White House Author

At eight years old, Kalimah Priforce held a successful hunger strike against his Brooklyn group home to add more books to its library, which drew the attention of a community of Buddhist monks and nuns who privately tutored him until the age of 14. By 16, Kalimah started his first computer tech company that primarily served low income neighborhoods and the elderly. After his teenage brother was shot and killed behind their childhood elementary school, Kalimah formed a lifelong commitment to transforming the lives of under-served kids towards mindfulness of their path and purpose. Kalimah Priforce is the co-founder of Qeyno Labs, an education innovation startup that works with local partners and schools to close the STEM diversity gap in K-12 education by harnessing the interests of under-served youth into STEM career pathways using web and mobile-based technology and inclusive hackathons that promote mentorship and innovation in the app space. Qeyno recently launched the first hackathon focused on Black Male Achievement in Oakland and has been featured on Essence Magazine, Jet, and NPR’s “Tell Me More”. Kalimah is a 2013 Echoing Green fellow and one of the driving forces behind The Hidden Genius Project, an Oakland-based program that trains black male youth in entrepreneurial thinking, software development, and user experience design.