Hidden Genius Project: – Teaching young African Americans to code

Jason Young is the president of MindBlown Labs, which makes an app that teaches teens how to manage their money. His background is unique among Silicon Valley CEOs. Young grew up in two of the most notorious Los Angeles neighbourhoods: Inglewood and Compton.

“My father was a drug dealer who spent most of his adult life in jail,” Young says. “I had many challenges growing up. I also had a lot of opportunities.”
Those opportunities led to scholarships and, eventually, a career in the tech sector. That’s when he realized that in the cubicles and boardrooms of Silicon Valley, he was almost always the only African American.

The statistics reflect his experience. Even though black people make up about 13.2 per cent of the U.S. population, companies like Google and Yahoo have revealed that only two per cent of their workforce is black.

“I noticed that there was a lot of opportunity being created,” Young says, “but there were certain groups — particularly young black men — that were being left out of that opportunity. And for me it just didn’t make sense.”

That’s why Young says he created the Hidden Genius Project: to help redress that balance.

“We have a particular focus not on the highest-performing young people but on young men who are really in the middle,” Young says.

Read more: CBC