Mentoring kids can undoubtedly be found a pretty noble but busy job. Add screenwriting, directing and creating financial business models, well, then you’re just plumb busy. In this corner, aiming to earn his wings is five-time-entrepreneur (five at press time of this story, anyway) Emile Cambry, Jr,
Inspired by Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and a sister program to The Chicago Film Group, Emile mentors youth in business and technology through the 21st Century Youth Project: a free after-school program that prepares students with next generation skills while having fun.
Students write, design, create, and market applications for the iPhone, iPad, Google Android, and other mobile platforms. The program incorporates entrepreneurship, SAT Prep and business courses, preparing students to compete in the global economy. The goal is to create apps to be marketed within their own communities, schools, small businesses, and to the general mobile population, at large.
A portion of the profits from this initiative goes into a general scholarship fund for their college education.
Emile received his BA in Economics from the University of Chicago, and his MBA on Merit Scholarship from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. He is a Professor at North Park University, and a Visiting Professor at the Keller Graduate School of Management.
That’s a lot of success, but Emile takes it all in stride.
“What you can easily look at on the surface is common sense: that if you work hard good things will happen. It takes hours and hours and hours of work to actually be an outlier in any capacity, whether its sports, or being Bill Gates. When you think about it, you’ll need the perfect time, perfect place and perfect resources,” he summarized.
“How do I help the next generation of students? How do you inspire such opportunities amongst students who aren’t privileged? Programming and coding wasn’t as cool as when I was growing up. Films like The Social Network generated millions of dollars and made programming seem ‘cool.’ So, with the advent of smart phones, apps, and functionality, this industry is more appealing than during my generation.”
21st Century Youth Project offers the following in preparing future generations for the real-world:
Phase 1: Immersion: Connect with fellow students and business/program directors.
Phase 2: Concept Development: Learn about building your product while following tailored curriculum from skilled professionals.
Phase 3: Business Course: Collaborate with directors to develop and practice a pitch for a showcase.
Phase 4: Post-21CYP Access: As an alum, students will always have access to 21CYP’s resources and relationships.
Even with such a robust outlet extended to youth, Emile’s had that one student that worked against his helpful nature.
“We did have one student who was more so being pushed into the program by his parents. He didn’t complete his homework and had a bad attitude, which brought down the morale of the rest of the students. All it takes is one to ruin the dynamics of the class.
“We ended up speaking to his parents, and expressed our passion about our programs and seeing to it that no one slipped through the cracks. But it was from that moment going forward we’d interview kids prior to their entering the program to find out just why they want to be a part of it. We’d rather have six passionate kids, than to have 35 jaded ones.”
Silver Screen Ventures
Emile is also the founding board member of the Chicago Comedy Film Festival and the Festival Director of the upcoming Chicago International Social Change Film Festival. Emile's films have been screened at many international film festivals including the American Black Film Festival, Cannes Short Film Corner, Canada International Film Festival, New York Digital Film Festival, Chicago International Short Reel Film Festival, St. Louis Black Film Festival, San Francisco Black Film Festival, along with the Black Harvest Film Festival. For Flow was selected in the Texas Black Film Festival, and has also received an Honorary Award of Excellence from the Canada International Film Festival and nominated for Best Short Film.
There’s more: currently in production is Nevada Zoo, about two college basketball coaches who take a weekend trip to Vegas, where an encounter with a fan threatens to make their intimate encounter public.
Tech to Film?
Apparently a common question, Emile laughed, “I love entrepreneurship and technology is the backbone of just about every major industry, when you think about it. A lot of opportunities that come my way are from other entrepreneurs who find they may not be good at something and will bring me on board. I’ve been fortunate to go from the business side to the more creative side. I’m directing a couple of projects, writing my first script, but I’ve always been interested in film. I’ve been interested in productions in both high school and college. I was handed a role in a Bernie Mac film that I wasn’t able to fill due to scheduling conflicts with school. I show so much curiosity, and always wonder how I can add value to anything I do.”
The realization of For Flow happened between five friends just playing around with a scripted stage play.
“The production team we partnered with staged the play for about three weeks, and it was written by Kesav Wable in NY. It got a lot of great reviews and we just decided we wanted to adapt it into a short film. We didn’t have to worry about casting nor auditions. We shot it in the Bronx. It was only a two-day shoot, based off of budget and our time.”
Emile added that unforeseen issues within the Bronx community, weather, as well as law enforcement had made it “the craziest experience.” Fortunately, they achieved success with cinematography and the overall backdrop, as they obtained distribution through HBO and Cinemax for the next two years.
“Nobody can tell just how low our budget was,” he said. “With technology and excellent casting and filming, the crew had managed to achieve levels of success others can only dream of.”
Nevada Zoo’s concept is part of nine different scripts [Emile and crew] are currently developing. He’s “waiting for someone to write us a billion dollar check, and let us go shoot a big-budget film,” and added the task at hand right now is deciding which of the nine scripts is currently the most marketable -- one that won’t cause controversy, but is more different from what has already been done.
“One point we wanted to target is the disconnect between the professional sports world and homosexuality. The angle of all the bravado of sports is really one of the last places you’d find homosexuality being accepted. Really, we’re looking at a Brokeback Mountain meets In the Company of Men concept would be interesting. I think it’s something that would make a lot of noise. We have a great director and director of photography whose done work on True Blood, worked for Spike Lee, HBO, Cinemax and ShowTime,” he said.
Working towards a major theatrical coup, Emile said this project will be one of their next major steps forward, and having past works already distributed by HBO already makes it easier to work with bigger names in the entertainment industry.
“Now we’re looking at shooting with a budget ten times that of For Flow, he added.
To speak to all of Emile’s achievements thus far would take some time, even in his youth… not according to him, though.
“I feel like I’ve just started. I’ve worked with people that I’ve never dreamed I’ve worked with. I’m trying to get to those 10,000 hours in becoming an Outlier, myself.”
He’s hired a personal coach to work towards personal and professional development, and is only doing what he professed he’d do back in his own youth. “Some people sign up for a photography class, or inspire young people or write. I get to do that every day, and I feel that I do have more fun than the average person. I’m proud of everything that’s happened to me, but I still feel like I just got started.”
One pearl of wisdom that’s handed out at the 21st Century Youth Project is doing away with any sense of entitlement. Emile turns very serious when it comes to hard work.
“Yes, you might have degrees or whatever, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to work your tail off. There are still people who may not be as [highly-degreed], but are out here doing phenomenal things. Bottom line: if you don’t have any transferrable skills, then you just took a bunch of classes.”
On to the next one
By January 2012, the 21st Century Youth Project will evolve into the 21st Century Entrepreneurial Online Institute, an online school that’s been a long-time love child of Emile’s based on the lack of prestigious online programs focused on transferable skills and employability. With the roll-out of 21CEI, he feels that he’d have the Harvard of online education to offer.
“To have an online school like this where real subject matter experts, you bring in celebrities and authors and real-life experience that will make up a very enriching curriculum that there is no other program around like this.”
He adds that they already have professors who are very committed to the purpose of this program; all with MBA and PhD backgrounds from Top 10 institutions who’ll offer credibility. Eight-week entrepreneurial courses like Groupon Marketing and creating financial business models are just a sample of the success promised by the program. Social responsibility in tutoring, mentorship, and career services will also be offered.
“I subscribe to the philosophy that we’ll all be entrepreneurs in some capacity. We’ll either work for an entrepreneur, become an entrepreneur, or help out someone who has an entrepreneurial venture. We also believe that transferable skills can be taught better through the lens of entrepreneurship.”
Emile said the program will be inexpensive and that the use of financial aid will be discouraged. “We don’t want to do any financial aid whatsoever. You can’t have a lot of debt in your books when you’re looking to build a business. In fact, we are going to offer a crowd-funding model, similar to Kickstarter, so students can reach out to their network to raise money for their education, but with a twist that we’ll reveal later. Our motto is to be three times the value for a third of the price.”
Like or Follow Emile, and learn more about him and all 21st Century initiatives here.
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