CREATOR OF SNAPCHAT, UBER, INSTAGRAM, AND TWITTER! TIMELESS BLACK EXCELLENCE

• Iddris Sandu (Eye-drus San-doo) created algorithms for Instagram, Uber and Snapchat, as well as consulting for Twitter.
• Born in Accra, Guna raised in Compton in Los Angeles, Califorina.
• Ghana, Sandu's parents came to the United States when he was 3. Iddris started learning programming on his own at a public library at the tender age of 10. Here he met a designer from Google, who went on to offer him an internship opportunity at the company’s headquarters.
• He learned to code when he was just 13, Iddris had his first experience with programming and worked on projects such as the initial Google blogger, Google Plus
• Within two years of his Google stint, Sandu designed an app to help students at his high school that gave students turn by turn directions to navigate their classrooms.
• That same year, he received the Presidential Scholar Award from then-President Barack Obama, earning him a visit to the White House.
• Sandu didn't go to college.
• "I couldn't afford it, being a minority," he said. He also didn't want to "wait four years; I wanted to make an impact now."
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• By the age of 18, he was consulting for Snapchat
• Then he went to Uber, where he created software called Autonomous Collision Detection Interface to help detect a driver's hand motions and position.
• For Instagram, he soon wrote a program that would filter key sites or activities by a user's location to identify possible interests.
• "We use a sensor to measure your spinal position in a car," he explained. "And then we also use a device to measure your hand position, so we can tell where your hands were in a car."
• Sandu launched a tech-smart store with rapper Nipsey Hussle. The "smart store," as Sandu refers to it, lets customers download exclusive music and other digital content via an app.
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• Last year, he met rapper Nipsey Hussle at a Starbucks and turned the chance encounter into a collaboration. The pair turned an abandoned shop in Los Angeles into The Marathon Store, which sells clothing, accessories and music.
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• "The next tech leaders are going to come from Africa. Why? Because they are exposed to problems which they have the solutions to," he said.
• “Information is one of the highest forms of class. And that is what keeps people divided. You should be able to think on a higher level, instead of being strictly consumers. And people of colour in particular are more likely to be consumers than creators. It’s really hard to get out of poverty or to change the structure of economic power if you’re always going to be a consumer rather than creating. Shifting that narrative is what I’ve been trying to do. And thus far, it’s worked, it’s successful.” He told Face2Face
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• "If we want to really tell our stories the way they need to be told, we should focus on pushing forward platforms that we create so we can tell our best narratives," he told CNN
• If he had to choose a dream career, Sandu said he's "more focused on building infrastructural operating systems for the cities: smart signs, street lights that all talk to each other and can be more efficient."
• In that vein, his latest effort in California includes designing parking meters, though the project's name seems to contradict his professional course: It's called "Halt."
• He is now working with Kanye West and Jaden Smith to create augmented-reality experiences around music and politics for the tech festival ComplexCon next year in Chicago.
-CNN.COM
-THISISAFRICA.ME