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FRANK SATTERWHITE, 1600 Avenue Founder
Of the many examples of philanthropists targeting “at-risk” youth, Frank Satterwhite is clearly one to watch. Creatively melding hip hop and technology in a veritable non-profit force entitled 1600 Avenue, Satterwhite has truly developed an organization that will play an important role in not only saving many members of America’s forgotten youth but those in international communities as well. In only its fourth year, Satterwhite has managed to build a powerhouse entity in 1600 Avenue. The mission is a large but noble one: to motivate and enable at-risk youth to pursue higher education and technology careers through programs leveraging hip hop with college preparatory training, thereby helping to solve the lack of diversity and enriched participation in the high-tech industry. 1600 Avenue’s flagship program and primary tool to accomplish its mission is the year round after school college preparatory Hip Hop Leaders Program International (HHL).
In its first two years, prior to the launch of the Hip Hop Leaders Program International, 1600 Avenue initiated a first step in its mission by creating and supporting one of the most successful educational summer camp experiences in the country via The Hip Hop Leadership Camp. Over a four day period in Satterwhite’s native California, over 100 12-15 year olds gathered to experience lessons on life skills, social responsibility, and college preparation through the excitement of music and technology. His team brought together such notables as MTV’s Sway, platinum recording artists E-40, MCLyte, and other music industry heavyweights to lecture and conduct hands-on workshops where students learned the inner-workings of the music industry and the career paths of the professionals such as lawyers, accountants, and business executives that make it possible. Of major importance was also to expose students to a college campus environment who might not otherwise have such an opportunity. Representatives from corporate giants such as Universal Music, MTV Networks, Billboard magazine, Warner Bros. and children from Oakland, East Palo Alto, Compton, Watts, South Central Los Angeles, and San Diego came together for powerful, positive, learning experience.
“It was amazing to see how smart our kids are and how easily they learned when hip-hop was involved,” explains Satterwhite. “Via the hands-on workshops the kids were engaging in the same types of business activities that lawyers, marketing directors do in not just entertainment, but in corporate America, overall. 1600 Avenue created this forum in order for the kids to discover and create new ambitions. And to that end, I greatly succeeded.”
“For me, this was a dream come true,” continues Satterwhite. Indeed, it had been a long journey for this entertainment industry entrepreneur turned technology whiz and philanthropist. Only a few short years before, Satterwhite successfully attended and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley while simultaneously launching his successful independent record company he dubbed ICEM. During his matriculation at UC Berkeley his aptitude and passion for computers became apparent as did his business acumen and intuition of popular culture interests.
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He successfully landed national and international distribution and a successful catalogue and roster featuring Gold and Platinum selling West Coast rap artists such as 2Pac’s Thuglife, Bloody Mary and South Central Cartel. Ever observant, Satterwhite realized he was witnessing and, to a certain extent was an agent of, cultural influence. Satterwhite clearly began to see how Hip-Hop was the voice for a varied cross-section of oppressed people whether White, Black, Latin, or Asian. Having grown up very poor with little money, fluent in Spanish, and having been exposed to multicultural neighborhoods, Satterwhite began to connect the dots and sought to increase his understanding of the socio- economic factors impacting at-risk youth utilizing his own background, as well as hip-hop. He soon arrived at the belief that the common thread fueling the socio-economic struggles of so many people was poverty and lack of access to key resources and, so, made it his objective to crush the related barriers youth face when trying to realize their potential.
Thus, The Hip Hop Leadership camp was born with the directive to help kids living in poverty connect with each other and beat the odds. 1600 Avenue could take the Hip Hop Leadership Camp which Satterwhite’s record label actually started to the next level and help youth realize their potential. Once he sunset the record label as he completed college and moved into the professional world, he was then hit with another revelation: the technology field was sorely lacking in racial and economic diversity. Knowing the power and importance of such a field to societies overall, Satterwhite decided to make that a focal point of his philanthropic organization’s mission, and off he was to establish the financial base needed to realize his vision.
Over the next 10 years he honed his technical skills, obtained his Masters of Computer Science from George Mason University, and quickly climbed the ranks to become a Senior Software Architect and Systems Engineer.
As a Senior Technical Subject Matter expert, he has served in many roles working with classified subject matter including his current responsibilities as engineering lead on various Interoperability Initiatives and Demonstrations with NATO. Frank is the rare combination of an engineer who is “hands-on” technical, able to implement systems on many platforms utilizing various technologies, while at the same time being able to develop and communicate overarching technical strategies to Senior Officials. Frank’s area of expertise is supporting Service Oriented Architecture, Security, and J2EE implementations. He has developed, integrated, and implemented Public Key Infrastructure Elements (PKI), Cryptographic Protocols such as Secure Socket Layer (SSL), and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) into complex distributed software systems. Frank wants to be able to enlighten at-risk youth on how to develop the same set of robust technical skills.
Having allowed his talents to provide him with the strength to fulfill the monetary needs of 1600 Avenue, he decided to re-launch officially. In fact, since its inception, Satterwhite’s organization has privately funded, through his own personal resources, the Hip Hop Leadership Camp as well as the current digital expansion. With this new direction, Satterwhite’s vision is no longer just a camp, but rather a year round technology preparatory and college preparatory curriculum deemed the Hip Hop Leaders Program International. The program now serves a 14-18 year old demographic while still utilizing the excitement of music to motivate at-risk youth to pursue college. The annual event at UCLA, to signify the new bolder direction, is now deemed The Hip Hop Leaders Conference International. This Conference is just a small part of the year round preparatory curriculums that reinforces the importance of technology and education to the at-risk youth being served.
“Technology provides the greatest opportunities for at-risk youth to have the quality of life everyone deserves. People talk about the American Dream, but real talk is technology, technology is the blue print,” explains Satterwhite, who knows first hand.
“Minorities are significantly underrepresented in the U.S. Technology Industry. With such under-representation there are fewer qualified people able to work in the high-tech industry, effectively putting our nation behind such countries as India and China. This needs to change. I’m going to show our at-risk youth that as a technical subject matter expert, they can be in the same tax brackets as some of their favorite athletes, doctors, lawyers, and hip hop artists. Our children can be valuable assets to society here and keep America Strong internationally.”
1600 Avenue also seeks to enable digital opportunities for businesses in poor communities wishing to access technology and technical skills so as to ensure that all communities can be competitive economically.
But it is the year round Hip Hop Leaders Program International which is Satterwhite’s primary focus. In 2007, the program featured cultural and educational exchange between students from United Kingdom and Los Angeles. The Hip Hop Leaders Program International also featured VIP support from the likes of Nick Cannon and Stop Hating Campaign, Paul Stewart, Quincy Jones III, Spinderella, and DJ Premier. In 2008 this outreach will continue with additional countries as well as support from the celebrity community that share a passion for hip hop, technology, education, and empowering our youth. The students also will receive introductions to computers and the software lifecycle, so they understand the technologies used to support their favorite web and ecommerce sites like itunes.com, and MySpace.com. Additionally students will receive hands-on instruction with respect to the technologies used in video engineering, music production, studio engineering, and the 3D graphics and animation that make movies such as Shrek and gaming such as Wii possible.
Satterwhite plans to aggressively pursue partnerships with technology heavy weights such as Microsoft, IBM, AOL, and Sun Microsystems in order to establish bridges between the at-risk youth his program is able to connect with and technology mentoring and opportunities. 1600 Avenue, through partnerships and major donor support, targets providing at least 75 scholarships each year for at-risk youth to go to college.
If the 2Pac lyric “that which does not kill you only makes you stronger” then Satterwhite has the strength of a lion and the passion and compassion to make this world a better place for the many young minds that will follow behind him. Possessing the character and resolve to make his ambitious vision real and bring new opportunities to the doorstep of at-risk youth.
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