AT&T #HBCUUnlimited initiative pushes for us to ‘Dream In Black’ and tap into our unlimited possibilities. At a time when things seem to be hard for African American youth, it’s important that we push young people to explore the vast world and remind them that there are no limits to their potential. Sometimes all it takes is a boost of encouragement from someone they look up to. That person can be a friend, family member or even a teacher.
When students attend HBCUs, they are often drawn to the dreams of comradery amongst students that look like them. The band, sororities, and fraternities are often highlighted as a few of the many reasons students should attend HBCUs but the unsung heroes, the professors, deserve some recognition as well.
Roland Martin spoke with Dr. Kevin Kornegay, School of Electrical & Computer Engineering professor at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, about how he expands the horizons of his students. Dr. Kornegay is a hardware hacker and tinkerer who enjoys exploring the inner workings of hardware devices.
For Dr. Kornegay, his idea of dreaming in black was turning his love for machines and mechanics into a career. However, it didn’t start out that way right away. He initially found joy in math.
“I used to have crazy dreams [at an early age],” said Dr. Kornegay. “I neer never understood what they were into much later — until I got to college, maybe. I always dreamed about numbers, binary numbers, number sequences, and that’s probably what prompted me into starting out as a math major.”
Kornegay says that an opportunity at AT&T Bell Laboratories over the summer led him into the engineering field. Soon after, he realized that his love for “tinkering” had the potential to take him to bigger places.
“The energy of the place, the innovation, it was a place where creativity and ideas came to life,” Dr. Kornegay explained. “Bell Labs created this environment with tremendous resources and had all of these people who looked like me who were engineers.”
You can find out more about Dr. Kevin Kornegay by watching his sit down with Roland Martin above.
