as a hacktivist educator I teach
hacktivism at the root of hacktivism is
subversion I teach subversion now when I
tell people this they usually think that
I teach inner-city youth how to hack
into the Pentagon and disarm our nuclear
weapons now that does sound cool and
I’ll leave it at that or that I teach
kids how to code so that they can fill
stem jobs in Silicon Valley and make the
tech industry more profitable diverse
and inclusive that’s also important and
is the work of many of my colleagues but
it’s not what I do I raise hackers to
become activists and I learned from the
best at 14 years old I first met dr.
Monroe after I was expelled from her
school the Frederick Douglass Academy in
Harlem I well she learned that I hacked
into her school which was a much better
school she invited me into her office
and wanted to speak face-to-face and of
course when I walked in and I saw her
face it just froze me in place because
she’s an educator teacher and you all
know somebody a teacher who could just
freeze you when they see you and I may
have adapted that into my career but dr.
Monroe wanted to know why because she
wanted to find out why is it that I
hacked
my behavior records and not my academic
so she told me it had a conversation
with me and she and she said how like
how did he do it she says because
according to academic records you’re one
of the brightest kids in the country and
so I leaned into dr. Monroe and I said
well middle school records are really
easy to hack into no one looks at middle
school I mean is it my fault she wasn’t
having that and so she asked why I did
it
and because she cared to know I decided
to tell her well I’m sharing with you
that at eight years old I read every
book in my group home library these were
books that were donated to us foster
kids with no families no home read every
book every year Pippi Longstocking and
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn Peter
Pan and so I asked for more books and
they said no but something happens when
you read Huckleberry Finn and Pippi
Longstocking I decided I’m going to take
a page out of Oliver Twist and I’m going
to ask for more
in front of everyone because I knew that
they were going to acts for they were
going to say that there was no money
that there were no money for the books
but as an eight-year-old vegetarian I
calculated that they had to be saving
money for every meat loaf they weren’t
but time and again every time I asked
they said no they said no affront
everyone and it kept going back to as a
kid there’s nothing you can do but I
noticed something a pattern that they
didn’t care if required ourselves to
sleep they didn’t care if we did our
homework what they did care was that we
had three meals a day on time every day
and so at eight years old
for three to four days I held a hunger
now I told dr. Monroe this story and she
knew that I had gotten this far on my
own but I needed her help to go much
further but the foster care system
Strikes Back because they wanted to be
transferred from her school and dr.
Monroe was not having it they would come
up to her and ask her for my address and
she would give them my location and by
the time they got there
she moved me somewhere else they would
come back to her asked for my address
and then dr. Monroe said why are you
bothering me I’m a principal of hundreds
of kids how am I going to pay attention
to just one kid okay well here you go
here’s his location and by the time they
got there she moved me somewhere else in
1994 dr. Monroe created an underground
railroad for my future she passed away
earlier this year leaving behind a
legacy of transforming the lives of kids
just like me similar situations yeah doc
Monroe I love you and thank you for
believing in me but why why would she
jeopardize her career why would she
break the law dr. Monroe believes us
most educators good educators believe
that schools and America are not created
equal that we set up kids especially low
opportunity youth to be sets of skills
and schools to be skills factories when
the purpose of education is to institute
innovation and the purpose of innovation
should be to eliminate poverty therefore
the purpose of school is to erase
poverty and so
to enroll knew that and she knew
something that dr. Monroe that Malcolm
Gladwell also knew that poverty is not
desperation or deprivation that poverty
is isolation so when she heard the story
of me being this hacker she transformed
that hacker into a hacktivists because
she knew that the first thing I was
hacking was my isolation the story of
the Underground Railroad is a story of
subversion that doctrine wrote
transforming to an activist and modeled
for me what it is to subvert a system
that doesn’t work for us and how to
create a new one but the relationship
between activists and hacktivists is
interesting during the times of the
Fugitive Slave laws the abolitionist the
activist was fighting for millions of
Rights the rights of millions of people
on the front end while activists like
the conductors of the Underground
Railroad
we’re using document forging masonry
they even coded program codes into
quilts just to subvert a system that
saved the lives of hundreds of thousands
now the relationship between hacker and
activist that gets even more interesting
because we exist in these these giant
networks and they keep getting bigger
and bigger and bigger these giant
networks that Metcalfe’s law breaks down
that they increase in value the more
people participate values create
participation participation creates
value the problem is is that of these
networks keep getting bigger and they
drive our economy and
democracy there are vulnerabilities and
these vulnerabilities are loopholes and
exploits now loopholes are static and
legal they took they’re taking advantage
of by the elite by those who have the
knowledge of those new polls they’re not
important right now I want to talk about
exploits because although loopholes are
creating an imbalance in our systems
exploits are interesting because they
there aren’t any laws for exploits or
they eventually become illegal hackers
and activists use exploits we use them
differently but the question is why do
these vulnerabilities exist and that’s
because we don’t update we don’t update
when we want to we we don’t update when
we have to we update only when we are
forced to I mean think about your phones
your computers think about your
wardrobes
that we think that what worked before is
always going to work again even if for
twenty to a hundred years it hasn’t
worked the problem is is that some of
these hackers have escalated their
behavior imagine those who were shouting
they would not replace us in
charlottesville all learn to code and
they are because hackers typical hackers
we learned how to use exploits to take
to tamper and to troll but now it’s
escalating to terrorize have you noticed
the number of conspiracy videos that are
popping up on YouTube and that’s because
they are grooming the next generation of
alt-right hackers as young as 11 years
now hacktivists are different activists
we use technology to heal the world and
your activists every time you throw up a
cell phone to record discrimination to
capture something that’s not right
you are doing more than sometimes the
system does for us and I have a message
I have a message for the alt-right
hackers because as a black man talking
about hacking as soon as this video
comes up they will definitely try to
hack me but this message comes from dr.
Monroe and it’s not just to the alright
hackers it’s also to all the grassroot
entrepreneurs out there who are fighting
the good fight of teaching kids to code
and that message is you have gotten this
far on your own but you can do better
you can do more I invite you to become
an activist like George H Hofstetter
so George Hostetter he is one of the
kids who I’ve come across 13 14 years
old when I met him who was inspired by a
hackathon and I threw in the name of
Trayvon Martin
I asked all the developers if there’s an
app that can save Trayvon Martin but
George couldn’t be here because there’s
a Rulon’s head X where only one person
can be on stage but I decided to hack
that rule and so George fought work a
cold and everything else in order to
hey Sonoma my name is George Hofstadter
I’m 18 years old and I’m from Oakland
California before I saw Black Panthers
Wakanda I experienced what condit when I
participated in my first keynote
hackathon like dr. Monroe did with him
took my tinkering with an iPhone and
inspired me to create my own tech
company and develop an app that could
have saved Trayvon Martin’s life
everyone’s looking for the next black or
brown Mark Zuckerberg Steve Jobs or Bill
Gates we’re right in front of you but we
don’t want to build the same things they
did and not all of us want to work for
them as activists when we see what
doesn’t work in our society we build new
tools for a better democracy
no more Trayvon Martin’s no more Wars
digital divides or poverty when it’s our
dr. Munro updated me I’ve updated George
let’s all update each other and I share
this message on behalf of the activist
community to get things done the
hacktivists rides on the shoulder of
giants that came before them connecting
with the past or premise propelling us
all into the future they are often in
the emotional here the present and must
consider the ethics of each situation
and proceed for the greater good thank
you
and hack on [Applause]
hacktivism at the root of hacktivism is
subversion I teach subversion now when I
tell people this they usually think that
I teach inner-city youth how to hack
into the Pentagon and disarm our nuclear
weapons now that does sound cool and
I’ll leave it at that or that I teach
kids how to code so that they can fill
stem jobs in Silicon Valley and make the
tech industry more profitable diverse
and inclusive that’s also important and
is the work of many of my colleagues but
it’s not what I do I raise hackers to
become activists and I learned from the
best at 14 years old I first met dr.
Monroe after I was expelled from her
school the Frederick Douglass Academy in
Harlem I well she learned that I hacked
into her school which was a much better
school she invited me into her office
and wanted to speak face-to-face and of
course when I walked in and I saw her
face it just froze me in place because
she’s an educator teacher and you all
know somebody a teacher who could just
freeze you when they see you and I may
have adapted that into my career but dr.
Monroe wanted to know why because she
wanted to find out why is it that I
hacked
my behavior records and not my academic
so she told me it had a conversation
with me and she and she said how like
how did he do it she says because
according to academic records you’re one
of the brightest kids in the country and
so I leaned into dr. Monroe and I said
well middle school records are really
easy to hack into no one looks at middle
school I mean is it my fault she wasn’t
having that and so she asked why I did
it
and because she cared to know I decided
to tell her well I’m sharing with you
that at eight years old I read every
book in my group home library these were
books that were donated to us foster
kids with no families no home read every
book every year Pippi Longstocking and
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn Peter
Pan and so I asked for more books and
they said no but something happens when
you read Huckleberry Finn and Pippi
Longstocking I decided I’m going to take
a page out of Oliver Twist and I’m going
to ask for more
in front of everyone because I knew that
they were going to acts for they were
going to say that there was no money
that there were no money for the books
but as an eight-year-old vegetarian I
calculated that they had to be saving
money for every meat loaf they weren’t
but time and again every time I asked
they said no they said no affront
everyone and it kept going back to as a
kid there’s nothing you can do but I
noticed something a pattern that they
didn’t care if required ourselves to
sleep they didn’t care if we did our
homework what they did care was that we
had three meals a day on time every day
and so at eight years old
for three to four days I held a hunger
now I told dr. Monroe this story and she
knew that I had gotten this far on my
own but I needed her help to go much
further but the foster care system
Strikes Back because they wanted to be
transferred from her school and dr.
Monroe was not having it they would come
up to her and ask her for my address and
she would give them my location and by
the time they got there
she moved me somewhere else they would
come back to her asked for my address
and then dr. Monroe said why are you
bothering me I’m a principal of hundreds
of kids how am I going to pay attention
to just one kid okay well here you go
here’s his location and by the time they
got there she moved me somewhere else in
1994 dr. Monroe created an underground
railroad for my future she passed away
earlier this year leaving behind a
legacy of transforming the lives of kids
just like me similar situations yeah doc
Monroe I love you and thank you for
believing in me but why why would she
jeopardize her career why would she
break the law dr. Monroe believes us
most educators good educators believe
that schools and America are not created
equal that we set up kids especially low
opportunity youth to be sets of skills
and schools to be skills factories when
the purpose of education is to institute
innovation and the purpose of innovation
should be to eliminate poverty therefore
the purpose of school is to erase
poverty and so
to enroll knew that and she knew
something that dr. Monroe that Malcolm
Gladwell also knew that poverty is not
desperation or deprivation that poverty
is isolation so when she heard the story
of me being this hacker she transformed
that hacker into a hacktivists because
she knew that the first thing I was
hacking was my isolation the story of
the Underground Railroad is a story of
subversion that doctrine wrote
transforming to an activist and modeled
for me what it is to subvert a system
that doesn’t work for us and how to
create a new one but the relationship
between activists and hacktivists is
interesting during the times of the
Fugitive Slave laws the abolitionist the
activist was fighting for millions of
Rights the rights of millions of people
on the front end while activists like
the conductors of the Underground
Railroad
we’re using document forging masonry
they even coded program codes into
quilts just to subvert a system that
saved the lives of hundreds of thousands
now the relationship between hacker and
activist that gets even more interesting
because we exist in these these giant
networks and they keep getting bigger
and bigger and bigger these giant
networks that Metcalfe’s law breaks down
that they increase in value the more
people participate values create
participation participation creates
value the problem is is that of these
networks keep getting bigger and they
drive our economy and
democracy there are vulnerabilities and
these vulnerabilities are loopholes and
exploits now loopholes are static and
legal they took they’re taking advantage
of by the elite by those who have the
knowledge of those new polls they’re not
important right now I want to talk about
exploits because although loopholes are
creating an imbalance in our systems
exploits are interesting because they
there aren’t any laws for exploits or
they eventually become illegal hackers
and activists use exploits we use them
differently but the question is why do
these vulnerabilities exist and that’s
because we don’t update we don’t update
when we want to we we don’t update when
we have to we update only when we are
forced to I mean think about your phones
your computers think about your
wardrobes
that we think that what worked before is
always going to work again even if for
twenty to a hundred years it hasn’t
worked the problem is is that some of
these hackers have escalated their
behavior imagine those who were shouting
they would not replace us in
charlottesville all learn to code and
they are because hackers typical hackers
we learned how to use exploits to take
to tamper and to troll but now it’s
escalating to terrorize have you noticed
the number of conspiracy videos that are
popping up on YouTube and that’s because
they are grooming the next generation of
alt-right hackers as young as 11 years
now hacktivists are different activists
we use technology to heal the world and
your activists every time you throw up a
cell phone to record discrimination to
capture something that’s not right
you are doing more than sometimes the
system does for us and I have a message
I have a message for the alt-right
hackers because as a black man talking
about hacking as soon as this video
comes up they will definitely try to
hack me but this message comes from dr.
Monroe and it’s not just to the alright
hackers it’s also to all the grassroot
entrepreneurs out there who are fighting
the good fight of teaching kids to code
and that message is you have gotten this
far on your own but you can do better
you can do more I invite you to become
an activist like George H Hofstetter
so George Hostetter he is one of the
kids who I’ve come across 13 14 years
old when I met him who was inspired by a
hackathon and I threw in the name of
Trayvon Martin
I asked all the developers if there’s an
app that can save Trayvon Martin but
George couldn’t be here because there’s
a Rulon’s head X where only one person
can be on stage but I decided to hack
that rule and so George fought work a
cold and everything else in order to
hey Sonoma my name is George Hofstadter
I’m 18 years old and I’m from Oakland
California before I saw Black Panthers
Wakanda I experienced what condit when I
participated in my first keynote
hackathon like dr. Monroe did with him
took my tinkering with an iPhone and
inspired me to create my own tech
company and develop an app that could
have saved Trayvon Martin’s life
everyone’s looking for the next black or
brown Mark Zuckerberg Steve Jobs or Bill
Gates we’re right in front of you but we
don’t want to build the same things they
did and not all of us want to work for
them as activists when we see what
doesn’t work in our society we build new
tools for a better democracy
no more Trayvon Martin’s no more Wars
digital divides or poverty when it’s our
dr. Munro updated me I’ve updated George
let’s all update each other and I share
this message on behalf of the activist
community to get things done the
hacktivists rides on the shoulder of
giants that came before them connecting
with the past or premise propelling us
all into the future they are often in
the emotional here the present and must
consider the ethics of each situation
and proceed for the greater good thank
you
and hack on [Applause]
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