a16z Podcast - a16z Podcast: Code and Culture in South Central Los Angeles

Episode Date: September 7, 2015

South Central Los Angeles -- which includes Watts and Compton -- in many ways still hasn’t recovered from the Rodney King riots of 1992. In South Central L.A. there isn’t the same opportunity found elsewhere in L.A. When Oscar Menjivar returned as an adult to his South Central community, what he found were too many teens facing options that went from bad to worse. He decided to attack the lack of possibilities through coding.

Welcome to the A16Z podcast. I'm Michael Copeland. South Central Los Angeles, which includes Watts and Compton, in many ways still hasn't recovered from the Rodney King riots of 1992. In South Central L.A., there isn't the same opportunity found elsewhere in L.A. When Oscar Menhivar returned as an adult to his South Central community, what he found were too many teens facing options that went from bad to worse. We saw lots of teens, especially young men that were dropping out of high school, but a lot of them were incarcerated. I personally had friends that either not doing lifetime or are dead because of gangs, because of the situations in South Central.

So we ask ourselves, how do we solve that issue, that a problem, how do we engage these teens academically? We decided to use coding. Menhivar started the nonprofit Teens Exploring Technology, TXT for short. Two, in practice, technical terms, teach coding. But his ultimate goal is far more profound. Through coding, Menhivar aims to change the outlook of teens, to use the opportunity that technology affords to expand their notion of what is possible and ultimately change the economic and social fortune of South L.A. by building a local tech ecosystem from the ground up. We are in a very critical time with technology and people of color and being able to get involved in that intersection. We have

lots of talent in South Delhi. We have young boys who understand, you know, what a tech startup is, who understand how to hustle, who want to work really hard, but they don't have the tools necessary to get them started. TXT offers those tools year-round to classes of primarily young, Latino, and black men. As in any startup, participants learn the fundamentals of working in teams to design, build, and launch software products that are often informed by the world that these young men inhabit. One of the ideas was called the SAT Fighters. So it's a ninja game that teaches kids how to study for the SAT.

So what that came about was because kids are always told in their cities, go and study for the SAT, and you'll do well and you're going to go to college. But the question that they had is, where do we study for the SAT? How do we get books? How do we, our schools don't have a class just for SAT? So they decided to start an SAT app. There have been numerous other apps built, including a sort of local, community organizing app where residents can vote up or vote down the issues they find

most pressing in their neighborhood, sending their sentiment directly to a local politician or agency. Ideally, these apps become the next tech rocket ship, but Menhivar always keeps his eye on the ultimate, more subtle goal changing the mindset in South L.A. So that people think of success in the tech world as natural and obtainable. And that is a much tougher problem to solve. We just had a big hackathon in Watts, so in the Nickerson Gardens. We talked to over 140 kits to come to our hackathon in that area. And probably 140 kits, maybe 10 knew what 10 actually knew that they can create something with code, that they can create something with HTML, CSS, or JavaScript. When we said to them, we're going to teach you how to code. They were thinking more,

oh, you're going to give me a code and put it on my phone so I can create something. So that's the gap. That's, it's huge. I would say only about 5% or less than that I actually know that they can create apps, that they can create companies. Talk to any of the TXT participants, and it's clear that they want and believe that their efforts will explode into full-fledged companies. Some likely will.

The Watts Hackathon, dubbed Hustle & Code, showed that, yes, there is a huge educational gap to cross, but it also showed something else. The other part that came out of it was a sense of unity, a sense that blacks and browns together can create this new technology innovative community in South DeLay and in Watt. It was nice to see

kids that, you know, one, didn't have a laptop, were motivated to say, I'm going to learn this and I can get a laptop to continue doing this. I'll continue doing the projects that I want to build on. Over the past five years, TXT has been very successful at, if not

launching fast-growing companies, launching its kids into some of the best universities across the country, with a 100% graduation rate. And these young technologists almost always want to return to South Central L.A. to help the next crop of coding kids and to carry the following message to their peers. We're building one a new culture among black and browns in South Delay, a culture that says nothing is impossible for me if I learn the skillsis.

a culture that says I can be, I am already innovative, first of all, and I can apply it to different areas in technology. And a culture that says, let's support each other to help each other succeed. Will success come fast or easy? Of course not. But never count South Central LA out. It's always been selling innovation, Menhivar says. Go back to think about the music industry, how the music industry got started with hip hop or in sports and lots of the innovators of came from the watts came from content during those times so now we're starting to see that intersection that as soon as we put these tools in kids hands and they learn how to hack and they learn how to develop and they come up with ideas they're going to start pushing tools forward pushing ideas forward

and just products that we don't know where it's going to take us in the future the young men up next don't have an exact map to the future but they do know the direction they themselves are headed. They're all from the summer 2015 TXT class. Here are some of the key things they learned and the tools they now carry with them. My name's Bill Yertes. I'm the U.S. designer, Romulus.

I learned about resilience. Like the resilience to keep going, to devote hours and hours into developing a project that we all were really passionate about and what we really love. And even though it might have been strenuous at times and, like, heartbreaking.

Hello, my name is Jesse Garcia. 16 years old, ask for help, be able to use your resources because the worst thing they could say it's no, and all you have to do is just thank you for your time and continue, move on. My name is Brett Strickland. I'm 13 years old. Faith in your team. I say this because when my developer volunteered to be a developer, I thought it was kind of shaky because he didn't seem like the person actually put in the work, but he shocked me when he came in at 8 and left at 8 every day. Hello, my name is Ken Privatto. I'm 16 years old. Everyone is bound for success. It just depends on how much work you put in, how much you're willing to sacrifice yourself. My name is Brandon Lockhart. I'm 12

old. Feel fast. Because if you feel fast, you can learn from your mistakes. Hello, my name's a daughter, Perez. I'm 15 years old. Having a positive mindset, we'll always help you all in life. If you always stay positive, you'll always be able to come at your goals no matter what obstacles are you going through? My name is Angel Macias. I'm 17 years old. Just really working hard and really pushing myself. And if you put in the work, you know, you'll be able to get done what you want and all that sleep I lost isn't going to waste. Like, I've finished what I wanted and I've gotten what I wanted. Thanks for listening.