robert handa: hello, and welcome to "asian pacific america." i'm robert handa, your host for our show here on nbc bay area and cozi tv. today, we profile people and groups changing our world for the better through innovation. every year, the nbc universal foundation awards grants through its program, project innovation, and today, we are gonna meet some of these winners. we'll start with the last mile, a very interesting program that prepares incarcerated individuals for successful re-entry through business and technology training. then wfeature talking points, a nonprofit with a mission to unlock the potential of millions of low-income, underserved families, through technology that transcends even language barriers. and finally, we look at centro community partners, which aims

to foster socioeconomic change through business advisory services and leadership programs to rising, yet also underserved entrepur ant foaci'better together event and tabemasho 2018, all on our show today. grants put together a program called "the last mile" that addresses a crucial situation in society, helping to prepare people behind bars to reenter the community as productive citizens. joining me is simon liu, a graduate of the last mile program in san quentin. he earned a scholarship to hack reactor and is now a software engineer. and also with us is aly tamboura, the manager of technology and program delivery at the chan zuckerberg initiative, who cofounded "san quentin news," where he also earned a college degree and learned to write computer code. welcome to the show. simon liu: thanks robert: give us a little background here in terms of how did the last mile get started? do you know the history of that very much?

i know you're participants. simon: you wanna start, aly? aly: sure, i can give you a little. robert: just a little. aly: so, beverly parenti and her husband, chris redlitz, lived close to the prison. they're both business professionals, and had drove by the prison for years and years. chris was invited in to talk to one of the groups inside the prison, came in and just saw the amount of talent in the prison, and decided to start an entrepreneurship class. he started the entrepreneurship class with his wife. i better include her. i'll be in trouble. and i signed up for the class, and a lot of other men, and the idea behind the entrepreneurship class was you come up with a business idea, you write a comprehensive business plan behind that idea, and it had to have a tech component and a social component. and then you learned to pitch that idea and the final phase of the project, where they brought in real entrepreneurs and business leaders and also some investors, and the inmates got

robert: we wanna hear about your personal experiences, but isn't it great that somebody would come in and look at the potential of the people there, as opposed to looking at the situation a lot of people do? that must have been quite uplifting just to even have somebody do tha when i was in the yard and i heard about pia, it's prison industry authorities, is joining up with a private nonprofit to do a coding program in prison, it immediately got my attention because i was, like, "i don't know nothing about technology. i want to learn about it. i see it as a good way to have a future, and getting a job." robert: it provides some hope. simon: yeah. robert: yeah, why is coding so important, or why is that such a crucial element here? simon: i'd been in the prison system for 20 years, since i was 16 years old, and a lot of those times, i see that people are being taught, men,ew

so, i mean, those jobs are obsolete. nobody wanted to work in those jobs, and if they're not overseas somrehow make a, we need something else new, or else we just get discouraged and go back to the street we come from, or do what we gotta do to survive. so, this program is a means for us to survive and earn a good living and to be reintegrated into the world. robert: yeah, aly, for yourself, i mean, first and foremost, just somebody throwing a lifeline like that out had to be very encouraging. but then also, how did you respond? how did you take advantage of the opportunity? aly: you know, there's not a lot of opportunities in correctional facilities, and piggyback on what simon said, the opportunities that are there usually don't pay a living wage. robert: right. aly: and we know how expensive it is to live in the bay area. fortunately, the last mile has expanded actually out

of california prisons into an indiana prison. it's in six california prisons. but basically, living in california anywhere trying to earn a living wage, especially being an ex-offender, for them to come in and bring a program where you can come out and you can make a six-figure salary right out of the gate--and it does more than just--it's not just the skills, right? it's the interpersonal in a working environment.ld it's the hope that you get knowing that when you get out, you have this marketable skill. and then, the last thing is it's makin' our community safer, right? like simon was saying, most people in prison, and i know this is hard for some people to believe, don't dream about coming out and reoffending. they really wanna have a life. robert: yeah, and you were able to do that, right? aly: all of the graduates of the last mile have been able to do that. i'm not sure the number that are out now, but i know there's about 40 people that have graduated and paroled, and everyone's working, and there's a 0 recidivism rate.

robert: that's fantastic, so, simon, how 'bout for you? how were you able to take advantage of it? simon: since i got out, i've been working to develop a lms, which is a learning management system for tlm to expand our program with our own experience 'cause we're students, so we know how difficult it is to learn in the prison setting environment with no internet, and to teacher, equipment. so, we are using the experience that we learned, us as students, to develop a curriculum to push it out and teach people to do robert: yeah, aly, kind of the same for you, being able to pass that on a little? aly: so, i'm very fortunate, and i work for the chan zuckerberg initiative, and i actually worknal justic. and so, i'm able to not only help the people that, like,

the last mile that helped me, but actually, work to actually reform the system. robert: well, congratulations, not only on being able to take a part in that program, but also taking advantage of the opportunity. that's really great. thanks for being here. aly: thank you simon: thank you for having us. robert: all right, well, coming up, the nonprofit that is helping over 40 million low-income families through technology and solving language barriers, that's next.

robert: our next winner of an nbc universal foundation grant through project innovation is the driving force behind talking points, which, as we mentioned, is a nonprofit helping millionsr children's learning through technology. here to tell us how is the founder and ceo heejae lim, an innovator with impressive oxford, who took her personalom experience as a korean immigrant student and her own mother's initiative to create this unique program. thank you very much for being here.

heejae lim: thank you for having me, robert. robert: give us a quick overview in terms of talking points, what it wants to do. heejae: yeah, so talking points is a nonprofit, and our mission is to unlock the potential of low-income immigrant families in the us to be able to support their children's learning. robert: yeah, and a lot of that is the language bar, heejae: yeah, a lot of it is language barriers. a lot of it is these parents haven't gone through the us school system, and there is a lack of communication and kind of connections between schools and teachers and parents. so, we want to be able to bridge that gap so that they can build relationships and partnerships to support their students. robert: what about your own personal story and your mother's story? that was kind of a driving force behind you doing this, right? heejae: yeah, it was. so, when i was eight, my family moved from korea to england, and we lived in, i guess, the sunnyvale equivalent of london. it was a very heavily korean immigrant community, and i saw my mom kind of becoming this parent leader because she spoke the language and she got the system.

and she's a very shy, introverted lady, so if you meet her, she doesn't seem like a natural leader, so, but i saw the difference that that made in my education compared to many of my friends who kind of struggled at school. robert: yeah, so, what do you try to do then? whatp pe is thle? what do they actually end up being able to do? heejae: yeah, so, talking points is a multilingual family engagement platform that helps teachers and schools communicate with parents in their own languages with two-way translation. we also provide personalized content and coaching for teachers, as well as parents, to better build relationships ande what's happening at school with the home to support their children's learning. robert: i see, and so, that would make content the next frontier then, right? heejae: yeah, we're really excited about that. we stared with solving the language barriers three years ago, but what we have found is many parents and teachers are asking us, "okay, what next?

what can i actually do at home to help my child?" so, the content, we're really excited about. robert: wow, where do you wanna see that go? where's the potential? where's the future in that area? heejae: yeah, so we think the future is if you are a parent who doesn't speak english, you're working double, triple shifts, you cannot make it to meetings at home, at school, what can you do in terms of actionable steps that you can take at home to be able to support your student? so, for example, if we know that homework is coming up in two weeks' time, what are the things that, as a parent, you can doins at hom h robert: that's really great. it's really the format and the idea of what to do and how to follow what's kind of basically a foreign way of doing things easier, huh? heejae: yeah, exactly, and we're excited about the personalization piece because we are able to customize

the content, depending on who the parent is and what the child is learning at school, and so on. robert: how 'bout for you? how rewarding is it for you to be able to do this? how personally satisfying is it? heejae: oh, it's what gets me up every day, every morning. it's extremely rewarding. i had a corporate career before talking points, and it's just unimaginable to go back to kind of that kind of career now. robert: yeah, but that's just always an interesting aspect to every story to me is that a lot of people started somewhere else. th w what was it that made you--what was that turning point? what was the time when you shifted over and decided that you could do this and that it could be something viable? heejae: yeah, so i grew up with scholarships. so, education has always been kind of in my heart. ck. heejae: yeah, so i grew up with scholarships. the way that--the turning point really was winning the idea for talking points as a teacher's pick at a weekend hackathon four

years ago, and that was sponsored by oakland unified, and now oakland unified is one of our district partners. so, four years later, i feel like everything's kinda come full circle, which is really exciting. robert: what do you see as, like, you know, content is going to be kinda the next big area and things like that? you have millions of people who are participating in this. how do you get the word out? how is it that it's spreading so fast, or how did it spread so quickly? heejae: i'm so glad you asked that. it's actually just spreading by word of mouth. robert: really? heejae: yeah, through teachersnd through parents. and we already see this as not what exactly talking points is doing, but just the growing demographics of english language learner students and just changing demographics that maybe the bay area is used to, but the entire country is not used to yet. heejae: you can go tockly, our website, talkingpts.org. so, it's actually talking-p-t-s.org, and get in touch.

robert: yeah, well, obviously, people have found out, and it must be very satisfying to have, you know, be able to find something that resonates with people so well, that's great. heejae: absolutely. robert: congratulations on that. heejae: thank you so much. robert: all right, well, stay with us. next up is centro community partners helping underserved, but potentially rich entrepreneurs. stay with us.

this next program is another excellent example of what nbc universal's looking for in awarding its project innovation grants. centro community partners helps underserved low-income entrepreneurs launch their businesses, which, in turn, help others like them do the same. with us is the ceo, arturo noriega, who uses his impressive background and experience to help the community. he got a ba in economics from uc berkeley, and an mba in strategic management and leadership from claremont graduate university, and has been a management consultant and global development advisor for governments, financial institutions, corporations, and nonprofits. welcome to the show. arturo noriega: thank you so much. it's an honor to be here.

robert: oh, well, thank you for being here. give us an overview, in terms of centro community partners. arturo: absolutely, we provide entrepreneurship training and education to minority and women entrepreneurs all over the bay area and beyond, but we really focus on how to bring that information to people who haven't had access to that type of mentorship, access to capital, and the type of training in the classroom, that we haven't seen that before. robert: what made you decide to do this? so, did you see a lot of people out there with ideas and nowhere to go, or didn't have an idea of where to go? arturo: absolutely, what we kept seeing over the years, and prior to starting centro community partners, and in different parts of the world, but here in particular, where we have so much access, you think we have access. certain aspects of our society or community might have the ability--have a good idea, but unfortunately, they don't know where to go to start something and start a business. so, they either go to certain organizations, but they don't get the right answers, or they get discouraged.

but centro community partners tries to provide those answers for them and creates a structure for them to get through in order for them to start a business. robert: wow, how 'bout the very beginning? how do you discern who has, like, that idea that has the potential to do that, vers he great ideas but maybe not marketable, or maybe won't be successful in a large enough scale? arturo: we always see all sorts, people with just concepts, people that are just in to sell, but what we try to do is we have a basic program and an advanced program at centro community partners, and we also have a mobile app that allows people to actually write their business plan right on their phone. so, if they are just starting with a concept, it's a great business start. but we would love to see them in our programs as well, in the basics, so they can actually see and start testing which models are the best for them, and see if this concept can actually work into a business that could support them and their families. robert: yeah, i wanna hear some examples, but give me an idea for you, as somebody who not only has been involved in

the bigger world, but also gives advice and talks to these people about this kinda thing. what do you usually hear at the beginning? what are some of the obstacles or something that you try to address right away with some of these people who are basically starting from scratch? arturo: their commitment to their idea. what are their values? we try to align their values to the organizations they're trying to build. and from that, we could see, are they committed to putting all the effort into the new business that it requires, including accepting advice?thg not the best idea, or maybe you have to change the model this way or that way in order for it to be profitable. and so, we look for openness and that commitment. robert: where do you go to find these people, though? because, to me, i would think that so many of 'em would be discouraged to the point of where you don't even actually get to the level where you see them, much less--you know,

how do you seek them out? how do you encourage people to come forward and get to that level where you will be able to see them and help them? arturo: absolutely, we work with community organizations, such as community organizations that will--it's a word of mouth, so they'll come in and see, "who offers these services?" maybe they might go in to an sba office and they'll go, "i think you need to work with centro community partners because they have a structured program." so that's one of our filters and one of our channels, but people normally find us either on the web or are interested in--or find us after they download the app and they ask these questions and they come to us. robert: i guess it's safe to say that there's no shortage of people who have ideas out there, right? both: [laughing] arturo: absolutely not. in fact, we get a lot of people that are super creative, very talented, they just, they are primarily women and minorities, and this segment of the community doesn't have that access or don't know where to go exactly. robert: yeah, that's what i was thinking about, you know, just in terms of them being discouraged at such a lower

level, that you might not even get to that point where they can get the opportunity. arturo: that's right, and so, it helps us to get out into the community, work with the city governments as well, the mayor's office, in some cases, and we try to be out in the community as much as possible so we could get visibility. robert: i know you've already had a lot of success. where's the future now? what do you hope to do with your program? how do you want it to expand and help even more people? arturo: we wanna be able to sort of--well, we're very clear on what that future looks like. we are building technology so that people will have actually access through an app, and they could get the business planning tools, how to write a business, how to access capital, microcredits or microloans from local organizations that provide these type of funding, small portions of capital, and also advice. where do they go? if they can't go to centro community partners, perhaps they could go to another organization that's closer to them by location. so, we're building that platform now. robert: interesting, what are some of the ideas that

you've heard that maybe have already either shown potential or maybe have already succeeded? arturo: oh, we've had a lot of great people who have come in with different types ideas, such as chocolate--oh, my goodness. robert: i've heard of that. both: [laughing] arturo: a large portion of our portfolio is our food products that go in into the marketplace. and they're food products, mostly because our clients are women. eighty percent of our clients are women, and so, they love creating food, restaurants, services, and arts and crafts, o u wanna make sure--what do people need to know to get involved and get this--? arturo: well, they should know our name. they should come to our website,unypartn. and it's centro, c-e-n-t-r-o, community.org. that's one way to find it. and the other way is to download our app in the marketplace and they could find it at--it's centro business planning tool,

and they'll be able to find us through those channels. robert: and they shouldn't be intimidated, right? if they have an idea, they should at least run it by you guys, right? arturo: it's a great way to get started because you could do it on the go, and it costs--it's absolutely free, comes in four languages, which is perfect, and it allows people to sort of get the right questions answered because people have a lot of questions, but prograat some big upcoming even, including aaci's better toge

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♪ his boy elroy. with instant acceleration, electric cars are more fun to drive and more affordable than ever. electric cars are here. plug into the present. we've showcased here on "asian pacific america." first, aaci, asian americans for community involvement, will hold its better together event sunday, september 8 at 6 pm at the computer history museum in mountainview. aaci's annual fundraising dinner celebrates its mission to improve the health, mental health, and well-being of individuals, families, and the asian american and pacific islander communities. our colleague, nbc bay area's investigative reporter, bigad shaban, will be the emcee.

and tabemasho 2018 is here, being put on at the center, which used to be known as the jcccnc at 1840 sutte this food extravaganza, and tabemasho 2018 is here, featuring 16 japanese-style food booths, is celebrating its 45th year ts nisei community hall. for more details, go to nbcbayarea.com. in fact, you can get more information on all of our guests and their events on our website, nbcarea.com, and we're also on social media, so check us out on twitter and facebook, and let us know what you think. and that's it for our show. congratulations again to all of the recipients of nbc universal's project innovation grants. we'll be back next week, so we'll see you then. thanks for watching. ♪

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