Chris Walker and Marie Smith of Urbanime Talk About The Importance of STEM Programming

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i have to be tracy g here
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um
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i'm gonna bring my next guest up this
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young man
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to me is um
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a forwarder a free-minded individual
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who has been able to carve a path from
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himself being able to really through his
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talents and his vision
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uh create something that's really
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amazing you know a space where store
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being told
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uh that are relatable to people who look
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like us
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you know in a way that we
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really haven't seen in an organized
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effort like this and i'm speaking about
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the platform urbana
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when i say your band may we clap or ban
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to me
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uh tone that's your cue tone when i say
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it
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let me let me let me start it off thank
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his first abort he's learning though
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he's getting the crash tone getting
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figured education in one week
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um or venom may is a culture company it
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empowers black and brown audiences by
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making code a hero through our comics
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control designs and comic media
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activation
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urbanime is kicking off open spaces
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this is a year-long initiative to fill
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the gap between retention and reputation
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partnering to create physical virtual
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mental spaces imaging oneself in science
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technology engineering and mathematics
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being inspired by those who have done so
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and gained the resources needed to move
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ahead which brings us to our guest marie
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smith and i want to welcome chris walker
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and marie smith to the platform to talk
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about stuff
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and here they are yo yo to the show yeah
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yeah yeah
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we just got you know we just flow here
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marie can you can you forgive me
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i flow all day every day
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[Laughter]
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marie got bars y'all we got to hear some
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steam bars
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i love music though i love everything
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about music that's what long story means
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as much i learned music and programming
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in the same year so oh really okay so
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you learn music programming in the same
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year i want to talk about that and then
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and you've done a lot of work um in in
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in the music field through stem i want
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chris if you don't mind marie to break
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down what it is that we're doing this
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initiative um open spaces
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and talk about stem chris can can you
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take it away from here
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i can't i can't thank you it's good to
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be on again uh talk to the team yeah so
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and
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hello and then sway i always you know i
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always love how you bring us on so thank
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you for that and how you helped to talk
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about what we're doing and like you said
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it's about the culture and talking about
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the culture of ways and making culture
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the hero we know stem is important to us
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right like you know it's not just uh
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you know programming or trying to get a
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job at you know some big company right
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it's a part of our lives we've always
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seen the culture be innovative and have
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ingenuity you know when i think about
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grand master flash and you know
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inventing a crossfader you know he was
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basically being you know uh
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electronic engineer you know when you
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think about that level of creativity and
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ingenuity that's in our culture you know
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stem is a great for that to be activated
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it creates great job opportunities uh
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for the future but as we've seen
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technology you know with the rise of
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various issues with ai
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you know this kind of programming that's
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happening with various social media
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platforms it's also important for us to
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be part of that space and so with our
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anime being this you know culture
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company and they say do it for the
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culture and this important we are
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leaning into it and back in the play of
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the community of you know black and
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brown folks who really want to be in
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that space and also working with the
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allies who who want to help us so that's
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really what the initiative is about and
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then using comic book and you know
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sci-fi art storytelling and all that
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stuff that gets you excited about still
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possibilities and moves it from just
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being kind of you know sometimes a
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little bit wrote or you know dare i say
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a little bit boring and making it
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fascinating or intimate or relatable
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right like those that you know our kids
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are doing every day you know at the
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house hanging out with him thinking
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about you know cryptocurrency all these
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things are stumped so how can we as a
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band of the storytelling that we do
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continue to raise that excitement but
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also is the bar
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when it comes to companies and brands
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who are also excited and want to work
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with the community giving them a better
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way to work with the community and
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helping translate some of the things
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that they have and you know when we talk
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about that some of the great
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opportunities but as we know put it in a
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cultural language a little bit of flavor
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get it don't sway so people can't hear
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about it you know that's what we're
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doing
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love it open spot open spaces is a
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program that's launching in 2022
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in love letter to stem ep and i was
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reading marie's love let to stem and i
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want to bring maria up to the up on the
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mic uh part of your love letter you said
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i never imagined that i would have
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pioneers for ea sports games
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be a part of an academy award-winning
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team for technology director
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the presentation for the academy awards
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what are these things that you've been
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involved in and congratulations i mean
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your this letter alone would make me
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want to get into stem
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[Applause]
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okay
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can you talk about your introduction to
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stem and then how did you get on
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involved in some of these projects
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yeah yeah so um
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i i started programming because
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you know my parents are both geniuses my
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dad's passed my recipes
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but uh they didn't have they were they
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were really engineers in the making they
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were just these multi-faceted people
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and they didn't have the opportunity to
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to do anything with it so my dad became
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a cop and my mom became a teacher but
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along the way my mom really tried my mom
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was in engineering law and medicine
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and she dropped out of all three of
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those things because she didn't have any
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support really that was kind of the
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bottom line and so within the program
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she taught me how to program and she was
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learning physiology and physiology she
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was learning laws learning law so when
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she was learning programming that was
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the one that really stuck
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with me she and dad was like well we
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gotta do some of this equipment that
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paid mad money for the computer
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and all that you know so he was like hey
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if you want to play with it you know go
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ahead and
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uh from then on you know people would
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ask me when i apply for jobs do you know
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computers
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and i was like yeah of course computers
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but i didn't i thought that was like
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everybody did that
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and i didn't know it wasn't it was a
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thing not for males not for fame not for
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black not for white nobody knew
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computers
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so
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i just kept getting hired and getting
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jobs and then um
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when i went to usc
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uh
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i i wanted to reply to school because of
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a friend of mine who knew john singleton
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and uh i thought
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you know what the hell i applied to that
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sounds better than you know
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some other academic i i did really well
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in school so it sounded better than like
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harvard or mit
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so i was like i wanna have fun i won't
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be with black people i didn't know there
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was only like three black people in the
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world but
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uh from there
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uh i applied to a startup and
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that started was their whole mission was
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about technology and they just let me
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my my mentor just gave me just
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free reign to learn and to be
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uh the whole story behind that but he
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just he was like go for it and so i
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actually became a vice president by time
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i was like 25.
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whoa um
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of that startup and then started want to
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be enrolled up into aol
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if you remember aol um
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it wasn't that low
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aol the oh
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this internet back in today
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yeah i was building apps back in the day
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and we were messing with holly's and
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all kinds of stuff i mean we was we're
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imaging
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people we worked on the busta rhymes and
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janet jackson videos what's it be and we
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did bust a part
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wow so wait wait wait wait wait so and
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see this is a conversation that has to
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be heard because when people say hear
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stem and cricket tested
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they think it's something that's
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unreachable like it's just i don't know
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what it is like it's unacceptable but
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you're seeing it at work if you thought
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of what you what is it what you want to
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be
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that that was one of the most at that
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time now the most expensive
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videos made correct yeah yeah what was
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the budget on that video we were one of
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the few
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we were one of the few that had an
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imaging machine buses stood in the
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machine and got scanned his whole body
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got turned into a 3d 3d model
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we were one of the few studios in the
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world that had that from a group out of
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stanford and so uh paul allen the late
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great paul or microsoft had funded that
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company
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and uh we were one studios to get that
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through various sections and so we got
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to scan a lot of people
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and a lot of things during that time so
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but buster was one of them
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wow yeah i think to sway's point
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folks tend to separate creativity from
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stem you know what i mean they think
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creative jobs is only like right or
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being front of camera or you know the
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typical direction our brain goes when it
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comes to creativity but that's such a
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good example of how art intersects with
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science all the damn time do you have
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any other
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yeah do you have any other examples that
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people probably wouldn't think of
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immediately of how stem is using
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creative fields
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yeah yeah the all the ea games every
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single one of them every marvel movie
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you
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uh every every you know jim cameron
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movie you've ever seen
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uh
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you know even some stuff you don't even
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know in the background i mean i had a
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friend my colleague from film school
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he made the matrix two and three
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he made the island
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he made jumpers
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he made the last samurai he made all
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those in a row
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he burnt out
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he made so many movies um and and i made
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video games in my career i made the
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first law and order video game which is
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weird but it was on the cd-rom wow wow i
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don't even know a lot of video games
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oh my god and also are you comfortable
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you know what the deal is a lot of
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people when they're choosing careers yes
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they do think to themselves is this
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going to add to well-being but they also
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think to themselves how is this going to
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add to my bank account please just throw
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out some numbers
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of the potential one can make from
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lowest to highest
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yeah so the lowest these days the lowest
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is like eighty thousand a year sixty
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thousand a year maybe sixty thousand was
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like pretty bad
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entry level don't know nothing i was
11:11
about to curse but don't know nothing um
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it's a thousand and the highest level
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like engineers uh if you're like i'm an
11:19
og i've been around 30 years almost um
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but
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but uh yeah it's like about 500 to 700
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000 for the top
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wow i think that's incredible i you know
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what i want to add to that just a little
11:34
bit and thank you so much for calling
11:36
into the show don and marie we
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appreciate you uh this is heather but my
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question to with all of your education
11:42
and just being so ahead of the game is
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it hard like i mean already sway knows
11:47
this we already know
11:49
women we're just smarter than the fellas
11:51
we know that al but is it hard to meet
11:53
somebody
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is it hard to meet somebody to do do
11:57
people get intimidated when they just
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hear your mate
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yeah i don't yeah i don't really pump
12:03
family award knowledge too much
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okay
12:08
because this is it's a distraction i'm
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really here for the people you know i
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can't take it so i'm really here to help
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the people but but i say you know really
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confessing
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you know i don't have an engineering
12:18
degree
12:19
right wow
12:21
okay well i
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i'm self-taught i'm a self-taught
12:25
engineer who learned all these things
12:27
and learned ai and learned data
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and all that i didn't i didn't take i
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took maybe three engineering classes my
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whole neighborhood before
12:34
[Applause]
12:36
so wow so you know it's it's
12:39
it's not something you have to you have
12:41
to be you know a certain way or be a
12:45
certain people just people just you know
12:47
are just taught to think on one little
12:49
path right which is like oh i got to go
12:51
to community college in college then
12:53
you don't have to do any of that i mean
12:54
you know we have now we have partnered
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with microsoft and we've been working on
12:58
that partnership for a while and and
12:59
they'll take a barista just like a
13:01
stay-at-home mom anybody who wants to
13:03
learn they'll take in their
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apprenticeship program people don't even
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know it exists
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for the most part i mean there's there's
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like maybe 20 or three apprenticeship
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programs there's
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uh companies that give up to a million
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dollars per company in software if you
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want to start a company i mean there's
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that's how chris and i really met
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because i was that allowed to an
13:23
investor i was like what about all these
13:25
programs like do you know about them and
13:26
the investor who the black investor
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didn't know about and he's at the top of
13:30
his field
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so that tells you a lot right
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people just don't know what's going on
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it doesn't disconnect and so that's what
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we do at j360 we really we're bringing
13:41
all that to the people you know so they
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really went on
13:44
data 360 and that's your company so you
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went from being the the vp of a startup
13:49
that eventually became ol heather she
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said y'all know y'all ever hear that aol
13:55
oh
13:56
well and i still got it and i still have
13:58
an android so whatever sway i know where
13:59
you're going with it okay okay
14:02
i knew heather wouldn't know where that
14:03
yol is you still got that
14:06
but um
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but the purpose of this conversation was
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just to really uh talk about
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marie's journey and um partnering up
14:18
with
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anime the company that i partnered up
14:20
with uh and chris walker in this
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initiative called open spaces we're
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really trying to get our kids interested
14:27
in stem science technology engineering
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and mathematics and when you look at
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statistics of you know uh black men and
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black women or are
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black and brown men and women uh we make
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up such a small percent of scientific
14:42
engineers uh uh working in science
14:46
uh engineering that is it's almost as if
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it's being is purposeful chris and so
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open spaces is to counteract all of that
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in in and presented to our youth in a
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way that's relatable and not so much
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intimidating correct so can you talk to
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us about what open spaces is and then we
15:05
got people calling in
15:07
so how can we find out how can they find
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out more where do they go how do we get
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our kids involved he just talked about
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making a three-quarters of a million
15:15
dollars and she don't even have a degree
15:17
in engineering so it doesn't take that
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to get to where she is is what she's
15:21
saying that a lot of times we fear that
15:23
process we don't have the resources we
15:25
don't have the money we don't have all
15:26
of those things so uh what do you what
15:28
do you say to that chris
15:30
yeah definitely and that's one of the
15:32
the things that we've seen you know in
15:34
our research when we started developing
15:36
is you know that's one of the top issues
15:38
you know from our community is that kind
15:40
of lack of resources or fear thereof
15:42
so what marie said you know a lot of the
15:44
tech companies are starting to take
15:45
those barriers down so if you have
15:48
interest and you have aptitude they're
15:49
working with you now so that's part of
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what we're doing with open spaces
15:53
is really kind of connecting the dot
15:54
since them you know for our community
15:57
and one of the things that we're really
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focused on is this idea of building uh
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your stem identity right so if you have
16:03
a strong belief in self you know who you
16:06
are you know what you want to do using
16:08
you know kind of having fun with comic
16:09
book storytelling building that stem on
16:11
the hero and that kind of hero journey
16:13
that you want to have instead make your
16:15
mark so that'll be part of what we're
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doing with some of the training sessions
16:19
we're going to be having office hours uh
16:21
where we'll be working with the
16:22
professionals and companies where you
16:24
know kind of like what we're doing must
16:26
be like an open format where they'll
16:28
talk foreign call in
16:30
um
16:31
you know we'll figure out which platform
16:33
it's going to be but where you know you
16:35
can have that kind of open conversation
16:36
uh with someone who is a professional
16:39
and then we're talking to various brands
16:41
who are across the you know spaces um to
16:45
help us bring those resources because a
16:48
lot of times like marie said you know
16:50
there are a lot of these resources that
16:51
a lot of companies have put together but
16:53
they maybe aren't packaging it or
16:55
talking about it in a way that our
16:57
community
16:58
is you know hearing or it might be in a
17:00
different space so we're partnering with
17:03
them and then you know helping to bring
17:04
those uh resources so if you go to
17:07
urbanite.com
17:09
and uh just sign up for our news we'll
17:11
um send out more information as we go
17:14
towards our launch and what we're
17:16
looking at is a february
17:18
is a february kickoff uh where we're
17:21
going to do our mixtape that we've done
17:23
before but this time it's going to focus
17:25
on black women and tech
17:27
because we really believe that black
17:28
women in tech are an aspirational group
17:31
for anybody uh you know having their
17:34
their own journey with stem but
17:35
especially black and brown folks and
17:37
really elevate the kind of uh stories
17:39
and heroes you know like sonic marine so
17:42
that we can put that out there and then
17:44
kind of you know start that journey over
17:47
the year and our big thing that we're
17:48
trying to say is you know permission not
17:50
required right like you don't need
17:52
permission to be in stem you don't need
17:54
permission to be in tech you don't need
17:55
permission to be in science and that's
17:58
where you know this uh initial um you
18:01
know celebration state and our ep which
18:03
is like uh love letters and we you know
18:06
flip those you know you don't want to be
18:07
like oh well here's another love letter
18:10
from our community to step right i think
18:12
black folk in particular we've had
18:14
enough of loving people and things that
18:15
don't love us back and so we were like
18:18
how can we flip that how can we make it
18:20
so that it's a love letter from stem to
18:22
our community appealing to our community
18:25
for our ingenuity our creativity and
18:27
everybody you know here knows right like
18:28
we invent things we intend culture
18:31
you know we change narratives you know
18:33
uh
18:34
correct me if i'm wrong i think laughter
18:36
uh you know or last year we said the
18:38
nation so you know for me i'm like stem
18:41
needs to have conversation with us and
18:43
that's setting that state and we found
18:45
you know some really people to have that
18:47
letter and that appeal so again go to
18:49
urbana.com
18:51
sign up for the newsletter we'll be
18:53
doing more
18:54
download the stem ep i want to give a
18:56
shout out to leticia wright
18:58
from biobus you know a lot of very
19:00
interesting people who wrote letters um
19:03
biobus
19:04
what they do is they help the community
19:06
by actually going into neighborhoods and
19:09
teaching kids
19:10
uh science and it's a bus that helps
19:12
k-12 and college students and actually
19:15
goes around uh to neighborhoods where
19:17
you can discover and explore science and
19:19
understand hey is this something
19:22
that i want to do so we'll be promoting
19:24
and bringing more things like this just
19:26
so that people can see it um leticia
19:29
wright um will um k renee horton phd
19:33
um and uh wilson foster um and
19:37
engineering uh k renee horton who has a
19:40
phd uh uh speak writing a letter um
19:43
through mathematics right and so oh yeah
19:47
actually it's uh jessica we're to um
19:50
uh dr horton and we're gonna work with
19:52
her you know hopefully uh during lunch
19:55
but i was able to speak with um
19:57
jessica who's an astrophysicist and so
20:00
her whole world when we were talking she
20:02
was like but chris like you know you
20:03
want a math letter she's like you know
20:05
i'm not necessarily math and i'm like
20:07
hey for me coming from the art side all
20:09
those equations that you do that's math
20:11
to me
20:12
so just
20:14
right here in those perspectives you
20:15
know it's really interesting okay so we
20:17
got a lot of calls so citizens i i i
20:20
i've heard me mention urbana may before
20:22
and i'm gonna continue to mention
20:23
abandonment we have a lot of things
20:25
coming up uh moving forward but you
20:27
spell it you are
20:29
b-a-n-i-m-e
20:33
com urbana maine.com check it out i got
20:37
mike news on the line citizens we got
20:38
mike muse he heard he heard we was
20:40
talking about still he ended up calling
20:42
in man mike said he has an engineering
20:44
degree mike marie meet mike mules chris
20:48
you know mike mueller he has an
20:49
engineering degree and he's also a
20:51
sports commentator that's a whole nother
20:53
side of him but mike welcome to the
20:55
conversation
20:58
hey good morning everyone happy on the
21:00
call and congratulations for you guys
21:01
and for what you're doing it's really
21:03
really important
21:04
and it's it's it's uh mike you you've
21:06
since day one always talked about the
21:08
importance of them and us um being
21:10
involved and and so i'm sure you're
21:12
about what's going on here right and
21:14
then even go ahead
21:17
no
21:18
uh and you know one of the reasons that
21:20
when you look at research you see how
21:22
small the percentages of
21:24
us that are involved on science
21:26
technology engineering mathematics
21:28
mathematics even majors in college you
21:30
know it's something that work on why why
21:32
do you what what got you into still mike
21:34
muse
21:38
uh it's a really great question um i
21:40
when i was in high school
21:43
my teachers were just talking careers my
21:45
team noticed that i was really good at
21:48
math and in science and they encouraged
21:51
me to pursue an interest in engineering
21:54
um very early on probably i'll say my
21:56
sophomore year in school
21:58
and then at that moment i just kind of
22:00
got ushered into a lot of stem programs
22:03
within my city and so
22:05
uh
22:06
i can't be about not to say their name
22:07
now but michigan state oh i did like a
22:10
summer engineering
22:13
it's gonna be okay mike
22:16
i know i can't believe i haven't even
22:18
given them some type of credit for my
22:19
success and where i am today but
22:22
nonetheless i did some engineering
22:24
academies uh mistake i took classes at
22:27
michigan state uh multitudes of classes
22:29
atlanta community college around
22:31
engineering curriculum and courses and
22:33
so i kind of got really indoctrinated
22:36
really soon and early
22:38
into stem and then i just realized the
22:40
possibilities did within the stem career
22:42
and that really was my intro and just
22:45
him
22:46
there it is uh we'll meet marie and this
22:48
um and mike muse having us out on our
22:50
initiatives down the line i just threw
22:52
that out he didn't know yet chris but we
22:54
just hired him uh let's talk to some of
22:57
them
23:00
welcome this way
23:02
okay right uh let's talk to some of our
23:05
callers we got a ton of color school
23:07
area and this is why
23:09
come on let's go we got terry from the
23:11
bay what up t how are you doing grand
23:13
rapids hey
23:16
terry are you there
23:17
yeah yeah i'm here how are y'all going
23:19
great
23:20
how are you doing good good i just
23:23
wanted to call and encourage some youth
23:25
you know to step into the stem field i'm
23:27
a black woman in engineering
23:30
and i work out here in the bay area in
23:32
the automotive industry
23:34
and i went to school for it
23:37
um and i also wanted to talk to marie
23:39
and her if she's ever programmed music
23:42
uh with computers because i had a class
23:44
where i programmed music like coding and
23:47
i actually made music doing coding
23:51
yeah yeah yeah i've done that a lot
23:53
actually in my spare time right
23:55
uh i used a program with a program
23:58
called acid and i used to love making
24:00
tracks and beats now you know how to
24:01
make tracks i don't spit bars but i
24:03
don't attract okay
24:05
all right
24:06
for myself and remakes i did a remix of
24:08
marvin gaye a long time ago like that
24:11
but uh yeah i always did that and in
24:13
fact like uh chris and i were talking
24:14
about so much you know we met we met
24:17
through through music and all that you
24:18
know pharrell uh sponsored a program
24:20
called black ambition
24:22
and uh that's how we met we met about
24:24
music talk about music talk about anime
24:27
talk about programming all that so yeah
24:29
you know music is is one it's wonderful
24:32
to program
24:33
and uh you know a lot of programmers are
24:36
music geeks and a lot of music geeks are
24:37
programmers
24:40
you know we run neck and neck people
24:41
don't really know that but it's really
24:43
true
24:45
yeah i was happy to find my my passion
24:47
between music and earning and being able
24:49
to go into that fit i also went into
24:51
audio engineering uh within the
24:53
automotive industry so it's definitely a
24:56
good field to go into and like tracy
24:58
said earlier you know you can be
25:00
creative in this field you can make a
25:02
lot of money in this field and yeah i
25:04
just really want to encourage other
25:05
youth especially black women to get into
25:08
the stem field there's not a lot of us
25:09
in the offices but definitely a great
25:11
field to get
25:12
into thank you sir terry thank you for
25:15
calling we're part of the bay
25:17
i'm in san francisco
25:19
okay that's what's up with the city just
25:22
moved out here from detroit oh you're
25:24
loving it what what are you in san
25:25
francisco
25:27
uh like san mateo
25:30
oh geez okay she getting money y'all
25:32
she's living in san mateo she getting
25:33
money so get your engineering degrees
25:35
like terry all right
25:37
all right thank you terry
25:39
you're a citizen absolutely
25:42
yeah
25:43
uh we got gavin from new jersey on the
25:44
line graham rice's gathering jersey
25:46
stand up hey hey
25:47
grant what's going on what's happening
25:50
man what's up sway how are you
25:52
i'm chillin man hey i came in at the uh
25:55
at the tail end of your conversation
25:56
about the stem program i'm a biochemist
25:59
major at seton hall i wanted to see what
26:01
information i can do to help i'm
26:03
actually going on my second career i did
26:05
26 years in the army
26:06
and i'm working on my second career like
26:08
i said in uh biochemistry so i want to
26:11
know is not a lot of us um africans in
26:14
the science and technology field so i
26:15
want to see what i can do to help
26:17
chris you want to jump in
26:20
yeah i'm here like uh you know send us
26:23
an email we'll um you know uh sway if
26:26
you can how we do it on there but if we
26:28
can get your info if you just send it fo
26:31
urbanime.com and actually anyone who's
26:33
listening if you're interested in open
26:34
spaces and working with us if you send a
26:37
an email to info uh urbanime.com we're
26:41
really excited to work with
26:42
professionals like yourself because you
26:44
know i'm accountable cards and other
26:46
things but it's really using it as a
26:48
platform to help you and tell you and
26:50
tell the story of how we're needed so
26:51
definitely
26:53
what made you um
26:54
oh yeah go ahead i'm sorry go ahead i
26:56
was gonna say real quick and chris don't
26:58
forget he didn't are we starting our
27:00
collaboration also called hip hackathon
27:03
and it's a hip hop hackathon.you can
27:05
also participate in that we're
27:07
recruiting different professionals and
27:09
things like that we're just we're just
27:11
barely starting that but
27:13
that's going to be a great project as
27:14
well that we're collaborating on
27:15
together
27:17
yeah okay i'm really excited about that
27:18
using the culture as a way to again get
27:21
people in and talk what they're doing i
27:22
love how you know like you said like i'm
27:24
an engineer and a musician right there
27:26
that's that's literally what works into
27:28
and what we're trying to appeal to
27:31
evan so that's info at
27:33
urbana
27:34
dot com what made you go into
27:36
biochemistry
27:39
uh
27:41
actually i was i graduated with my
27:42
undergraduate and abolish as a biologist
27:45
i got a job working in the perfume
27:47
industry and uh actually they wouldn't
27:50
let me get in the lab they would let me
27:51
work
27:52
so uh they said i didn't have quote
27:54
unquote enough lab experience
27:56
but other of my co-workers and peers
27:59
that had a lesser degree than i was was
28:00
actually in doing chemistry
28:02
so i decided that hey if you're not
28:04
going to give it to me uh you're not
28:06
going to let me work in the lab and do
28:07
what i what i'm good at and i'm very
28:08
good at it uh i'll just get the paper to
28:11
alleviate
28:13
one of the two reasons why not in the
28:14
lab if you get what i'm saying
28:18
absolutely yeah we no longer asking for
28:20
permission gavin so you right on on
28:22
right on track with us please reach out
28:24
man and i took down your number i hope
28:26
you don't mind okay oh no i would like
28:29
for you guys to call back because i
28:30
couldn't i'm driving i'm in the car
28:31
getting something to eat before i get
28:33
beat up
28:34
okay cool you got a lot going on brother
28:36
you better get that get that sandwich um
28:39
okay so
28:40
i'm gonna pass this to uh my man chris
28:42
and we'll have somebody reach out okay
28:44
all right man thank you that's what we
28:46
need that kind of participation man
28:48
you're a citizen thank you for your
28:49
service to this country all right uh i'm
28:51
gonna take one more when the kia is in
28:54
dallas grand rise is nikia hey nikhia
28:58
graham rises to all of you i listen to
29:00
you guys every day on my way to work
29:02
y'all are my calm my key and y'all keep
29:04
me hip-hop hear me
29:08
i like that
29:09
so i'm a radio broadcaster from dallas
29:11
texas and i have a daughter that's been
29:13
as m since she was 10 years old there's
29:15
even this program in lancaster texas
29:18
where she goes to school but what
29:20
happened was she went to a program
29:22
watched her do it and they put her in
29:24
front of a contestant situation one and
29:27
she's been doing it every sin draws on
29:30
her computer she said this you know what
29:32
i'm saying and i wanted to keep going
29:34
with it but i know there are so many
29:35
other black children and brown children
29:38
if we would affect their lives with this
29:39
right here we could get a lot of them
29:41
off the streets and a lot less healing
29:43
happening and that's my
29:45
let's get these kids off the street stop
29:47
letting them get killed by society and
29:48
stupid let's let's raise the culture
29:51
there you go i like you got us a little
29:54
parent
29:55
yeah that
29:56
parents got to be minded to that you
29:58
know a lot of times
29:59
what intimidated us so our fears
30:02
get in the way of what we what we want
30:04
for our kids so i appreciate an opening
30:06
supporter of your daughter nikhil you're
30:08
a citizen you're a citizen you're
30:08
waiting for this answer in the morning
30:10
heather i know you got to go to urban
30:12
view correct
30:13
yes i do i'm headed over to urban view
30:15
citizens thank you guys so much for
30:16
every god bless keep doing what y'all
30:19
are doing we appreciate it and of course
30:21
um love your citizens thanks so much
30:23
thank you thank you hb channel 120 let's
30:25
take this one call west from
30:27
massachusetts chris and marie and mike
30:30
um he wanted to talk about federal grant
30:31
programs go ahead wes great welcome to
30:33
the show
30:37
yeah loud and clear go ahead you got
30:39
some information for us
30:41
absolutely so what i do is i work out at
30:43
west springfield massachusetts what i do
30:45
is i write uh state grants
30:47
to help students that are from
30:49
unrepresented groups for instance first
30:51
generation college students of color uh
30:54
what we do is we try to line them up
30:55
with career paths that are high demand
30:57
um regarding uh regional employment
31:00
demand you guys can use this uh tool
31:03
um every region has the information
31:06
that's vital to students especially
31:09
those that are coming from
31:10
underpresented groups low-income uh
31:12
first-generation college students
31:14
english is the first language
31:16
you know this is something we need to
31:17
spend across the united states um i'm
31:19
actually a doctoral student at eastern
31:21
university
31:22
and uh my uh dissertation and practice
31:25
is basically trying to prepare students
31:27
for uh the real world and uh trying to
31:29
change this 200 year old system that uh
31:32
is not really helping many people
31:34
hmm
31:35
um
31:36
and and and
31:37
what how did you learn about writing the
31:39
grant would what made you go that down
31:41
that path
31:43
oh yeah absolutely so started off as a
31:45
mathematics teacher
31:47
and i worked with middle school and high
31:48
school age students in springfield
31:50
massachusetts
31:52
which is a tough very diverse
31:55
population
31:56
realized to help these kids transition
31:58
you know out of high school um you know
32:00
the math is great and all we need to
32:02
learn the application of that so i
32:04
learned about a program that we had a
32:06
west springfield mass called innovation
32:08
pathways
32:09
and uh basically the whole point of that
32:11
is like i said preparing students for uh
32:13
high demand careers
32:15
and also aligning
32:19
oh man you know how
32:21
oh i went through a tunnel there i
32:23
apologize um so i also i line students
32:25
up with early opportunities so that they
32:27
get caught early college for free
32:29
and then i help them get internships and
32:31
jobs at uh you know high demand uh
32:33
employment opportunities like medical
32:35
centers for health care um
32:37
information technology computer science
32:40
all that we just got to get kids indeed
32:42
and engaged early on not waiting until
32:44
they're in 11th 12th grade you know take
32:46
these uh types of career decisions
32:48
that'll affect your entire life
32:50
well listen wes um info at urban.com man
32:54
we need people like you to join our
32:56
movement you down
32:58
definitely i'm 100 percent down play i
33:00
really appreciate taking my call and uh
33:02
hey
33:03
i love looking out there oh thank you
33:05
man and uh let me take your number down
33:07
too but deli hit us up at info
33:10
bannerman.com
33:12
and we would love to hear from you
33:13
brother wes uh you're a citizen you're a
33:15
citizen
33:17
all right as calvin in chicago built a
33:19
chicago uh he builded a program
33:21
dedicated to stem for children of color
33:23
thank you calvin salute to you uso in
33:26
san jose um has the kids with disability
33:28
to learn stem thank you uso anthony and
33:31
buffalo wanted to say props to
33:33
abandonment we would love for all y'all
33:34
to reach out to us at info at urbana
33:37
u-r-b-a-n-i-n-e
33:39
dot com let us know you heard us on this
33:41
show marie i wanna thank you we gotta
33:43
have more conversations just the first
33:45
of many marie smith give her a round of
33:47
applause thank you marie yes marie such
33:49
a queen
33:50
and people i want to go i want to give a
33:52
quick shout out to uh google as well
33:54
because google is partnering with us
33:56
putting together hackathons and putting
33:58
together all this and they're going to
33:58
be part of hip-hop hackathon too and uh
34:01
they got a lot of programs we have a lot
34:03
of lots of conversations that
34:05
there's a lot of programs out there
34:07
okay and hackathon which is if you want
34:09
to um learn more about hackathon where
34:11
do they go
34:13
hiphop hackers.com there it is easy
34:16
money mike muse thank you for joining
34:18
the convoy i know we be talking you know
34:19
we we probably was going to talk about
34:21
some other things but i
34:23
i don't know man i liked i liked that we
34:25
had a chance to have this conversation
34:26
you could call back tomorrow if you want
34:28
to do some more political news mike
34:30
[Laughter]
34:43
[Music]
34:45
all right thank you mike i'll talk to
34:47
you later brother we appreciate you man
34:48
uh chris all right
34:51
and then chris people want to read you
34:53
let them know how to eat you brother
34:55
yeah definitely so i'm uh chris dot
34:57
walker at urbana may you are v8 nime.com
35:02
or like we said info if there's you know
35:04
you want to be part of open spaces we're
35:05
happy to send you
35:07
uh information and then you know um you
35:10
can go to our site today sign up and get
35:12
the stem ep i wanna you know some warm
35:14
regards and shout outs to leticia wright
35:16
for pinning the science letter marie
35:18
smith sending the tech the technology
35:21
letter uh
35:23
will south for penning the engineering
35:25
letter and cabola for appending uh the
35:28
mathematics letter uh check them out and
35:30
i wanted to give a shout out um that's
35:32
also going to be part of the
35:34
chabot space and science center which
35:36
you know swayed from being out in
35:37
oakland we're going to be partnering
35:39
with them and helping them with various
35:40
initiatives at um at the center uh
35:44
including some of their initiatives that
35:45
have to do with uh space exploration and
35:48
building your you know kind of imagining
35:50
worlds and that sort of thing through
35:51
the wind system so we're very excited
35:53
you can tell there's just good energy
35:55
here and there's a lot of us in the
35:57
community that this is what we do and we
35:59
hope open spaces becomes that platform
36:02
for that energy and that outpouring uh
36:04
like the caller said so that we can get
36:05
our people and even our you know right
36:07
now young people into these jobs and
36:09
pursuing the things that they're
36:10
passionate about and one of the things
36:11
that i'm i'm really serious about is no
36:13
one has the ability to take that passion
36:15
away from you the same way i was
36:16
fortunate enough to have peace that
36:19
allowed me to pursue art and
36:20
storytelling and all that stuff i want
36:22
the same thing for people in stem if you
36:24
love it then let's get behind you as our
36:26
anime and let's you know help brands and
36:28
community and culture be behind you
36:30
urban.com and
36:32
i didn't tell you this part chris when i
36:34
was in elementary
36:35
imagine the elementary
36:37
uh the court the class was in we was we
36:40
spent a week at the chabot uh space
36:42
music
36:43
let's call something else though so both
36:45
science center i feel like it was called
36:47
back then and so every day instead of
36:49
going to class on campus we went there
36:52
and um and as these people were really
36:56
teaching us about stem we didn't
36:58
understand it wasn't called stem
37:00
you know it you know it wasn't phrased
37:02
like that at that time but it was it's
37:04
an amazing place so i'm glad it's
37:06
reopening and i hope and we're going to
37:07
do more promotions about that i want to
37:08
send a lot of kids here it's an amazing
37:11
place to learn uh tracy um thank you
37:13
chris tracy and welcome back they could
37:15
reach you where thank you callaway
37:17
citizens love guys hit me up on twitter
37:19
instagram it's tracy g-i-t-s-t-r-a-c-y-g
37:23
also for all of our citizens who are in
37:25
san diego or around that area i'm
37:28
actually going to be flying out to san
37:29
diego
37:30
a little later today join my michelob
37:33
ultra family for a couple pride one that
37:35
y'all can join me for is the cycling
37:37
experience and live concert that they're
37:39
having november 10th which is
37:41
wednesday it's gonna really fire um the
37:44
superstar cycling instructor demar
37:46
jackson is gonna be a part of it as well
37:48
as um zed multi-platinum grammy
37:50
award-winning artist dj producer go to
37:57
mklobeultramovementlive.comultramovementlive.com
37:58
to get your tickets if you're interested
38:00
that's dope tracy uh and so welcome back
38:03
thank you again marie let's have more
38:05
conversations okay
38:09
[Music]
38:19
[Music]

Chris Walker and Marie Smith of Urbanime Talk About The Importance of STEM Programming

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Chris Walker and Marie Smith of Urbanime Talk About The Importance of STEM Programming

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