Have You Ever Heard Of Hack The Hood?
This Community Of Oakland Tech Talent Is Building The Future
Last week I had the privilege and opportunity to speak at Hack The Hood, here in Oakland, CA.
Co-Founded by Zakiya Harris, Hack The Hood (HTH) is a program that trains people of color in tech and entrepreneurial fields. Hack The Hood is helping increase their students’ chances of finding adaptable tech careers in The Bay Area.
Amongst other programs, HTH provides 6 and 9 week bootcamps covering web development, entrepreneurship and more! These bootcamps culminate with each student building websites for a local small business.
Hack The Hood has served 520+ youth since 2013. This included 30+ Bootcamps and 160 hours of instruction per student.
Furthermore, the program has a 92% completion rate!
And with support from companies like Slack, Pandora, Microsoft, Google, and Adobe, the sky is the limit for these young change-makers.
I was ecstatic to share some of my knowledge of the tech landscape with these young leaders. We spent a few hours diving into tech, venture capital, networking and more!
I was running the workshop, but the Hack The Hood students also taught me a thing or two while I was there.
Here’s what this group of young leaders reminded me about community, mindfulness and paying it forward.
Community Is Life
“A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea. For millions of years, human beings have been part of one tribe or another. A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.”
― Seth Godin, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
Community is monumental.
Our tribes are the small communities that support us to greatness.
Without them, we cannot truly achieve feats greater than ourselves.
Hack The Hood’s community inspired and reminded me of what can happen when you get a group of people aligned with a singular purpose.
By time I left, I felt as though I was part of the family.
They truly made me feel welcomed.
I even met a student and it just so happened that I had coached his brother!
Moments like this felt like the Universe was reminding me that I’m doing something righteous with my life.
Felt like my mother would be proud :)
Community support is really everything.
And there’s no lack of it at Hack The Hood.
Check out this story from one of their former participants.
At HTH I could feel how supportive of an environment it was.
People were family.
It was a reminder that we must all find the Tribes most important to us. And most importantly, it is our responsibility to advocate for and support them!
Find your community.
They’re looking for you.
The world needs us to lead.
Focus On Asking Damn Good Questions
What have you accomplished?
What are you most proud of?
What are you working on now?
These were just a few of the questions I began my talk with.
When I was in school I HATED lectures! 🙄
If I had a professor that was boring and would lecture, preach, complain etc.
I’d be in class like…
The last thing I wanted to do was go up all high and mighty preaching on about my experience in tech.
I was more interested in what they knew, and what they wanted to learn more of!
This focus paid off.
In addition to impressively building a small business website in 6 weeks, these young change-makers also impressed me with their stories and talents.
After taking a few mintutes to learn about the 12+ students in the room, I found out that..
- One student graduated high school 3 years early. Talk about flexin’.
- Another student, instead of hiring a mechanic, learned how to get under the hood and fix his own car.
- At some point I mentioned how I’ve been practicing Jiu-Jitsu, and came to find out that one of their students is also an avid boxer.
- All the students were talented coders, but some were already exploring tech-adjacent roles like Technical Writer & Sales Engineer.
Yea…
Cool, everyone could code.
But I was also surrounded by geniuses, athletes, artists and entrepreneurs.
And this was all made possible by asking thoughtful questions.
Made possibile by leaning in with curiosity.
Our ENTIRE dialogue reminded me of how important it is to serve your audience.
I didn’t make it about ME.
Quite frankly, it wasn’t about ME.
It was about engaging with these young minds and truly listening. Listening for ways I could uniquely add value.
After getting to know folks a little, I decided to dive head first into how literally ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE in tech.
I showed them how one gamer makes $500K a month playing video games!
He was playing with Drake & Travis Scott last week! 😵😵
Yea. Twitter and the internet almost broke because of this.
And this gent didn’t do it by quitting everything and playing games full time. He built his video game rep gradually, while also finishing college and balancing a part-time job.
ANYTHING. IS. POSSIBLE.
I say that to say this…
Ask better questions and you’ll get better answers.
Never let your questions be the limiting factor in your success.
Are You Giving Back? Are You Paying It Forward?
“The rank of office is not what makes someone a leader. Leadership is the choice to serve others with or without any formal rank.”
― Simon Sinek, Leaders Eat Last Deluxe: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t
While sharing my knowledge and preaching the good word, I realized that everything we do should start with this question.
Who Am I Serving?
Focusing on this simple question can change how we operate in the world.
It’s how anything of meaning is ever started.
It felt good to just share everything I’ve learned over the past year and a half. But more importantly, it felt good to just give back.
To give back to young minds that are sometimes ignored or overlooked.
These inspiring young folks reminded me of the importance of community, mindfulness and servant leadership.
In order to lead, we don’t need an “official title”. And we don’t need anyone’s permission.
We just need to serve.
That my definition of leadership:
Serving others and expecting nothing in return.
So ask yourself…
Who are you serving?
Where you volunteering?
What are you building to impact others?
Let that be #FoodForThought 🤔 🍳
P.S. Special thank you to everyone at Hack The Hood that made this possible. Most specifically, Tashae and Olivia!
A huge thank you to Tiara Elyse X as well! My girlfriend and partner in crime. Thank you for attending this event, supporting me and always having my back :)
Want More? Holla At Me!!!
If you’re at Hack The Hood feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. Happy to continue to support you and your greatness!
If you ever get down, know I’m out here cheering for you like 👏🏽👏🏽…
