Transcript

Changing the world through technology: Oscar Menjivar at TEDxEmbryRiddle

last night as I was coming in here and on the plane I thought to myself and I said I was going to talk to them about how inner-city kids are selling the tech world on fire but then I said to myself you know let's tell them how inner-city boys are changing the world through technology before I start willing to tell you a story about myself and how this first started you might look at this picture and think that's a third world country it actually is 1992 South Central Los Angeles after the riots during those times the inner city boys had two options either you become a victim to the streets or you hustle to survive when you walk to school you had to decide and negotiate with gangs do I wear a blue color or do I wear a red color if you were smart probably just were white when you got to school the school today told you we're going to go was gonna be a magnet technology campus after four years I discovered all it was it was a magnet typing class that we had discouraged I started skipping school unfortunately enough for me I found my mentor my coach this coach not only took me from the hallways when I was ditching school but he gave me options he said look Oscar either I take you to the principal and you get suspended but I play lacrosse sticks in your hands and you learn how to play a sport that it's gonna work open new worlds for you for me was a easy choice summer go play lacrosse now for the first kid in the inner city to play lacrosse what this did for me with this tool gave me was it open a new world he gave me a chance to look at people who are not from the same socio-economic place that I was in La Crosse's some of you may know it's a very wealthy sport so I was able to interact with kids from a different perspective kids from a different background and he gave me a chance that I think dream big and tell myself I can do something more than just the walls of my local community at first it was very hard to play lacrosse catching that ball however my culture if you stick to it if you practice you will get better I became one of the best across players in Los Angeles they say if you become determined you will succeed but I need you to stay focused I don't need you to lose the focus with the distractions happening around you so I want you to make sure that you continue pushing forward and I did years later I graduated with computer information system degree and then later on I graduated with a master's in educational technology I was successful building and an aids consulting firm serving local schools around Los Angeles and serving them with technology axes after doing it for a very long time somebody invited me to go speak to a class of 60 students are by old school during that time I had 60 students in front of me I said how many of you guys know what a website is only five kids raise your hand and then I asked how many of you guys know how to put a website together or create a website nobody raised her hands this was only five years ago so I realized there's something happening here their kids had know how to hack to disturber there's got to be some talent there but there's also kids have no idea of how to do this we might be missing some talent I also discovered that in my neighborhood things hadn't changed that much 55 percent of the young man in the inner city today are dropping out of high school 85% of those were either end up unemployed or incarcerated the tension rooms today are filled with young black and Latino men you have another option to either also the street or figure out a way to survive so we decided with a friends of us who say let's get together and do something about it we know that these kids won have very good negotiation skills they have to use it in the streets all the time and - they're very creative because they have to survive from very limited resources so we started a program called urban Tech's urban teens exploring technology where encourage young black man and Latino man had become technology entrepreneurs and the way we go out and recruit them we would say is I'm looking for the best of the best the best students that I can find and that doesn't mean that you have to have the best grades that just means that you have to be hungry and have a passion to change your community through technology that's what I'm looking for how do I recruit them well very easy I Drive down the street sometimes I see kid in the corner he's reading a book that kid must be a very smart kid I got to put him into the into the classroom he comes in and developed something amazing what's been successful for us to us up to this day so we have a hundred percent retention rate within our program and 100% of our kids now are going to four-year schools what happens is that we bring in our own role models role models have gone through our program and our big universities for example here you will see Marcos a student from Stanford who have gone through our program and I was coming back to teach other kids how to do this a young one now is able to see Marco and say I want to be like Marco I want to become an engineer I want to become a computer scientist and he's able to get that passion through him we have high expectations for our students expectations that they want to change something different the only question we ask during the summer program is what is one problem that your community has that you can change through technology and they go ahead and and address that for example one of our kids decided that you know in my neighborhood people don't know about careers in stem there are no about careers in business so I'm gonna develop platform for them to do this however they go through the toughest part in our program which is being able to be committed and be able to be too determined to succeed within three weeks into the program the kid that you see up here in the middle said to me Oscar this is too hard for me there's no way I can sit down code this sign express my ideas to peers I don't do this this is not what I'm taught in school I'm gonna quit I looked at him and I say Anthony if you could if you quit today you're gonna have a harder time in the future trying to complete something that you start I want you to stay with us and I promise you that if you stay with us you will be successful I promised you that if you stay with us we'll help you to get over those obstacles that you have I said however I understand this is tough it is tough to sit down it is tough to be committed it is tough to express your ideas so I'm gonna have you make the decision over the weekend think about it if you come back Tuesday great if you don't you can always apply next year and do it all over again our programs our program starts at 10:00 in the morning I came in to Tuesday morning at 8:00 in the morning open the door the first kid I see there is Anthony and he said Oscar there's no way I can quit now I got a stick it through and I promise you that I'm gonna do my best Anthony today it's one of the leaders at his local middle school he's only in the eighth grade but now his starting a technology were like a Technology Center at his local middle school and he's inviting other kids to do the same thing and this is the beauty of it with our kids look this is not her success is not hard it just takes a lot of work we're starting to find our kids are learning how to dream again they're learning to have hope they learn to think about what I want to do in the future how can I change my community with technology one of the problems one of the kids brought up he said ask you know my school is tell me that I have to do community service hours but I hate going to the library and picking up books cleaning them put him back in the Shelf I don't want to do that that's boring to me but I still got complete this um there's hours so he said I'm gonna go ahead and develop an algorithm an iPhone app there has an algorithm where it's gonna match my interests with a nonprofit that I would want to work for you know is that oh my god how am I going to do this I don't know how to develop an iPhone and we threw him into the project you know we gave him a coach and he started going at it after eight weeks he had to figure out how to do this algorithm and created this iPhone app for himself now he's the only 15 year old in all South delay in all what that's walking around with an iPhone app and that he can say I'm gonna be a businessman and I'm gonna change my community with this new technology that I have the beauty of it is that he has learned not only to be dedicated but to be committed but also to depend on his peers to know that his peers can help and he can ask for help and help will come to him another kid came to us and said Oscar I want to make sure that I can run around my neighborhood in my neighborhood there's no safety zones where I can go run in my neighborhood if I run in the wrong place I can get in trouble so I'm gonna develop a platform an online platform where kids can choose where to go run and we're gonna create safe routes and then we're gonna invite other kids to run with us and we're gonna share that on Facebook and share it on Twitter and then include an entire community and that's what he went ahead and did I'm so happy to say that this fall he went and pitched it to different investors and we're waiting to see we get funded and he's only 16 years old and that's what the South Central LA the inner city is doing today is changing the world through technology because they've taken what they people have said that they can do they take into problems in their own communities and using technologies to revolutionize it and to do something new but it takes more than just a program we have to give this kid access we have to build their confidence and by the way that we do that today that would take them to different technology companies at the end of the program we go up to Silicon Valley we visit Google headquarters it's really important that there are kids that don't have access to these companies are taken there and let me tell you why we were at Google getting a tour by an executive there one of our kids have been doing coding for 15 weeks and learned how to do this looks at a janitor and he tells the executive and says can you please hire me here even if it is a janitor the executive looked at him and said I don't need you here so January I need you here as a developer to help me change the world that in itself flipped the switch in the kid's mind when we're driving back down from Silicon Valley down to Los Angeles the kids said Oscar I know my family's in the dumps and I know we're poor right now by I promise you that I'm gonna get better grades i'ma go to Stanford and go work for Google that came today went from a 2.1 GPA to a 3.3 GPA and his focus and being determined to be able to work for Google and that Jim still alive it's it's amazing to see that kids today are changing your own community I tell everybody that in South LA we are developing the talent for technology in the future nobody has tapped into this talent yet nobody has invested in this community yet I was I was grateful and lucky that somebody put his time and his money into me when I was successful in my business I decided to do the same thing for these kids because I know that if we're gonna solve real issues in this world we need to have a diverse community in order for us to do that if we want to know how to solve the worst problems in low-income communities we have to be able to look at kids in those communities and ask them what is the best way that we can solve those problems there even are having an unfair advantage over anybody else because they're going to know exactly what needs to be done in order to solve the problems I believe that today the inner cities have the best talent that you can ever find technology the one thing we need to do is keep investing in them but we're not doing this alone you can help also you can spark the minds of those kids who will change the world through technology the only way we can do this is with your help today we still need mentors we still need coaches that can tell kids how to succeed in technology who can help him how to serve the arboretum that I can't solve but that you can solve and you can bring it up to think bigger than what they see in their own communities so I tell you today to please join us in this new movement and I thank you for being here with me