Brandon Nicholson is a part of a nonprofit exposing Black males to technology.

The Hidden Genius Project

Nicholson, an AFROTECH™ Future 50 honoree, serves as CEO of The Hidden Genius Project, an Oakland, CA-based venture that curates several programs, mentoring Black male youth in technology creation, entrepreneurship, and leadership skills, according to its website.

Nicholson reveals that the project was originally planned as a two-year initiative but ultimately grew into something much greater, now spanning nearly a decade.

“As volunteers with no budget and no infrastructure and no real idea of what we’re doing and probably no business doing it at all, we set out to establish this first ever cohort in 2012,” he told AFROTECH™. “Five young men, high school age who are gonna commit to it just a short period. But what eventually became like a two-year program unbeknownst to literally everybody involved, it just, [was] building the plane as it was flying.”

Today, The Hidden Genius Project has helped over 12,000 youth. Its epicenter is the Intensive Immersion Program, which spans 15 months and offers Black male high school students 800 hours of services, including holistic trauma and healing, mentorship, and guidance from leaders in coding and entrepreneurship — free of cost. These efforts are being carried out in the following cities.

  • Oakland, CA
  • Richmond, CA
  • Los Angeles, CA
  • Detroit, MI
  • Chicago, IL
  • Atlanta, GA
  • Baltimore, MD

Additional programming includes an artificial intelligence (AI) studio that offers training to both students and alumni in areas such as machine learning, neural networks, robotics, expert systems, fuzzy logic, and natural language processing, according to its website. Other initiatives include the Uber Career Prep Program, which provides five virtual workshops focused on software engineering.

Autodesk

The Hidden Genius Project has expanded its efforts further through partnerships spanning Africa and, most recently, the United Kingdom. According to information shared with AFROTECH™, it partnered with the Chelsea FC Foundation, Tottenham Hotspur Foundation, Autodesk, and TEAM Inc. to host the annual Tech Slam UK. Its purpose is to expose youth of color to both technical and non-technical career pathways in sports technology through mentorship and hands-on experiences. The event was held Oct. 8-11, 2024, in Birmingham, UK.

“[It’s] coming together, being able to expose young people to an incredible and dynamic space that is their UK headquarters, where they’re doing fabrication design and all these different things,” Nicholson explained. “It’s really, I think, phenomenal and laying a great foundation also, only reinforcing that our young people are experts at this… We’re extremely proud of them.”

Autodesk Research Manager Brandon Cramer commented in a statement provided to AFROTECH™:

“As an engineer at Autodesk, I’ve worked with The Hidden Genius Project many times over the years, providing training and mentorship to their talented students. What I find most rewarding about this work is getting to know these students and exploring ways to connect their interests to STEM careers. And as their confidence grows, a future in engineering becomes a more attainable possibility in their minds.”