Chief Impact Officer of SoLa Impact Sherri Francois has told us about the new SoLa Technology and Entrepreneurship Center and its mission and shared the details of the organization's partnership with Riot Games.
A few weeks ago, Riot Games donated over $2 million to nonprofit organization SoLa Impact I CAN Foundation. The funding will go towards the building and operation of the SoLa Technology and Entrepreneurship Center that intends to close the digital divide for South LA residents.
We asked Sherri Francois – Chief Impact Officer of SoLa Impact – about the SoLa Technology and Entrepreneurship Center's goals, their partnership with Riot Games, and the organization's future plans.
Introduction
My name is Sherri Francois. I am Chief Impact Officer of SoLa Impact and the Executive Director and Chair of the Board of the SoLa I CAN Foundation. I lead the Social Impact Department. SoLa is led by co-founders Martin Muoto and Gray Lusk.
SoLa Impact is a family of real estate funds with a double bottom line strategy focused on preserving, rehabbing, and building high-quality affordable housing in Black and brown communities. SoLa’s proven track record leverages data-driven social impact strategies to deliver strong financial returns. SoLa Impact’s fourth fund, the Black Impact Fund, is part of an initiative to invest over $1 billion in affordable and workforce housing and related social impact strategies across urban cities in California.
SoLa Impact was ranked as the 7th fastest-growing minority-led private company on Inc. Magazine’s Inc5000 list and was also recognized by Forbes Magazine and the Sorenson Impact Center as the leading urban Opportunity Zone fund in the country. SoLa Impact’s funds have attracted a number of leading investors seeking yield while also committed to Diversity and Inclusion and delivering impact through ESG initiatives.
The SoLa I CAN Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit affiliate of SoLa Impact, aims to improve the lives of South LA residents and break the cycle of intergenerational poverty by providing opportunities for education and economic mobility. SoLa provides the community with skills-based technology programming, as well as scholarships and career development opportunities for underinvested communities to ensure Black and brown Angelenos get increased access to jobs, mentorship, and placement in the most competitive fields of business.
SoLa Technology and Entrepreneurship Center
South Los Angeles is the single largest internet and technology access desert in Los Angeles County. This exists while Los Angeles has emerged as the leading technology industry market in the country. South LA’s Black and brown residents lack access to education and opportunity to be competitive in LA’s fastest-growing sector, contributing to an ever-growing racial wealth and technology access gap.
In 2019, SoLa began to develop the mission of the SoLa Technology and Entrepreneurship Center to help answer this urgent need by training and inspiring a new generation of Black and brown technology professionals, leaders, and entrepreneurs from South LA. The center launched virtually in 2020 and in-person in summer 2021, serving more than 250 middle and high school students with programs in graphic design, digital animation and production, robotics, coding, and more. The final phase of construction is underway with a grand opening of January 31, 2022. The center will be able to serve a minimum of 1000 students a year.
Achieving Equitable Access
SoLa has been helping to close the device access gap since the beginning of the pandemic. In total, SoLa has secured and distributed more than 1000 internet hotspots, with another 1000 units procured in November 2021 (all prepaid with three to five years of data) and nearly 500 laptop computers and Chromebooks as part of our 1000 For 1000 Campaign and technology device distributions. Eligibility for these devices is means-tested, targeting families whose children qualify for free or reduced school lunch and reside in South Los Angeles.
The SoLa Technology and Entrepreneurship Center will service South LA’s low-income Black and brown communities. Classes and opportunities are free and students receive meals and transportation, to remove leading local access barriers.
Information about the center’s opportunities is distributed to SoLa Impact’s affordable housing properties, local community organizations, churches, schools, and civic leaders in both English and Spanish.
How to Enter the Educational Programs
Students of families who qualify as low to very low income and children receiving free and reduced school lunch are eligible for no-cost programming. Application length varies from program to program with some requiring essay, video, or audio submissions.
In addition, SoLa I CAN Foundation’s College Scholarship Program offers a $10,000 scholarship over four years to 25 first-generation high school graduates a year. This program is available for tech center students.
The center will remain place-based for South LA residents.
The Beehive
The Beehive is the nation’s first campus for Opportunity Zone Businesses. The Beehive is SoLa Impact's OZ business campus, comprising 100,000 square feet of commercial space located only ten minutes south of downtown Los Angeles. With six unique and architecturally beautiful red-brick warehouses, large courtyards, a stage, and ample parking this project will transform the local neighborhood and economy in the true spirit of the OZ legislation as the nation’s first OZ business campus.
Tenants of the Beehive are majority women or minority-owned businesses and social ventures. The campus hosts an art gallery featuring Black and brown artists, a black woman-owned restaurant, the SoLa Technology and Entrepreneurship Center, and will house South LA’s first black-owned brewery and taproom.
In addition, the campus has quickly become a hub of local economic, cultural and social dynamism, quickly emerging as one of the hottest venues for events in South LA. The Beehive has also hosted commercial and television shoots, political, civic, and business, public health events, COVID testing and vaccinations, and more.
The center will feature more than 100 computing devices including 30 iMac computers and 50 high-powered gaming PCs, a digital production studio, podcast studio, audio recording studio, multifunctional classroom and collaboration space, VR stations, arcade games, and more. SoLa is also partnering with Live Nation Entertainment to offer the Live Nation Next Gen program, a fellowship to train teens and young adults in live entertainment production. The Live Nation Entertainment Lab is located within the center.
Collaboration with Riot Games
Our CEO, Martin Muoto, has known Marc Merrill and Brandon Beck since the inception of SoLa Impact and their earlier days at Riot Games. We have always been impressed with Riot’s vision and, equally importantly, Marc and Brandon’s true passion for Los Angeles and finding opportunities to give back. In addition, Marc and his wife Ashley Merrill, who founded Lunya, were catalytic to several of our response programs during COVID that were targeted at helping COVID-impacted Black and brown residents.
Through his leadership, SoLa began to develop deeper relationships with Riot Games’ leadership starting in 2019 as Riot expanded its commitment to increase representation in the gaming industry and provide opportunities to marginalized groups around the world. Their recent investment demonstrates this commitment to narrow the racial digital divide and wealth gap. Also, as the leading LA-based gaming company, Riot saw unique promise in SoLa’s mission and proven track record of on-the-ground success providing technology and entrepreneurship education and skills in the community.
Roadmap
The SoLa Technology and Entrepreneurship Center is opening its facility on January 31, 2022. Construction will then begin on a 3,000 sq ft portion of the center, which will become an Esports and Gaming Center, the first in South LA. The center will feature 50 high-powered gaming PCs, a live streaming studio, and event space. Along with being a pay-to-play facility, the center will also train a new generation of video game developers. The Esports and Gaming Center will open at the beginning of Q2 2022.
Classes and curriculum will develop to produce accredited certificates in core technology competencies acknowledged by the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Los Angeles Community College District.
As the curriculum grows, the center will also work to build job and internship pipeline programs for tech center students.
Young adult and adult classes in digital literacy and skills training will follow as the center works towards its goal to lift community residents out of poverty through access to education.
In the months and years to come, as SoLa Impact and the SoLa I CAN Foundation expand their operations throughout California and beyond, SoLa will develop other technology centers to serve the Black and brown communities in which SoLa invests.
In addition, SoLa aims to make its Center the premier technology and entrepreneurship center in Los Angeles and provide a model for like-minded developers and education companies around the country.