Kalimah Priforce

Hacktagonist & Techquity Educator

As “just a kid from Brooklyn,” Kalimah Priforce is a hacktagonist and “codebreaker of human potential” who pioneered the “learn to code” movement utilizing hackathons as breakthrough educational models for low opportunity youth solving the world’s biggest problems through technology and innovation. As a leading expert in closing the digital divide, his upcoming memoir, “How To Raise A Hacker,” reveals his formidable journey from the group homes of Bedford-Stuyvesant to the bad-ass boardrooms of Silicon Valley.

Founding his first tech venture at 16, which sold before his 20th birthday, he is the retired Hacktivist CEO of Qeyno (KEE-no) Group, an Echoing Green-awarded social enterprise that launched the first internationally-televised hackathon for the MSNBC mini-documentary, “Swimming in Their Genius.” Inaugural senior fellow for Van Jones’s Yes We Code, Kalimah launched the first hackathon for Prince at the Essence Festival to celebrate the 30th anniversary of “Purple Rain.”

Creator of the “empathy-spillover model” that revolutionized the exponential inclusion of “futurism” and “hacker culture” in racial and social justice, he is featured on Forbes, Black Enterprise, Essence Magazine, PBS, KQED, NPR radio, and the front pages of USA Today. As an educator, he helped form The Hidden Genius Project, an Oakland non-profit that trains young men of color in modern and foundational programming languages.

His foremost advocacy in making STEAM education – a U.S. national security issue, was recognized by the Obama White House as a Champion of Change. Presented as the central figure in the award-winning documentary, “Code Oakland,” he continues to mentor the next generation of under-represented hacktivists and currently sits on the National Advisory Council for Forward Promise (an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation), and is a TEDx globally recognized speaker who hasn’t used business cards since the mid-90s.