September 10, 2019

GiG Shark Takes A Bite Out Of The 4th Industrial Revolution

gig shark

GIG SHARK is a subsidiary of Dakar Foundation, an entertainment-tech art 501(c)(3) to create a sustainable smart pipeline system for developing and placing more inner-city talent into the creative-tech  Gig economy in Los Angeles County.

The combined- mission for Dakar and GIG Shark is to provide opportunities to those in the under-resourced LAUSD Arts Entertainment Branch, The Regional Los Angeles/Orange County Community College Consortium, and California State University Entertainment Alliance.  The over-arching K- 20 vehicle for career readiness and placement  is the Digital Pathway Initiative.

Within our partnerships, we are developing a tech-entertainment academy which will keep students engaged in their pursuit for higher education while simultaneously providing them the precise requirements for, placements in internships and the future pre-apprenticeship to workforce placement with our Corporate partners: AT&T, Fox Innovation Lab, Apple, Lionsgate, and Sony.

To the students in the program, their completed projects will focus on community service campaigns that will be measured in the effectiveness of supporting causes that engage and activate their neighborhoods bottom-line community development initiatives.

The fellowship will also assist in creating an enriched portfolio of their work, which is critical for matching them with opportunities to our network. These bodies of work will distinguish our candidates with evidence to connect with their academic, certifications and additional courseware to create a compelling case to place them in the network. The coalition of the willing is comprised of a network of education and mentorship stakeholders as well as CTE economic-development, and philanthropic Influencers.

To the students in other programs of study, engineering, biology, etc, the media created by students in the academy will give them the ability to show to others the nature of their projects and how it was designed, built and pitched. To other students in the general population, the media (content) sharing to their peers and respective institutions will provide new light on their valuation. To the community, the media will demonstrate the good in the community and the potential that lies so close to the surface and is now being more fully realized.

This is particularly true for Dreamers and students in traditional CTE programs. Not to be overlooked is the sense of empowerment that the academy can provide to the students. While many of the stories will profile the work of other students, some projects will take on issues important to the school, the community, state of California, the nation and Globally.

By helping students understand how to tell their story and by giving them the means to do it, students and possibly by extension of the community can realize the power of their voice. A student can then become active change agents in the community and hold those in power at all levels accountable.

While we understand that this all well and good, these students often face insurmountable hurdles. We, therefore, have qualified support from www.mentoring.org, AT&T employee resource groups, Digital Hollywood and other well-connected organizations that can help us bring the right people to the students in their classrooms to provide them both the career and life skills they will need to compete in the ever-changing creative-tech economy of Silicon Beach.

This is just one of many initiatives, while we’re focusing on growth industry within Los Angeles County such as digital media and aerospace, we realized the critical need for students to learn how to build and design using computer science skill sets. As the lines continue to blur, we realize the need to bring to bear openmind-sets of underserved students, families, and the educational institutions that we have to approach as non-threatening partners to make those next steps for digital learners.

While Dakar and Gig Shark are not well-known names in the community of service providers for Los Angeles County title-one 10th -12th, classrooms, Los Angeles County Community College Districts, and California State Universities: we’re on the front-line for over 25 years in cities such as Oakland, Compton and now the North-East San Fernando Valley studying the landscape. Our goal is to meet visionary stakeholders in the underserved eco-system who have a passion for moving data as smartly as they can to industry insiders who can make the alignment more precise for the creation of a pipeline that is as
nimble and agile as necessary to keep pace with bleeding-edge technology and its impact on global economies.

Most of our goals align remarkably well with other Non-governmental
organizations Career Technical Education, and Faith-based entities that are the drivers we seek to impact. The need to create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is what we’ve devised entitled www.brownbagtv.org. This student-generated video podcast will socialize the coalition of the willing to disseminate the data and newsworthy collective progress of Gig Shark network. The key performance indicators are the activation of People Power, Youth Leadership Enhanced Collaboration, and Policy Innovation Leveraging-Partnerships and Resources and Changing the Narrative. We sincerely, appreciate any support you could provide to help us achieve these goals and help us construct a 21 century Smart Pipeline.