, go through an eviction from their home
after not being able to keep up with a high interest mortgage loan that
ultimately exceed the family’s income capacity. It was apparent to
Young at that time the importance of making the sound financial decisions.
Young was recently appointed to the President’s
Advisory Council on Financial Capability for Young People. The
Council is focused, as Young understands it, on “creating tangible and
innovative partnerships between public and private organizations that will
drive change. Young is also the co-founded of the Hidden
Genius Project which was designed to help low-income youth learn
coding skills and develop work habits.
MindBlown Lab’s goal is to
impact 20 million teens and young adults by the year 2020. They are pursuing
this goal by partnering with high schools, colleges, non-profits, and other
institutions that can help us scale our impact.
Kimberly Bryant – Black Girls CODE
Kimberly Bryant is the Founder and Executive
Director of Black Girls CODE, a non-profit organization in Oakland, CA
dedicated to introducing girls of color (ages 7-17) to the field of technology
and computer programming with a concentration on entrepreneurial concepts. Since
2011 Ms. Bryant has helped Black Girls CODE grow from a local organization
serving only the Bay Area, to an international non-profit organization with
chapters in seven U.S. cities and Johannesburg, South Africa serving over 2000
African/African-American, Latina, and Native American girls. Black
Girls CODE offices are located at HUB Oakland, 1423 Broadway
Street, Oakland, CA
Black Girls CODE is devoted to showing the
world that black girls can code, and do so much more. By reaching
out to the community through workshops and after-school programs, the company
introduces computer coding lessons to young girls from underrepresented
communities in programming languages such as Scratch or Ruby on Rails. By
promoting classes and programs, Bryant hopes to grow the number of women of
color working in technology and give underprivileged girls a chance to become
the masters of their technological worlds.
Bryant has enjoyed a very successful 20+ year
professional career in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries as an
Engineering Manager in a series of technical leadership roles for various
Fortune 100 companies such as Genentech, Merck, and Pfizer. In 2013
Bryant was selected by Business Insider as one of the “The 25 Most Influential
African- Americans in Technology” she was also honored as a Champion of Change
by the White House for her work in tech inclusion and for her focus on bridging
the digital divide for girls. Bryant has been identified as a thought leader in
the area of tech inclusion.
Hack The Hood – Google Grant Challenge Winners
An Oakland-based
organization, Hack the Hood, which trains youth how to build
websites for local nonprofits and small businesses, has received a $500,000
grant from Google as part of its 2014 Bay Area Impact Challenge. Research
shows that students from low-income communities aren’t exposed to the math and
science training, or tech mentors that lead to job opportunities in the field. Without
this access, these students are underprepared for careers in science and
technology. Hack the Hood will address digital equity by
training low-income kids to build websites for local small businesses, actively
supporting them to launch their own tech careers. In two years, 5,000 students
will support over 25,000 businesses across the Bay Area and receive technology
training. The grant will also help the organization
expand in Oakland as well as in the five counties in the immediate Bay Area. In
addition, the organization will use the grant to expand its curriculum and
training materials and develop partnerships with nonprofits and schools.
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