In 2020, Pharrell launched his non-profit Yellow to help “even the odds through education.” Yellow aims to accomplish that goal by way of “micro-schools,” a series of tuition-free institutions for third to sixth graders (and eventually up to 12th grade) that will feature smaller classrooms and a range of learning programs, including visual and auditory ones. Pharrell will be announcing the next step: a collaboration with Cisco, creator of the Webex teleconferencing system (and sometime NASA collaborator) who will be providing tech support.
“We launched at the beginning of the pandemic,” Williams says. “The first thing we wanted was a sterile environment. What was the cleanest environment during COVID? It wasn’t even our homes. It was those tents where they brought everyone. And who would know the best about a sterile environment? NASA.”
In tandem with Williams’ Virginia roots, the first of these schools, Yellowhab, opened last year and is temporarily based in a converted bank in Norfolk; a larger, more permanent space will open in the fall of 2023. Check out the whole article HERE.