The Wonders of The Hidden Genius Project
Written by Ajamu Baker SJND ’28 and Marcellus Forte SJND ‘28
Ajamu’s Article:
This summer, I was recommended a coding program by my parents called The Hidden Genius Project. At first I was skeptical and uninterested in the idea, but nevertheless decided to comply. I joined the Zoom interview and met some of the fellow geniuses, yet I was still uncommitted due to my inexperience. To this day, I am 100% positive I made the right decision.
The Hidden Genius Program “trains and mentors Black male youth in technology creation, entrepreneurship, and leadership skills to transform their lives and communities.” — The Hidden Genius mission statement. This program is a pathway and opportunity for males of African American descent to improve their skills in coding. It offers lessons in various coding languages such as css, javascript, python and more.
Hidden Genius also teaches students to build their very own websites with functions, links, and versatile pages for businesses or school club homepages. Learning to code and build websites early as a teenager is a very sufficient skill, especially because of the revenue generated from jobs that involve coding and web engineering. The Hidden Genius project offers a plethora of “tracks” — designations of what category a genius wants to learn in. There is a business track, gaming track, world improvement track, and more! Personally, I am going to join the gaming track, because everyone knows it would be cool to make your own game! All of these special tracks are available to all geniuses who graduate the incoming year of hidden genius, unlocking access to a learning section of their choice.
Hidden Genius is also very competitive, as the program is now divided into two cohorts: Black and Gold. As these two cohorts represent the yellow-black logo of the program, there is a lot of competition between these two groups, and sometimes another cohort will jokingly write a message in the headquarters of the other, exclaiming the superiority of their cohort. The competition, however, is very fun and entertaining, as Hidden Genius often hosts Kahoot! games and quizzes in coding where the cohorts combat each other in a very enthusiastic way. These events are very high spirited and fun, and the competition also helps the geniuses be motivated and strive to try and study more in hopes of triumph. Competition is very healthy when executed the correct way.
Alphonse Clark, an SJND junior, shares his experience attending the program. “I have never felt more connected with other Black males than when I’m at the Hidden Genius Project. The subjects they have taught us are not only relevant, but have given us a better perspective on our world,” says Alphonse.
Now, some who meet the criteria may be wondering, “Why should I bother taking a coding course? Isn’t that type of thing boring and hard to understand?” The answer to that question is of course, not at all. The Hidden Genius Project executes their learning so efficiently, that as long as you are committed, the code is very easy to learn. As for the boring part, Hidden Genius offers much more to do than just coding. At the program, there is access to gaming consoles, computers, and even a music studio! There are even gaming tournaments that take place every now and then. Geniuses almost never have to do only coding for their entire course — but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to do any work!
There are also other benefits, such as a free MacBook, and a check of over $1500 when students complete their Hidden Genius career. As long as geniuses complete their work, abstain from taking too many absences, and finish their projects on time, they get to keep the MacBook and can even earn more money depending on their commitment.
The Hidden Genius Program also offers business trips to various corporations in the Bay Area. A few weeks ago, my fellow geniuses and I took a trip to Salesforce and were able to view how everything worked and operated. We also visited ABC News, observing the behind the scenes setups, cameras, and operations, and even met reporter Kumasii Aaron! There is an even larger variety of business trips like these at Hidden Genius and are a special privilege to look forward to.
The Hidden Genius Program is a very unique coding program that Black male youth interested in technology should enroll in, and as long as they are able to get along with others and have a good sense of commitment, it will be a great experience that will not be regretted.
Marcellus’ Article: Hidden Genius Through the Lens of a Student
Over the summer, I took part in a program called The Hidden Genius Project in which I was asked to express leadership among my peers. After completing my own website, I was asked to lead my peers in a couple of classes involving the coding languages CSS, JavaScript, Python+, and HTML. These classes did not just help my fellow classmates, however, they also helped me understand the coding better.
Hidden Genius is a program that focuses on black male youth in multiple different locations such as Oakland, Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago, Baltimore and Detroit. This project is a 15 month program in which after every summer the genius earns a paycheck. Hidden Genius is a project that you should think about as well because of its easy to learn coding process, high level life skills, and great networking opportunities.
Hidden Genius’ easy to learn coding process combined with the well trained teachers make the program a very optimal learning experience. The languages that are learned in the first summer of Hidden Genius are Python+, CSS and HTML. The students are given a Macbook to aid in their studies. The program starts with downloading various apps such as Visual Studio Code which is a landscape for coding. Visual Studio Code is a coding app that is very, “easy to navigate through with your different files,” said Oakland Tech student Myles Staples ’28. This is where students do all of their work.
The Hidden Genius Project has two different groups, incoming and outgoing students, which are the first and second summer students. During the day, the incoming students are split into two different groups: black and gold. After the class that covers coding, both the black and gold classes join together to take part in the life skills course.
Life skills in Hidden Genius is the thing that I cherish the most. In the life skills lessons students learn how to finance, pay bills, invest, and much more that is very important for a young black man to understand. Teachers will start a discussion on political topics as well as world events to keep the youth well-informed. These classes are very important because they “develop discipline within us that is necessary to be successful in today’s society” reflected Bishop O’Dowd Student King H. Coffee ‘28. Networking is a very important life skill as well, and to aid in that, the Hidden Genius Project goes on trips to different businesses.
Hidden Genius takes students to different businesses to be able to network with others. These business trips also help students to understand what it means to have a job and what skills are necessary to retain one. On these trips students cover different things from financing to home ownership to relationships to how to manage your time. These business trips are part of the reason why, “Hidden Genius is so special” said Saint Joseph Notre Dame student Ajamu Baker ‘28.
One of the first businesses that the Hidden Genius Project’s students went to this summer was Blackrock, in which we were lectured about the importance of investing. We learned about the different risks between cash, bonds, and stocks. This is important information especially because it offers another way to make money rather than, “scamming and selling illegal products,” said Bishop O’Dowd student King H. Coffee ‘28.
In conclusion, the Hidden Genius Project is an extremely productive way to spend your time over the summer. This program covers a wide variety of coding languages ranging from HTML to Python+ only in the first summer. While being a big commitment, in the long run it will be beneficial and look great on college applications.
“Hidden Genius makes coding feel easy. I am going to college in two years and I feel like I have learned a lot from just these couple weeks of summer,” Arroyo student Mohammad ‘26 exclaims. “I’ve made many new friends that are at my level, and many that are better than me. I hope next summer the incoming groups come in with a better level of excitement, and are much more eager to learn than our cohort.”
Studies have shown that, “Black engineers comprised just 6 percent of all computer programmers in the U.S” (The Dig, 2020). This number is astronomically low, and because of this Hidden Genius strives to expedite the process of raising this number. To achieve this goal, the teachers at Hidden Genius strive to create a, “sense of brotherhood,” said Bishop O’Dowd student King H. Coffee ’28, while also teaching you to their best ability. This allows students to have a coding background so if they ever need a job quickly they have some skills to lean on.
