By: Marcus Kennedy, co-chair of the Intel Black Leadership Council
Date: Monday, June 6, 2022
As a business leader, I always geek out when I see customers using Intel-powered systems in the real world. But, in my role as the co-chair of the Intel Black Leadership Council, I get really geeked out when I get to see Intel’s connection to the community. Last month, my geekiness reached an all-time high (a fact my wife might debate) when I had the honor of announcing some exciting and timely work we are doing to support The Hidden Genius Project. In partnership with Autodesk, we’re proudly standing behind The Hidden Genius Project’s mission of training and mentoring Black male youth in technology creation, entrepreneurship, and leadership skills to transform their lives and communities. Our goal is to provide access to cutting-edge training and technology – that will create a meaningful and scalable impact within these communities to help build a diverse workforce of the future.
Our support of The Hidden Genius Project is grounded in three pillars:
- Intel AI for Youth Training: The impact of emerging technologies, like AI, is undeniable. Providing youth with the opportunity to learn AI skills and apply them responsibly to design any solution is an important key to building long-term competitiveness. This hands-on AI readiness program will equip the students of The Hidden Genius Project with relevant mindsets, skillsets and access to AI toolsets to learn and apply AI to solve real-world problems using our OpenVINO framework.
- Provide Access to Intel Technology: We have teamed up with our hardware partners at Monster Notebook to equip The Hidden Genius Project with 12th Gen Intel Core Monster Notebooks. These notebooks are powerful enough to take on the workflows needed to drive innovation forward. We will also be providing Intel NUC 11 Extreme “Beast Canyon” gaming systems to enable their gaming and Esports programs, as well as any other intensive computing projects, at multiple programming sites.
- Intel Internship: Intel will hire two Geniuses each year to accelerate their careers in our “DRIVE” summer internship and professional rotation program – offering the students real-life training and mentorship. As we all know, this kind of experience is key to future success – and can help the students learn what kind of roles and opportunities they like; and maybe, more importantly, what they don’t like. We couldn’t be more excited to bring these Geniuses on board and kickstart their journeys in tech.
The work that The Hidden Genius Project is doing is incredible, and our work alongside Autodesk is a testament of the impact and opportunity that our entire industry can have on our next-generation workforce. Right after I shared this announcement at Vision, I had a number of companies stop me in the halls to ask how they can help. To broaden the impact of support for the workforce of tomorrow, I encourage YOU to consider how your organization can lean in and join us on this journey. For more information on how you can get involved, please visit: www.hiddengeniusproject.org/connect.
To read Marcus’ original blog post, click HERE.
