Omari Edwards: The Black Tech Expert Working to Bring STEM Success in America

Growing up in East New York, Brooklyn, Omari Edwards admired his father, Garth Edwards, a general contractor and entrepreneur who taught him the value of hard work. Instead of Sunday mornings filled with cereal and cartoons, a young Omari learned lessons in business ownership. At just 10, he worked as a light construction worker for Garth Home Remodeling. By 17, he was managing Imani Inc., a grocery store and restaurant, handling everything from inventory to payroll. His father’s hands-on approach provided leadership that helped the future CEO transition from supporting multiple family businesses to creating his own.

Even over Zoom, on a cold February afternoon, I can feel Edwards’ excitement. “Business is about more than just making money,” he says, quoting his father. “It’s about creating something that lasts, something that helps people and changes lives.” It’s like he’s pitching me on stage at Shark Tank, ready to hand me the tools to change the future. He’s not selling STEM as a buzzword. He’s speaking from experience, showing how technology can open doors for kids from underrepresented communities.

To Edwards, STEM is more than coding or degrees. It’s about breaking cycles, solving real-world problems, and creating new opportunities. He believes that youth from underserved neighborhoods should care about STEM because it shows them they can change the world and be part of something bigger. Much of his drive comes from the lessons his father taught him.

STEM participation in the U.S. is low-performing globally and steadily declining. In the 2022 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) , administered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the U.S. ranked 16th in science and 34th in mathematics out of 81. Edwards’ company is among the few organizations with an established presence in East Orange, New Jersey. With his tech company, Technology for {You}th, Edwards is addressing the growing talent gap and the persistent lack of diversity in STEM fields. The program provides in-person and virtual education, partnering with tech companies like Tassat and reaching 600 K-12 students.

Recent studies from Purdue University’s Girls Excelling in Math and Science (GEMS) program suggest that “providing students with access to core STEM courses as early as elementary school increases their interest in pursuing STEM careers,” ultimately leading to higher success rates for students in the field. New Jersey ranks fourth in the country as a top-performing school system. And yet, it still faces a statewide STEM gap. The 2022 Governor’s STEM Scholars noted that the gap between wealthy and low-income students “has remained wide open for several decades.”

Nationally, the STEM gap is similar. In 2021, Hispanic, Black, American Indian, and Alaska Native people comprised 31 percent of the U.S. population but 24 percent of the STEM workforce, according to a report from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. Both cultural and economic barriers are to blame.

“Technology for {You}th is all about opening up the world of tech careers to young students,” says program coordinator Frank Drakeford. The program challenges traditional learning, he explains, by showcasing “the full spectrum of STEM pathways, both technical and non-technical.”The company’s mission is to create inclusive environments where underrepresented students feel like they belong in these fields. The goal is to ensure that all students know STEM is open to everyone.

But what inspired Edwards to be interested in this field in the first place?

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An East New York native, Edwards grew up in a community that inspired him to take a different path to success, one that didn’t involve staying in the same place. He credits his father for instilling values that shaped his leadership. “Words have power,” his father would say, teaching him to watch what you tell others and yourself because it can come true. This advice still drives Edwards today. Early lessons about business ownership and perseverance continue to fuel his desire to make a lasting impact.

Those early lessons set Edwards on a path to Morehouse College, where he majored in math and computer science and didn’t see many peers who looked like him. His experience as one of the few Black students in his programs was eye-opening. “I knew all their names because that’s how few there were,” he says. He recognized a pipeline issue early on—that companies had no idea how to reach underrepresented groups, making it difficult to recruit diverse talent. He believes those systemic issues have kept talented individuals from entering the STEM field in the first place.

After graduating, Edwards volunteered for nonprofits like CS for All and Mouse, eventually helping to found Google Code Next, a free computer science education program for Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and women-identifying high school students, where he taught math and linear equations. Despite his success, he still felt like he was constantly on the sidelines.

“This sparked my inspiration to create my first program out of Microsoft’s headquarters in Manhattan,” he says. It was a groundbreaking event where about 50 kids built a Facebook application in just four hours. “Microsoft didn’t provide the program itself—just the space,” he explains, highlighting how he managed to secure the location for free through a friend at Microsoft.

As he continued his work, he faced new challenges. While he ran similar programs at Seton Hall University, he had to pay for classroom space, leasing rooms in the Arts and Sciences building. Such experiences led him to launch Technology for {You}th at Seton Hall in the summer of 2017, marking the beginning of something bigger than he’d ever imagined.

Edwards’ company has adapted its approach to education by partnering with cities like East Orange to address the challenges posed by COVID-19, including the shift from in-person to online learning, which impacted the quantity and quality of education. These collaborations offer STEM programs in partnership with local libraries, using their resources and knowledge to provide lasting and high-quality educational opportunities to underrepresented communities.

“We are solving the pipeline issue, and now we can do it at scale by working with larger organizations, larger cities,” says Edwards. “This is where we can impact thousands and thousands of kids.”

Technology for {You}th’s digital literacy courses teach K-12 students about future tech. Some of the courses offered include Minecraft Education, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning, Hyper-Text Markup Language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and Python. These subjects help students develop skills like problem-solving, critical thinking, logical reasoning, and creativity.

In a 2017 YouTube interview, one student said the courses successfully prepared them for the real world: “I won’t have to take classes from the start and will have experience on what to do.”

The Tech Connect program challenges the perception that technology careers are solely about coding. “That’s not really how it is,” Edwards explains. “If you look at a company, they call it a tech startup, right? They don’t call it a code startup.” Edwards introduces students to the software development life cycle (SDLC) and helps them understand that only two of the eight phases involve actual coding. Other roles include user experience (UX), support staff, sales, and customer service. “There’s a whole bunch of roles that make a company structure work,” he notes.

To make these concepts tangible, Technology for {You}th provides first-hand exposure through in-office shadowing, field trips, and workshops, where students step into different tech roles. “They’ll have a task, and at the end, they have to present,” Edwards explains, emphasizing hands-on experience.

Edwards’ partnership with Tassat, a New York-based digital payment solutions company, created a $10,000 annual scholarship. This initiative is more than just money. It includes after-school dinners, workshops, and fireside chats with industry leaders. It allows students to network and explore tech careers, such as product, sales, marketing, and software engineering. In April 2023, they hosted an SDLC workshop for students from Manhattan Village Academy High School, and that following May, a TechConnect event where students received tech mentoring and hands-on learning. Two of Edwards’ earliest students are now full-time employees at Tassat—Yani is a technical writer. Ryan started as a Quality Assurance intern and is now a user interface (UI) developer.

 

The shift to online learning also created challenges like limited computer access and high-speed internet in underrepresented communities. Edwards believes these barriers discourage young people from entering STEM fields. While government programs were designed to provide solutions, he points out that more funding is required to make a difference. The school district system needs to “pour more money into impacted communities,” he says.

But even with all the necessary resources, would marginalized communities take advantage of them?

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Implementing resources in cities like East Orange through his company at little to no cost allows students to see their potential for success, creating a chain reaction. “It’s like having a passion for something and wanting to be good at it. You can’t get good at basketball until you spend a lot of time doing it,” Edwards explains. “You have to put in hours regardless of what you do. It’s easier to make it [in STEM], and it’s way more spots than the 400 spots in the NBA.”

“We are only the spark,” he adds. “There’s no limit to what they can achieve when they see what’s out there.”

In October 2024, Technology for {You}th hosted its first annual technology showcase at the East Orange Public Library, featuring a digital literacy panel and STEM activities. The event was free and a collaborative effort from the local city officials and high school student volunteers, aiming to create a Tech and Innovation Hub to develop creativity and new technology ideas. Students were exposed to rapidly evolving tech like drones and robots.

Drakeford reports that the program’s participants have improved their test scores, especially in math. “Many participants have gone on to take advanced AP courses and choose STEM careers for their future, directly attributing their path to the early exposure they received through our program,” he says.

Among the many students that Edwards’ program has impacted, three high schoolers have received full scholarships to prestigious institutions: two to Morehouse College and one to Howard University. Edwards is determined to see more people who look like him in STEM. He aims to succeed by introducing STEM to students who feel like they don’t have a chance in the field. “Providing STEM at a larger scale to reach more people is the goal,” he says.

Edwards is continuing his father’s legacy through his business and raising two kids involved in STEM. Reagan, an 11th grader, teaches Java, JavaScript, and Python coding and voice-overs for marketing videos. True, an 8th grader, instructs Roblox game development and video editing, including creating curriculum videos.

Edwards’ goal is to spark a lasting chain reaction. He leans in over Zoom, reflecting on a question his friend once asked: “Are you working for your first or your last name?” The pause is brief, but it’s clear how deeply this question has shaped his perspective. For him, business ownership ends the cycle of marginalization in entrepreneurship. While the Trump administration’s efforts to scale back or eliminate DEI programs have affected businesses nationwide, companies with significant government contracts, such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Amazon, Target, and Microsoft, have been particularly impacted. Edwards believes business owners like him are less affected by these changes because they have more control over the structure and direction of their companies.

Edwards recognizes that ownership affords him control, allowing him to build something that will endure, both for his family and his community. Creating opportunities for youth through STEM goes beyond education because it gives them the tools to build their legacies.

“My father showed me that business is about more than just making money,” he says. “It’s about creating something that lasts, something that helps people and changes lives.”