Julian Manyika, 18

Julian Manyika is a Zimbabwean, Nigerian, and British student, born and raised in San Francisco. He’s also an accomplished basketball player.

He’s passionate about issues that face minorities, predominantly black people in the United States. This resonates for him because in his view racism doesn’t discriminate when it comes to character and achievement. He says that a person or a system’s inability to see past his race is something he cannot control. Manyika enjoys channeling his academic and athletic passions in his community and volunteer work at places such as Autodesk, CircleUp and the Runnin’ Red Devils Sunday League, and 826 Valencia, a youth writing and tutoring center in San Francisco.

In the fall, he will be attending Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA. He will play basketball and major in Math and Computer Science.