#114: Empowering developers at the Hidden Genius project Transcript
00:00 As most of you know, learning to program opens doors.
00:03 It takes everyday people and turns them into creators.
00:06 Once you know programming and Python, you've passed through a door to a place with much more opportunity.
00:12 Now consider the impact this could have if you grew up in an environment with less opportunity,
00:16 with fewer people you knew leading the way into software careers.
00:19 Today you'll meet Sean Valentine and Landon Miller helping run an amazing project
00:23 and Mohamed Abdullah and Malik Poole who graduated from this project.
00:28 It's called the Hidden Genius Project and it helps young black men become developers and entrepreneurs.
00:33 This is Talk Python to Me, episode 114, recorded live at PyCon 2017 in Portland, Oregon on May 20th, 2017.
00:56 Welcome to Talk Python to Me, a weekly podcast on Python, the language, the libraries, the ecosystem, and the personalities.
01:13 This is your host, Michael Kennedy.
01:16 Follow me on Twitter where I'm @mkennedy.
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01:32 Welcome to Talk Python.
01:34 Thank you.
01:35 Glad to be here.
01:36 Yeah, it's great to have you guys.
01:38 It's always wonderful to see people who have relatively fresh eyes looking at technology and programming
01:44 and all the stuff that goes on at these types of conferences in this ecosystem
01:49 and just hear how it's working for you as relatively new people in a programming.
01:54 So I'm super excited to have you on the show.
01:56 Malik, let's start with you.
01:57 How did you get interested in programming and get into this project that we're going to talk about?
02:02 I guess it really started off when I was kind of young.
02:05 I knew I wanted to be an engineer from like a really young age because I just loved messing with crap.
02:11 Yeah, that's awesome.
02:12 Like I've broken and occasionally fixed a couple of remotes like when I was really little and stuff.
02:18 And that's actually how I got involved with NSBE, which is another program, the National Society of Black Engineers.
02:25 And, you know, we always had these robotics competitions.
02:28 And there were, of course, different jobs for building the robot or handling the wires and stuff.
02:34 And my favorite part to do was the computer sequences, right, to determine what the robot was going to do.
02:39 And that's where I first found out that I really liked doing, you know, computer science and stuff like that.
02:46 And from there, I heard about the Hidden Genius Project and I just jumped into it.
02:50 That's a really inspiring story.
02:52 That's awesome.
02:52 Mohamed, how about yourself?
02:53 I would say for me in high school year, I was part of the Computer Academy.
02:57 And through that, we learned front-end programming languages.
03:03 And I really got interested in that.
03:05 But I would say the major focus when I really got into computer science is when I joined the Hidden Genius Project,
03:11 being able to build your own software through that program and connect with other companies.
03:17 So I think that really gave me the interest into going into the computer science.
03:23 Yeah, that's really cool.
03:24 I didn't know how it was for you guys growing up.
03:26 I was never super into math and science and engineering when I was in high school.
03:32 Once I got to college, I really, really loved it and went all in on it.
03:35 But programming always seemed like this thing that is like super smart people do that.
03:39 That's not really a thing for me when I was younger.
03:41 Do you feel like this whole experience has kind of made it like a little more, hey, I can totally do this.
03:46 Like this is a world that I fit in and I'm excited to be part of.
03:50 Definitely.
03:50 Yeah.
03:51 The whole Hidden Genius experience and, of course, coming here to PyCon and everything.
03:55 Yeah.
03:55 Definitely feel like this is something I can dive into.
03:58 Yeah, that's awesome.
03:58 How about you, Mahami?
03:59 I would say as far as looking into the computer science field, into that field, not a lot of representative diversity, not a lot of diversified people in that field.
04:10 So I think being able to work with the Hidden Genius Project and Code for Girls, a lot of these programs that aim to bring diversity into the field, I think that's been really the major focus in today's era.
04:23 Yeah, and I think that's really great.
04:25 You know, in this community, we have a long ways to go.
04:28 Yeah.
04:28 But there are some steps that are being made.
04:31 Like, so, for example, I think five years ago, 10 years, I don't know, sure, the number of speakers who were women, there was like 1%.
04:39 Last year, I think it was 40%.
04:41 There's a big move in this community to really be welcoming, and I think this Hidden Genius Project is just awesome.
04:46 Have you guys got a chance to meet the Django Girls over there?
04:49 No, actually.
04:50 Yeah, they're a special outreach group for women in programming.
04:53 Obviously a different group, but similar challenges that it's highly underrepresented.
04:57 So, awesome.
04:59 All right, Landon, let me ask you a little bit of a couple of questions about this project.
05:02 Like, what's your involvement in Hidden Genius?
05:04 Well, me personally, I'm a site coordinator.
05:07 I'm also an educator, so I work with the students, educating them, and in site coordinating, making sure that we get everything done that we need so that we can continue to grow and expand as we continue to move on.
05:18 That's awesome.
05:19 So, this is primarily a high school-oriented thing.
05:22 You more or less got to be at some stage in your high school career to join this project.
05:25 Yes, correct.
05:26 Right.
05:26 How did it get started, I guess?
05:28 Let's start there.
05:28 Like, what's, it's four or five years old, you guys said?
05:31 Yeah, so we're in our fifth year in Oakland, California.
05:35 And we're actually now developing, starting our first year in Richmond, California.
05:39 So, our first expansion.
05:40 Oh, how exciting.
05:41 What was the motivation to get started?
05:43 Just, we've got to do something that's not right, that there's this underrepresentation.
05:47 And, like, why are these guys not going, this is what I should be doing?
05:50 This is amazing, right?
05:51 Like, even bigger than that.
05:53 One of the things dealing with young youth, especially African American boys, is this stigma that's been dropped on us, that you have to work twice as hard for half the recognition.
06:05 And when you look at the computer science field, this is really the field where your work can actually speak for you first.
06:11 Before your name is seen, before your face is seen, your work is normally seen.
06:16 And so, this was an avenue where we could actually show the creativity, the value, and how much we actually can touch our communities firsthand and let our work speak for us.
06:27 That's really one of the more stronger motivational factors is being able to expose this lane, this avenue, to these students and to our geniuses.
06:36 So that not only can they move forward in a career if they choose to in this path, but also know how to advocate for themselves in entrepreneurship.
06:44 That's such a great message.
06:45 I really think we still have a long ways to go for this to be purely a meritocracy.
06:49 It's just what you do speaks for you because, obviously, what you get exposed to growing up, if your best friend's dad's a programmer, it seems really sort of like, oh, he does it, I can do it, whatever.
07:02 But there is a lot more meritocracy here.
07:05 It's a lot more, hey, I put this open source project up.
07:07 It seemed really cool.
07:09 People checked it out.
07:10 And maybe they don't know anything about you.
07:12 And a lot of your work does speak for you.
07:14 And I think that's really interesting that you guys are identifying that basically as an avenue.
07:19 And I have to quote our programs director.
07:22 You know, tech is wherever you're at.
07:24 Yeah.
07:24 And so a lot of people look at the demographics of living in a certain way.
07:28 But you don't have to necessarily be in Silicon Valley.
07:32 You can be right where we're at and actually operate yourself with the Internet and whether it's building apps and building connections, showing these geniuses how they can actually be where they're at and they can actually be a reality right where they stand.
07:47 And they don't have to be a part of a certain society, a certain community, or be of a certain stature to actually have an impact.
07:54 That's so true.
07:55 And I think communities like Python, where primarily the tools here are free.
07:59 Python is free and open source.
08:01 You don't buy a thing to use it.
08:02 You just, if you have a computer and you have the Internet, you have this thing that you need, right?
08:06 And so it's, I guess the barrier to entry is pretty low, right?
08:10 There's not like you got to pay $1,000 for some fancy editor that's going to make it challenging.
08:15 And that's the thing, you actually have to know that because regardless, there are $1,000 programs out there that people will sell thinking that that's what you need.
08:23 But when we give the knowledge and we give the tools to these stones and see that they can go out and what we call fishing.
08:31 You can go out and fish for yourself and find these avenues that you don't have to necessarily be a part of these $1,000 and $2,000 and $10,000 programs to actually get the job done.
08:42 I think that's really awesome.
08:43 It's really awesome.
08:44 So tell me a little bit about the entrepreneurship side as well.
08:47 I think the tech is super empowering, but there's also this entrepreneurship side, you say?
08:52 Yeah.
08:52 So the entrepreneurship side is allowing the students, the geniuses, to actually be able to advocate for themselves in business.
08:58 And not only using tech for somebody else's need, but to also be able to control what they do.
09:06 So not to just operate as an employee, but to actually be able to advocate for themselves and operate as a business with tech instead of just being an employee.
09:16 Yeah, that's really awesome.
09:17 One of my favorite quotes is, if you don't build your dreams, someone will hire you to build theirs.
09:24 I think you're giving them the power to build their dreams.
09:26 And I think that's really amazing.
09:27 And so super cool.
09:29 Super cool.
09:29 Let's switch it back to the alumni.
09:32 Malik, let's start with you.
09:33 Let's start by talking about your experience going through this program.
09:37 You're about to wrap up your year-long program, right?
09:40 Yeah, actually, I'm already an alumni.
09:41 I graduated last summer.
09:42 Okay, so you just graduated.
09:43 All right, so tell me how does it work.
09:46 It's a year-long program at your high school, right?
09:48 No, you have to be in high school.
09:50 It's not at...
09:50 It's a two-year intensive program.
09:53 It starts during the summer.
09:55 We have six weeks during the summer, or seven weeks.
09:58 Yeah, so there's like an intense kickoff.
10:00 Like, let's just all get together and really learn this.
10:02 Right.
10:02 And then you kind of carry it on throughout the year?
10:04 Right, right.
10:05 So, yeah, Monday through Thursday is like just the normal programming, really, where
10:10 it's, you know, we have our coding classes, then we have our entrepreneurship classes, then
10:13 we have a portion of the day called leadership, which is more or less basically a space for
10:19 us to just talk about life in general, really, and also to try and develop and correlate these
10:24 like leadership skills and also the things that we'll need to just be successful in life
10:28 in general.
10:29 And so that's Monday through Thursday.
10:31 And then on Friday during the summer, we'll take trips, field trips to actual tech companies
10:35 within the Bay Area.
10:36 We visited Google, Facebook.
10:38 We visited Square, all that.
10:40 Yeah, you guys are right in the right location.
10:42 Yeah.
10:43 Yeah.
10:43 Yeah.
10:44 I grew up in Kansas City.
10:45 There were not so many tech companies to go see.
10:48 I could have gone visit the newspaper, I guess, but it's all the same.
10:52 Yeah.
10:52 After the end of the summer program, it starts up again in like September.
10:56 And Wednesdays, we meet up at Claremont Middle School, which is also out in Oakland.
11:00 That's when we basically have the same little programming that we had during the summer, you
11:05 know, Monday through Friday and all that.
11:07 But on Wednesdays, we'll have like short programming times.
11:10 And we'll just keep doing the same thing after school on Wednesdays that we did during the
11:14 summer.
11:14 And on Saturdays, we'll have like every month, the first Saturday of the month, I think,
11:18 we'll have like even larger meetings, like back at the Glover Center where Hidden Genius
11:23 is based from.
11:24 Okay.
11:24 And so that goes through the school year after your first summer.
11:28 And then during your second summer, it's more or less the same thing, except you're more
11:34 independent your second summer, really.
11:35 It's more about developing your own personal project.
11:38 Whatever app you decided to create in Hidden Genius, that's your time to actually start working
11:43 on that app.
11:44 And so you guys have different technologies that you cover.
11:47 I know you did Python some of the time, but also you said JavaScript.
11:50 Yeah, JavaScript, Python.
11:52 We did C++, Ruby.
11:54 And, you know, yeah, we just, yeah, we actually started off in a program called Scratch.
11:59 Yeah, okay.
11:59 Which is basically just like your basic, you drag and drop block stuff.
12:05 This is like little animation stuff.
12:07 We like made like little games and stuff.
12:09 But that was basically just to get the algorithm part of it.
12:11 Right.
12:11 Right.
12:12 That's one thing one of our mentors, Bob O'Lemon, always says is that we always have to get
12:17 the algorithm first before we even touch the keyboard.
12:19 That's a lot of what we focus on at first.
12:21 And then we focus on each individual language.
12:23 I think, I don't know about your call, but mine, we started out with HTML and JavaScript.
12:27 And that's how we started out.
12:29 And then we got into Python.
12:30 And after that, Ruby and C++.
12:32 Yeah.
12:33 What did you think of the different languages?
12:34 Definitely liked Python and JavaScript the best.
12:38 I think those are the languages I'm more proficient in.
12:41 And you got to C++ at the end where you're like, what is all this?
12:44 Yeah.
12:45 Yeah.
12:45 Yeah.
12:46 Yeah.
12:46 See, yeah, I wasn't going to bring that.
12:48 We tried.
12:49 We tried to take a C++ course.
12:52 That was a different story.
12:53 Yeah.
12:54 You know, C++ is a good skill to have, but you shouldn't do it day to day, in my opinion.
12:58 You should pick something like Python or JavaScript that's more productive, right?
13:01 It'll serve you well, but it's, I know, a painful experience to go through.
13:05 Very painful experience.
13:07 All right, Mohamed, maybe same question to you.
13:08 Like, maybe tell us what your experience was like and going through it.
13:12 Give us a summary.
13:12 Yeah, yeah.
13:13 So, I was a part of the cohort, too, like I said.
13:16 Our first year, the same thing, two-year program, intensive summer work.
13:20 But for my first year, we focused on programming languages like Python.
13:24 Python was a major, major focus.
13:26 HTML, CSS.
13:28 We worked with APIs with Flask, JSON, and all those ones that connect with that.
13:34 Yeah, learned, like, a lot of back-end web technologies.
13:37 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
13:37 And then throughout that first year, building empathy with our cohort members, being able
13:43 to connect, have that one closeness.
13:45 I think that's the main focus of the whole program, being able to connect with each other.
13:50 So, the first year, we did that.
13:52 And then our second year, we built our software.
13:55 I used Python as my back-end, as my major back-end.
13:59 So, my app was called SpendWisely.
14:01 SpendWisely.today.
14:03 That's actually...
14:04 It's online now?
14:05 Yeah, yeah.
14:06 All right, I'll put a link in the show notes.
14:07 It's an alpha mode right now.
14:08 Okay.
14:09 It's being worked on.
14:10 The whole goal of it is to help teenagers buy things based on their interests at the lowest
14:16 price.
14:16 I did this because we had a cohort member in our group who would come in every week, and
14:21 we'd buy these shoes for $200.
14:23 I'm like, this guy's wasting his money.
14:25 Come on, Isaiah.
14:27 So, I was like, I'm going to have to build.
14:33 So, the thing is, we look at the problems that we face and then try to build solutions for
14:37 that.
14:37 So, throughout those two years, we've learned a lot of intensive programming languages.
14:43 That's really cool.
14:44 Yeah.
14:44 I mean, your idea from the app came from basically solving the problems you see around
14:48 you.
14:48 And I think there's a lot of that in technology.
14:50 There's a lot of that in the startup space is, I see something that's hard for me.
14:54 So, it's probably, there's probably a million other people who would like to solve this problem
14:59 as well.
14:59 And maybe I can make a company or a product or something out of it, right?
15:03 You guys spoke about how a lot of the goal of the program is like social and like working
15:09 together and like peer mentoring.
15:10 Was it surprising to you to learn that software is kind of a social thing when it, I think the
15:16 prototypical idea is like you go sit in a basement by yourself with a computer and it turns out
15:22 like there's actually this group effect.
15:25 I don't know.
15:26 What were your conceptions?
15:26 Like maybe you didn't think of programming and sitting in the basement.
15:29 That's how it was when I started.
15:30 I kind of went in just without any real conception about what really lied ahead of me.
15:35 Yeah.
15:36 I'm going to build stuff.
15:37 Yeah.
15:37 I'm going to meet those groups and I'm just going to totally do it.
15:40 Yeah.
15:40 All right.
15:41 Yeah.
15:41 That's awesome.
15:42 Well, I mean, I think it really quickly introduces you to the fact that this is a social thing with
15:47 like a big human component, even though it's just right typing on a keyboard.
15:51 It doesn't seem like it.
15:52 It's funny the way they respond to your question.
15:54 They truly didn't see the community part of it.
15:58 I don't think that it wasn't that Malik or Mohammed didn't see the community part of
16:02 it.
16:02 I think they were introduced to it as a component.
16:05 And so their idea of the coding and of the programming never unincluded.
16:11 Yeah.
16:11 It was just that from the start.
16:13 It was just that from the start.
16:14 We build cohorts intentionally.
16:17 They build their relationships that Mohammed described and the empathy for each other
16:21 from the start.
16:21 And so they've never coded in a room alone.
16:25 They never approached it as an alone thing.
16:28 They've always approached it as a part of their community.
16:31 And you talk about why we do it.
16:34 And a lot of times I came or Landon, part of our program team, we'll talk about how we intentionally
16:40 aren't doing this to supply the job market out there.
16:45 But to inspire these youth to become creators and add to society in a way that's a value add
16:53 and not just another.
16:54 You know, we love our social media tools.
16:56 We want to inspire the lives of these young men and make sure that they're creating change
17:02 within themselves and their communities.
17:04 Yeah.
17:05 I think that's a really, really good point.
17:06 I'm glad you brought it up.
17:08 Teaching technology often gets confused with computer skills.
17:12 You know, I can work with Word or I can surf the internet or whatever.
17:16 And what we end up with is a lot of people who have computer skills who basically are consumers
17:23 of technology and not creators.
17:26 And I think what society needs and would benefit a lot from is having more creators.
17:31 And you guys are basically instilling all the ingredients these guys need to become creators
17:36 and not just consumers of technology, right?
17:38 And more so not only what we're giving them, that environment that they have that they can
17:43 pull from each other.
17:44 Like you hear the geniuses talk now, I am part of cohort two.
17:49 I am part of cohort three.
17:50 You know, it's not necessarily I used to be.
17:54 You know, we have 100% retention rate here.
17:57 And it's to the fact where they're always a part of this.
18:01 Like this is always.
18:02 It's inclusive.
18:03 So even when they finish their program and they graduate, they are still a part of the
18:08 Hidden Genius Project.
18:09 They are still a part of their cohort.
18:11 I remember the same stigma that you talk about where you would think of that guy in the basement
18:16 with his computer.
18:17 And that was what we looked at as computer guys.
18:20 Yeah.
18:20 You know, but the way that the environment that they have, like they're actually pulling
18:24 from each other's geniuses and each other's strength by being with each other.
18:29 And so they're always around.
18:30 And so even when they finish theirs, they come back to actually start mentoring the next cohorts.
18:37 And now we even have junior educators where we're sending them out to actually not only
18:43 take the information that they have, but to be able to give that to others.
18:46 It is a continuous process.
18:48 So this is something that they weren't just a part of for 15 months.
18:51 This is a track for their life.
18:53 That's really great that you guys are doing that.
18:56 You guys feel like this is something that is ongoing.
18:59 You know, there's two areas where that kind of resonates a lot, where I feel like it's
19:03 actually a little bit imbalanced.
19:05 You know, it's the meritocracy stuff where I said it, a lot of times it's meritocracy,
19:09 but sometimes it's not.
19:09 Where it's not are if you go to places like MIT, you have connections to all these people
19:16 who are starting these companies and have access to all this stuff.
19:18 If you're in one of these like Y Combinator, Accelerator type places, the cohort that you
19:23 went through, they all stay together and connected and help each other out.
19:27 And a lot of people like for me in particular, I didn't have that.
19:31 I'd learned programming really well, but I didn't have this social component.
19:34 And so it feels like you're kind of bringing this really powerful support group and sort
19:39 of success amplifier to the cohorts.
19:42 It's part of our foundation.
19:43 Our founders were brought together by a scholarship fund that took high school students from all
19:50 over the country and supplied them with scholarships to Ivy League schools.
19:54 And those young men, after graduating, two of them came back from Harvard, one from Pittsburgh
20:00 and one from Compton and wanted to develop a software company that or gaming that taught
20:07 financial literacy through mobile gaming.
20:09 And when they came to the Bay Area, right, that's where you're if you're going to create
20:12 something, that's where you go.
20:14 The issue was that they could not find any, not any, but they couldn't find the right kind
20:19 of talent to help create the game from the African-American community.
20:23 And they thought that was ridiculous.
20:25 Right.
20:25 You have this heavy African-American population right in the heart of Silicon Valley and they're
20:31 not involved.
20:32 It'd be like going to the Bronx and you can't find break dancers.
20:36 Right.
20:37 This is where rap is and you don't have any break dancers.
20:40 Exactly.
20:41 Right.
20:41 And we're laughing, but we're laughing the same way.
20:43 Like this is ridiculous.
20:44 Yeah.
20:44 And they started, they went out, right.
20:46 They recruited from their cohort from the Round Brown scholarship.
20:50 Our founding executive director is a Brandon Nicholson is a recipient of that reward as well.
20:56 From their cohort, pick the talent and then put together a team that picked kids from off
21:02 the, off the streets and not in a literal sense, but, you know, we grabbed students that
21:07 were on reach away and just started bringing them into office early.
21:10 And while we were creating the game, we were mentoring and teaching the students how the coding
21:16 aspect, the entrepreneurial aspect and the leadership aspect that has built into what we see today,
21:21 five cohorts later, a programs director, a programs coordinator, innovative educators,
21:27 a solid team of African-American males that have the desire to give back to their communities.
21:35 If you're founded on that and you hire on that, it's only, it's so much easier to emit that type
21:41 of energy so that the students pick up on that and utilize that within their own cohorts and
21:46 their own cells.
21:47 you can already see the domino effect being that we're five cohorts deep.
21:52 Yeah.
21:52 You guys are five years in now.
21:53 How many people have been through the program?
21:54 I didn't say it.
21:56 We're 50 students, 50 kids.
21:58 And that's in our intensive 15 month cohort.
22:00 Yeah.
22:00 Now, if you want to talk about the type, the number of students overall that we've touched,
22:04 we're in the, we're in a thousand.
22:06 We're in the, we're in the thousand.
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23:04 Because outside of what we do in our intensive immersion, we do catalyst programs, one offs,
23:18 or six week programs with like-minded organizations or organizations that are mission aligned.
23:24 We work with foster kids with the Casey Foundation.
23:26 And you can see why they wouldn't be able to, that demographic wouldn't be able to participate
23:30 in a more intensive immersion.
23:32 But we still debunk and introduce and share the knowledge and the skill base with that demographic.
23:39 We operate out of Juvenile Justice Hall.
23:42 We go into the cell blocks of these young men and teach these young men.
23:47 That's another demographic that is looked over.
23:49 We work with student athletes as well.
23:52 Oakland Unified School District.
23:53 Fam First with Marshawn Lynch.
23:55 Also with the Warriors.
23:56 We do sports coding, drawing out the analytics.
24:00 There's a whole data science in sports.
24:02 You can go crazy with that, right?
24:03 And so making sure that the students are understanding that technology can meet their passions as well.
24:09 And so it's not something that's, again, you keep, everybody has that, you know, connotation,
24:13 that coding has to do with a few guys in this dark room, you know, and all you see is monitors.
24:19 But there's so much that tech touches that these young men need to be exposed to so they can start contributing to society and have a value added.
24:29 Yeah, that's really great.
24:30 Especially the going to the Juvenile Hall where you're basically helping these guys that maybe have no direction.
24:37 Say, look, here's a direction with cool technology that you can go in that will really change your life possibly, right?
24:44 Yeah, I mean, they're in there, what, 23 hours a day without any recreation.
24:49 And then if you've seen a jail book cart, it's totally...
24:53 It can't be too engaging, right?
24:54 It can't be too engaging.
24:55 And then, you know, the basketball.
24:56 And so what are we telling them that they'll be able to do when they get out of here?
25:00 But once you see that inspiration from after someone has created something, even through scratch, it's hard to bring in, you know, more advanced technologies into the system.
25:10 Right.
25:10 You've got to build up over time with a real programming language, right?
25:13 So we use scratch to introduce them.
25:15 But just that spark of inspiration, you can't take it back.
25:18 Yeah, it's true.
25:19 Once it's lit, you can't take it back.
25:20 Even that idea of introducing that you can do something different and showing the impact of that.
25:27 And so it may not be their situation.
25:29 It might be somebody they notice in the situation.
25:32 It's the same idea that we introduce in the immersion program.
25:37 Which is why you heard Muhammad say, like, I looked at one of my peers.
25:41 And that gave me the idea for the app that I came across.
25:45 The fact that you can actually make a difference.
25:46 A lot of times you have ideas, but you just don't know what to do with them or how to go forth with them.
25:52 And this is showing a path that you can actually make a difference and you can actually affect your community.
25:57 We had one of our alums come back and he talked about when people pass on.
26:03 And usually we expect our loved ones or people who have died in the past to surround our bedside.
26:09 He said, what if you saw your opportunities and your ideas around your bedside that the ones that you didn't bring to life?
26:17 And what if they were crying out to you because you didn't push forward and do what you needed to do to bring them forward?
26:23 It's a powerful visualization.
26:25 It's mind-blowing.
26:26 And so with that, as a staff, as a cohort, we kind of strive to make sure that those ideas and those opportunities aren't crying by our bedsides when we pass on.
26:38 We don't die with those great ideas.
26:40 Yeah.
26:40 We're so often concerned about taking a chance or trying something new and not being good at it or failing or whatever.
26:47 But it's really the regrets are the things you look back on.
26:50 Like, why didn't I try this?
26:51 Rather than, oh, I tried and failed and I tried something else later.
26:54 Right?
26:54 So it's amazing.
26:55 So I'm going to bring it back to these guys.
26:56 But I have one more question for you two before I do.
26:59 How do people get started?
27:01 Like, especially in sort of two angles to this.
27:03 In Oakland, if guys are listening, they want to be part of this program, what do they do?
27:07 Go to our website, www.HiddenGeniusProject.org.
27:11 You can apply online.
27:12 All our contacts are listed on our website.
27:16 Is there a fee?
27:17 No.
27:17 There's no fee, actually.
27:19 That's awesome.
27:19 The kids get to enjoy each other and not have to worry about the pressures of fees or anything of that nature.
27:26 We try to keep the barrier to entry as low as possible.
27:29 We want to inspire lives.
27:31 We're not in it.
27:32 Definitely not in it for the money.
27:33 Yeah, that's cool.
27:35 That's cool.
27:35 And if people are listening in other cities going, I'd like to do this myself.
27:39 You got any advice for them or any way they can get started?
27:41 Yeah, contact us.
27:42 Contact us.
27:43 Contact at HiddenGeniusProject.org.
27:45 Our program's team and director is eagerly awaiting.
27:49 We want to get across the country.
27:51 We want to be in a city near you.
27:53 The problems and the issues that these young men are facing are the same.
27:57 And we want to inspire opportunities to all of these young men throughout our nation.
28:02 I think it's extremely important that we collaborate and we work together.
28:06 So any other cities, definitely reach out.
28:09 A lot of times what we do is we start up all these organizations.
28:12 We start up all these names.
28:14 And we all start pulling from the same resources.
28:17 And then we end up pulling against each other.
28:20 So with that being said, what we're doing, we expect it to be across the nation.
28:25 And we're willing to be able to be a part of that in any city.
28:29 That's awesome.
28:29 Yeah, very cool.
28:30 So if you're out there listening and this sounds like a great idea, you want to be part of it, reach out to these guys.
28:35 I'll put the links in all the show notes so they can get to them.
28:37 All right, let me ask you guys a couple of questions about the conference here.
28:40 So you get to come to this conference.
28:42 There's like 3,000 people in this great hall just totally geeking out about technology.
28:48 What's your impression of this conference?
28:50 Well, this is my first conference at PyCon.
28:54 First impression is a big thing.
28:56 Being able to come together as coders, you know, coders from all over the world to come into a conference and to discuss ideas.
29:04 These are where I always like to go by this quote where it goes by, it says that small minds,
29:10 discuss people, average minds discuss events, and great minds discuss ideas.
29:15 And I think this is what we're doing here.
29:17 We're collecting moments, not things.
29:19 Yeah, that's awesome.
29:20 Yeah.
29:20 That's amazing.
29:22 Awesome.
29:22 I'm glad you enjoyed it.
29:24 That's a great quote.
29:24 Yeah, Malik?
29:25 The first thing I thought was it was pretty cool that I like, I saw a lot of stuff that I recognized here, right?
29:31 Like a lot of stuff that I've actually used over the course of like all the things that I've done in like coding and stuff.
29:36 And I just thought it was cool.
29:38 Like I could really see myself one day with my own business or my own project, just setting up shop, you know, here at PyCon or any other real coding convention and just talking about the stuff that I'm working on.
29:49 All that stuff.
29:50 Like I'm just really enjoying it.
29:52 You know, like you said, everyone's just here geeking out.
29:54 So I just came here to geek out with them.
29:56 Yeah, we're definitely taking it to another level and geeking out.
29:58 It's awesome.
29:58 I love coming here every year.
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30:52 That's so inspiring.
30:53 Do you feel like seeing these companies and these libraries and the people who create them that you already know and use?
31:00 Do you feel like, wow, I'm like more of this community already than I realized?
31:04 Yeah.
31:05 A little bit of effect like that?
31:07 Yeah.
31:07 Yeah.
31:07 Definitely have that effect on it, you know?
31:10 Okay.
31:10 I would say that as well.
31:12 Just going to different exhibits and seeing I use certain websites and I see the actual them setting up here and actually talking about it and being able to meet them.
31:21 These are the guys that build it.
31:22 They're like, you're here.
31:22 So that's really awesome, being able to connect with them, learn from them.
31:27 Yeah.
31:27 And that speaks volumes to more of what you were talking about, like the social aspect.
31:31 Like it's a real community, right?
31:34 Technology and coding and all of that.
31:36 That's another thing that's really at the center of the Hidden Genius Project is really trying to,
31:40 not only just create that community, but making sure that we also give back to the community in any way possible.
31:46 So that's really why we have the lens that we have with creating these technologies and stuff.
31:52 The community problem that I was trying to solve was recidivism, right?
31:55 In my app, Hire, which stands for Helping Inmates Reach Employment.
31:58 And so it's just database, a list of jobs that's open specifically for people who were once incarcerated.
32:04 And so that was really targeting, you know, like Muhammad got his idea for his app from a friend.
32:10 I got mine really from my uncle who's actually serving upstate right now in prison.
32:14 So again, another one of these things in your life, you're like, here's a problem that I really wish I could solve.
32:18 And I bet I could solve it for a lot of people, not just.
32:20 Right.
32:21 Right.
32:21 And so, yeah, just the Hidden Genius Project just gives us a real platform to really try and solve those problems, right?
32:28 Using technology or even just helping us become creative enough to find other ways to try and solve it.
32:34 Yeah, I think one of the really powerful things is I think it's awesome that they're teaching entrepreneurship.
32:39 And if you guys have businesses, that's like the peak, right?
32:42 That's like awesome.
32:42 Yeah.
32:43 But I think programming and giving you guys this creative programming skill and this background of like, these are problems.
32:49 I just I can go solve them is no matter what you do, if you go into biology, if you go into music, whatever, like you can take these skills and just amplify whatever you are.
32:58 I guess I'm saying this more for people listening.
33:00 It's like we don't need 10 million more programmers.
33:03 We need 10 million more creators.
33:05 And some of those are code.
33:07 Some of those are amplifying with code or whatever, right?
33:10 Yeah.
33:10 I would say that for me right now, just based on where my focus is, you know, looking into I'm really into like international relations, you know, diplomacy and being able to adapt technology into that.
33:21 You know, I work with a nonprofit Project Feed Yemen and we're helping to combat the starvation in Yemen.
33:28 Mel nurse kids fund that country.
33:31 I'm from Yemen.
33:33 But the whole thing is being able to adapt technology.
33:36 So I'm using technology to build a website, you know, for Project Feed Yemen and connect with other mentors who need help building their website, clean their website, you know.
33:45 So having that outside lens through creating different things.
33:50 That's really awesome.
33:51 That's really awesome.
33:52 So we probably should wrap it up.
33:53 They're starting to do presentations over there and it's going to be loud on our microphone.
33:57 So let me ask you guys one parting question before we wrap this up.
34:01 Maybe two.
34:02 So people out there listening who maybe are not in one of these programs, they want to get started.
34:09 Maybe they don't know anybody in their community who's doing this, but they're like, I really want to be an engineer or developer.
34:14 What advice do you have for them?
34:16 What would you say to that person?
34:17 Go fish.
34:19 That's like Sean mentioned earlier.
34:21 That's one thing that is really taught in Hidden Geniuses.
34:24 We're never really spoon fed information, right?
34:26 And that's one thing that you should never really seek to actually be is just give information.
34:31 You need to know how to go find it yourself.
34:33 That's part of really being a coder.
34:35 It's another thing that I learned in Gene is that coders are actually pretty lazy.
34:39 Yeah.
34:39 Yeah.
34:40 So at this, like everything is online.
34:42 There'll always be something that you can get from the internet, right?
34:46 In order to learn for yourself, in order to teach yourself in that aspect.
34:50 And like you said, the barrier to entry is very low for becoming a coder as well.
34:55 Yeah.
34:55 It's lower than people think.
34:57 Yeah.
34:57 Yeah.
34:57 A lot, a lot lower than people think.
34:59 So it's just try and find a way to go fish.
35:03 Get the information yourself.
35:04 You can teach yourself.
35:05 Or you could come join the Hidden Genius Project if you want to.
35:09 Yeah.
35:10 You can also do that.
35:11 Or if you're not here, try to get one started, right?
35:13 Right.
35:14 If you're somewhere where it's not.
35:15 Muhammad, how about you?
35:16 I agree with what he said, you know, being able to have that access going out to fish.
35:22 But I think it all goes back to yourself, you know.
35:25 Whoever the individual is, being to teach your own self.
35:28 So go out, you know.
35:29 Go explore.
35:30 It's an open field.
35:31 Technology is so big nowadays.
35:34 It's early days.
35:35 Even though it looks like it's all well formed, there's so many things to create.
35:37 Yeah.
35:38 Yeah.
35:38 Yep.
35:39 Definitely.
35:40 All right.
35:40 Well, Muhammad, Malik, thank you so much for being on the show.
35:43 Thank you for having us.
35:44 Thank you so much.
35:45 Thank you for having us.
35:45 It's been great.
35:45 Appreciate it.
35:46 All right.
35:47 Thank you.
35:47 Bye.
35:47 This has been another episode of Talk Python to Me.
35:53 Today's guests have been Sean Valentine and Landon Miller, who work at the Hidden Genius Project,
35:57 and Muhammad Abdullah and Malik Poole, who recently graduated from the program.
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