We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dr. Saliha Nelson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dr. Saliha below.

Dr. Saliha, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career.

Imagine an educational system designed for students to experience a learning journey where they have a meaningful voice and build the capacity to not only envision their future but design it. This type of learning opportunity is limited. I am currently involved in designing an educational option that is committed to the mission of inspiring and preparing learners to solve real problems, act on social issues they care about, use creative technologies, and build the 21st Century skills sought after by today’s creative and technology-driven industries. Learning will happen in real-world spaces in partnership with entrepreneurs, industry professionals, designers, artists, and educators.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have dedicated the last twenty years in non-profit executive management. I am also a youth development practitioner, and community coalition-builder dedicated to building opportunities that elevate the assets, aspirations, and contributions of urban youth. Currently, I serve as CEO of URGENT, Inc., a creative youth development organization dedicated to empowering young creative minds to transform their communities. In this role, I am most proud of creating platforms that amplify opportunities for young people to develop, practice, and share their talents and skills, like the Film, Arts, Culture & Entrepreneurship (FACE) internship, the Miami 4 Social Change Youth Film Festival and the first registered media arts and creative technologies youth apprenticeship in the State of Florida. I am also proud of completing a Doctor of Education in Applied Learning Sciences from the University of Miami this year.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

I was initially able to put together the initial start-up capital needed by doing a bit of self-funding. Then I was also able to identify a philanthropic organization that was offering seed funding grants for new program ideas. I applied, made it to the interview round, and then was awarded my first grant for $2500 twenty-two years ago. I used these funds to create and track the program’s positive results. From there, I leveraged the results and successfully went after sub-contracts.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

We recently re-evaluated what we wanted to achieve with our social media presence. We decided that we were using all accounts in the same way. We decided to repurpose our IG account to reach a specific audience and then started creating content specifically designed to reach that audience. We also had to clean up prior postings by archiving and deleting posts that didn’t fit what we were trying to accomplish. This strategy has proven successful. We are now engaging our “target” audience, gaining the “right” followers, and engagement has increased steadily over the last two months.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.urgentinc.org
• Instagram: instagram.com/URGENTINC
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/URGENTInc/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salihanelson/

Image Credits
Courtesy of URGENT, Inc.