November 18, 2021 / Podcast Episode

Episode 13: Jelani Nelson

Interview with: Jelani Nelson. 
Professor of Computer Science at University of California, Berkeley. 
Creator of popular AddisCoder, USVICoder (High School CS programs in Ethiopia, and 
Virgin Islands). 
Grew up in the US Virgin Islands.

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Episode Guide

In this Episode with Jelani Nelson: (Wait, what?) An immigrant born in and who grew up in the US! Growing up in a majority-Black part of the US (and comparisons to mainland US). Systemic racism, and its absence on US Virgin Islands. “Everyone empowers Black on US Virgin Islands.” Surviving Category 5 Hurricane Marilyn as a child, with windows shattering, running from building to building in the eye of the storm. The podcast’s first in-person interview of season! (Jelani was kind enough to invite me to his home). Not ever hearing of MIT… and then applying only to MIT! Starting AddisCoder for high school CS programming in Ethiopia, from scratch, working the phones and building government connections. Upcoming Jamaica coding program (summer 2022) for high schoolers. And much more!

  • mm.ss: Segment Info (Index)
  • 0.00: Voices in this episode
  • 2.09: Orientation to this Episode
  • 6.11:  Biography
  • Chapter 1: 8.27: Early childhood memories, 1980s
    • 11.03: Effect of Mom, who was an Ethiopian immigrant. Learning the Amharic language.
    • 12.51: The Ethiopian culture. “Welcoming Guests”
  • Chapter 2: 15.54: Schooling, 1980s and 1990s
    • 17.35: Moving from Los Angeles to US Virgin Islands (US VI), age 6 years
    • 18.40: US VI school system vs. US mainland school system, Strictness of schools. (Recent SCOTUS case that Indy mentions.)
    • 21.07: The US VI school curriculum
    • 22.15: In the US VI everyone watches Quizbowl like it’s the Superbowl! “In my high school, it was cool to be good at school”.
  • Chapter 3: 26.24: Growing up in the US VI, 1980s and 1990s
    • 26.24: US VI – Effect of small size and population
    • 29.11: US VI – High cost of living! Dial-up modems. 
    • 28.57: Parents’ support for his interests.
  • Chapter 4: 30.28: US VI vs. Mainland – How systemic racism makes a difference
    • 30.28:  Dad wanted to move from LA to Virgin islands because he felt mainland was racist and biased
      • “Los Angeles was not an ideal place to raise children, especially black children.”
      • (Host’s note: Jelani’s children returned from school at this point, so you can hear them wonderful muted sounds in the low background through the rest of the show)
    • 33.20: Multiethnic makeup of his friends circle in VI
      • “Virgin Islands is more than 80% Black.”
    • 35.03: Systemic racism largely absent in the US Virgin Islands (compared to mainland)
      • “Everyone empowers black on US Virgin Islands”
      • “Growing up in the majority… luxury to not even talk about race… almost everyone was black and all the people empower black.”
  • Chapter 5: 38.59: Surviving the Category 5 Hurricane Marilyn in US VI, 1995
    • 41.37: The night that Hurricane Marilyn came through, staying in a hotel, the hotel being attacked by the hurricane, and hiding in the hotel hallway, living in the guest house for 2 years as their house was being repaired, couldn’t drive as roads were not drivable. 
    • 46.04: Is VI’s reaction and recovery now improved vs 1990s?
  • Chapter 6: 46.49: First Computers and Programming
    • 46.49: Discovering HTML via right click, picking up an HTML book and teaching himself HTML. Making websites on the side as a hobby and for school and relatives.
    • 49.44: Teaching himself programming 
    • 50.12: Realizing coding can speed up many things! Pre-admitted to MIT (Campus Preview Weekend (CPW)). Programming a solution in his high school Physics class.
    • 51.45: Other kids in his VI school were learning Basic, he was learning C/C++
  • Chapter 7: 52.31: Applying  to Universities for undergrad
    • 52.31: After reading US News CS rankings, applying only to MIT!
      • “I had never actually heard of MIT.”
      • “I actually only applied to MIT.”
      • “I was really naive. I didn’t appreciate how competitive college admissions was.”
    • 55.15: Conversations with parents about applying 
      • “My parents were laid back parents.”
      • Dad discouraged him from going to MIT, “Do you want to be small fish in a big pond, or big fish in a small pond…”
    • 56.48: High academic success of his schoolmates on US VI! “Everyone except 2 people went to college!”
  • Chapter 8: 59.50: AddisCoder: Jelani’s brainchild – Programming and Algorithms for high school CS education of Ethiopian students in Addis Ababa
    • 59.50: Conceiving of AddisCoder. Starting from nothing. Pivoting. Stuttering starting steps. 
      • Inspired by AITI: Africa IT Initiative at MIT, wanted to do a university program, but that attempt failed. So he pivoted to school students. 
      • “I had a summer free. Let me go to Ethiopia to visit my relatives.”
      • “I googled around and found people’s addresses.”
      • “I would google and cold-call schools on the phone.”
      • “I managed to get two of the biggest radio stations to advertise for free.”
    • 1.08.01: AddisCoder Curriculum.
    • 1.09.51: Understanding and working with the Ethiopian government system and national curriculum
      • “I didn’t know the right people to talk to in the ministry… I was getting the runaround.”
      • Working up the rungs to work with Meles Zenawi’s daughter and the fund in Meles Zenawi’s name (Zenawi was the PM of Ethiopia from 1995-2012).
    • 1.13.24: Funding and support for AddisCoder
    • 1.15.06: What is the motivation for the Ethiopian government officials to help AddisCoder? The controversy of “Brain Drain” in Ethiopia. Free resources from the university in the early years.
  • Chapter 9: 1.18.40: His new planned program for Jamaica, and US VICoder. Coming Summer 2022!
    • 1.18.40: Early days in USVICoder, and what has been harder in the Jamaica and USVICoder
      • “I personally went to every single high school in St. Thomas to announce the program”
    • 1.20.30: Jamaica program origins, starting in 2022 (Program will be in University of West Indies in Jamaica)
      • “Chronixx was excited. I went into a Zoom call with Chronixx” “Chronixx is one of the biggest reggae artists in the world.”
    • 1.22.10: What are the obstacles with the Jamaica program? The plan in summer 2022 and future years.
  • Chapter 10: 1.23.26: Perspectives, Retrospectives
    • 1.23.26: What can we do to bring more Black kids into STEM and CS?
      • “Exposure and access to opportunity”
    • 1.24.05: His insightful data analysis of inequity in International Olympiad for Informatics (IOI) students
      • Link to Jelani’s data visualization for inequity in IOI students https://tinyurl.com/usacomap 
        • “2011-2020: Of the 130 US students to qualify for IOI, 24 states sent zero kids, 13 of the remaining states had all students from the same school. The top state is California (60), followed by VA (15). Of the 60 in CA 57 were from the Bay Area. Of these 57 all but one were from South Bay, a 5-10 mile radius around Stanford. “Pay to train” training.” 
        • “Evangelize it to people earlier. Being exposed earlier helps.”
    • 1.30.36: Advice for handling Impostor Syndrome. 
      • “I didn’t know what a proof was” “I actually failed in my first two Physics exams.”
      • “MIT’s first year has a pass/no record policy, which helped.”
      • “Being nervous and second guessing myself on the exam is not helping me. I told myself … this is not hard.”
About the Narrator in this Episode
  • Jelani Nelson (Wikipedia)
    • Professor of Computer Science at University of California, Berkeley.
    • World Leader in Algorithms and Theory Research
    • Select Awards: Sloan Fellow, Presidential PECASE Award, National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellow, Akamai Presidential Fellow, Young Investigator Awards from Office of Naval Research and National Science Foundation, George M. Sprowls Award given to the best computer science thesis at MIT.
    • Creator of AddisCoder, Computer Science training program for high school students in Ethiopia. With over 500 alumni, some of who have gone on to study at Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Stanford, Cornell, Princeton, KAIST, and Seoul National University. Ran in 2011, 2016, 2018, and 2019.
    • Creator of USVICoder, Computer Science training program for high school students in US Virgin Islands.
    • Creator of upcoming Computer Science training program for high school students in Jamaica (summer 2022).
    • Research areas: theoretical computer science, and algorithmic aspects of big data. Known for proving substantial results in streaming algorithms and dimensionality reduction. 
Useful Links
Previously on this Podcast

In case you missed it! Previously on the Immigrant Computer Scientists Podcast

  • Credits
    • Music Credits for Podcast
    • The caption picture at top of page is a view of Northwest San Francisco, taken from de Young Museum’s watchtower. Pic taken by Indy Gupta. 
The Immigrant Computer Scientists Podcast is available for free on your favorite devices & apps: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and many more!
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CategoriesPodcast Episode

indygupta Written by:

Professor of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign