This is the story of a young African America Iddris Sandu, the black race is blessed with lots of talents, we all should be proud of all our acchievements.
When Iddris Sandu was in high school, he developed a mobile
software that would later gain the attention of former U.S. president Barack
Obama and land him at the White House, where he received the honorary
presidential scholar award.
He was only 16 years old. Now 21, the Los Angeles-based
young man is the unconventional tech guru who has accomplished many incredible
feats, including being responsible for algorithms that have made Uber,
Instagram and Snapchat what they are today.
The software engineer considers himself a “cultural
architect” and said he aims to “level the playing field” between Silicon Valley
and young communities of colour. Born and raised in Harbor City, California
with parents from Ghana, Sandu would never forget a harrowing experience he had
when he was eight – his father had wanted to take him on a trip to Ghana.
“But on the fourth day of the trip, he abandoned me in this
village, took my passport and came back to the States,” Sandu told Oxford
University’s Music and Style Magzine, adding that he was abandoned for almost
nine months before getting into contact with an NGO which helped him travel
back home.
He got back to the U.S. when the first-ever iPhone was
unveiled, and this started his journey into the tech world.
“I just got super inspired. I thought – this device is going
to change the world. The reason why the iPhone was so important was because it
was the first time when regular consumers could develop for other regular
consumers. Before, you really had to work at a tech company for multiple years
to be able to offer any sort of input or to create an app. But Apple made it so
mainstream. I knew it was the future,” he said.
Just 10 years old then, Sandu started learning programming
on his own for the next two years at a public library and this was where he got
spotted by a designer from Google, who offered him an internship opportunity at
the company’s headquarters.
At age 13, he got his first experience with programming and
worked on many projects such as the initial Google blogger, Google Plus, among
others. Being the only school in California that had an app made by a student,
Sandu received wide acclaim that would later afford him a meeting with former
President Obama.
During that same period, Sandu wrote an algorithm that he
would go on to sell to Instagram and by the age of 18, he was already
consulting for Snapchat before landing at Uber, where he created a software
(Autonomous Collision Detection Interface) for its self-driving cars.
With the passion to bridge the gap between the informed and
uninformed, and to inculcate into young people like him the need for invention
and creativity, he left major tech companies to bring that change.
“Information is one of the highest forms of class. And that
is what keeps people divided. You should be able to think on a higher level,
instead of being strictly consumers. And people of colour in particular are
more likely to be consumers than creators. It’s really hard to get out of
poverty or to change the structure of economic power if you’re always going to
be a consumer rather than creating. Shifting that narrative is what I’ve been
trying to do. And thus far, it’s worked, it’s successful.”
From encouraging the study of STEM subjects in schools and
at higher levels, Sandu, in 2017, met rapper Nipsey Hussle at local Starbucks,
and in three weeks, they had transformed an abandoned storefront in Los Angeles
into the Marathon Clothing Store.
The smart store offers exclusive music and other content to
customers who have downloaded an app, said The New York Times.
The store leveraged Iddris’ tech and design background and
Nipsey’s cultural influences, sparking the interests of many journalists as
well as hip hop and cultural icons like Russell Westbrook, Vegas Jones of Roc
Nation, among others.
In an interview with the CNBC, Sandu said the store has
helped him bridge the gap between culture and technology, and would love others
to do same.
“We are living in the digital revolution,” he said. Although
“we are all constantly exposing ourselves to content in real-time.”
“We need to address the largest issues affecting communities
and build infrastructure on that,” Sandu said.
The tech wizard has since partnered with Kanye West and
Jaden Smith on some future businesses, clothing lines and disaster relief
projects that are set to launch in 2019, according to CNBC.
Having created his own music, putting together the sonics
and instrumentals in just 3 days to form a full album, the creative
technologist is working on a book about recent initiators, including Kanye
West; Robi Reed, a casting director; and Edward Enninful, the editor of British
Vogue.
With the drive to use all his networks to empower young
people in America to make a positive impact in their communities, the
unconventional tech genius is already on his way to become a leader for the
next generation of influencers and entrepreneurs.
Yet, Sandu was determined to affect change, hence, at the
age of 15, he designed an app for his high school that gave students turn by
turn directions to navigate their classrooms.
Culled from facetofaceAfrica
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