B.O.L.D members Christopher “Flood the Drummer” Norris and Rashaun “DJ Reezey” Williams are engaging youth through a unique form of edutainment and storytelling.
—
In September of 2013, I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Rashaun “DJ Reezey®” Williams, my brother, business partner and mentee, as we gave the keynote address at Mobilize.org’s reGenerate Philly Summit, a three-day weekend which convened Millennials, civic leaders, and community stakeholders to discuss both the economic and civic challenges facing Philadelphia, and the social entrepreneurial ventures that could be established to solve them.
I had no idea during the planning leading up to the event that I would’ve been asked to open up the weekend and inspire some of Philly’s brightest minds. But when the opportunity arose, so did an innovative idea: leverage the drumset to illustrate computational thinking and how it ties into entrepreneurship, and highlight the party culture associated with a DJ to discuss the need to move on your idea and take risks.
This wasn’t the first time I had this idea, but it was the first time I was going to be able to execute it in front of a live crowd. Once I got the green light on this unique form of edutainment and storytelling, I informed Williams, the youngest BMe Leader in Philadelphia, that he would be joining me in a historic, never attempted before performance; he, being an actionist, was up for the challenge.
Williams and I never practiced our performance together, but we knew what our outcomes were: use music to inspire teens and millennials to implement their social good idea, and share the stories of our successes and challenges so that they’ll feel comfortable failing and succeeding.
“Have you ever been to a party and the music comes on but everyone is afraid to be the first one to dance?” asked Williams, during his nearly 15 minute presentation. “You want to dance, but you don’t want to risk looking stupid,” he continues, “then finally someone hits the dance floor and then everyone feels comfortable dancing… Well being an entrepreneur is about being the first one to hit the dance floor; taking the risk in spite of looking stupid and being the first one to the market with your innovation.”
Scott Stein, Executive Director, Mobilize.org, hailed our performance as “one of the best keynote presentations Mobilize.org has ever seen.”
Williams was 19 years-old when he gave that speech, and at the time he was struggling with whether or not he should drop-out of college and pursue his dream of social entrepreneurship. After much reflection, Williams followed his heart, and, in the truest sense, moved to his own groove.
Nearly a year later, the energetic econologist—who made world history in May of 2014 by being the youngest content producer on the planet published by the London-based news platform, Niuzly.com—is the star of a widely circulated online comic Techbook, and will be returning in late June of 2014 to Temple University—where he resigned as a student—to present his thought-leadership at the “My Life, My Future” 12th Annual Teen Conference and Rally. Williams won’t just be restricted to a podium, as he will also being spinning the tunes.
Williams believes, as do I, that in order to engage the youth of today and inspire them to think entrepreneurially about the issues they care about, we have to provide a new form of engagement: one called edutainment.
While I didn’t edutain in the same grandiose fashion as when I keynoted last year at the reGenerate Philly Summit, my recent presentation to teens and millennials at the first-ever U.S.-based Microsoft YouthSpark Live event followed the same mode of interactivity; making the audience feel like they’re a part of my story.
By participating in Microsoft’s YouthSpark initiative, I realized the problem of youth unemployment is much bigger than I thought. According to Microsoft, there’s more than 75 million unemployed youth around the world. To attempt to solve the problem, Microsoft has stepped up to put their money where their mouth is, pledging millions of dollars to close the opportunity gap through convenings, grants, and other valuable services.
Additionally, Techbook Online, also concerned with the problem of youth unemployment, is putting our brains were active teens and millennials are, facilitating technology and knowledge transfers that’ll ensure methods of content production and scientific and technological developments are accessible to a wider range of users who can exploit the technology into new products, process, applications, materials or services.
We’re swiftly transitioning into a knowledge-based economy, which means thought-leadership is the new currency. Our stories and experiences make us rich; and our willingness to share those stories makes us wealthy. Share your stories today, inspire the minds of tomorrow and together we can write an end to the world’s toughest problems!
Thanks for reading. Until next time, I’m Flood the Drummer® & I’m Drumming for JUSTICE!™