Who is John Weiss?

Today our guest, John Weiss, comes from Bayview Hunter’s Point in San Francisco, California. In Bayview, he has founded an organization called BOOM which empowers teens in crisis and gives them economic opportunity by transforming them into engineers, tradespeople, and entrepreneurs. John grew up in Buffalo, New York, and he moved to the West Coast 15 years ago and that’s where he started his project. His father studied electronics with the United States Navy during World War II and so he grew up with access to tools and books about electronics and building things. His dad always had him involved in building and repairing things and that helped him learn lifelong engineering skills. He also mentioned that traditional academics and school weren’t a good fit for him, but his dad’s mentorship ended up helping him pursue other career paths. This early life experience is something that has stuck with him and he wanted to create this same experience for other kids and teenagers. This belief ended up greatly inspiring his creation of the BOOM.

What problem is John solving?

When John moved to San Francisco in the early 2000s, he discovered a neighborhood called Bayview Hunter’s Point and decided to live there. He didn’t know much about Bayview, but he did discover that it has had a long history of economic struggles and social problems. This was mostly because it used to have a Navy shipyard that employed people but it shut down in the 1970s, and nothing was done to help families transition to new forms of employment. From there the neighborhood became targeted by drug dealers, guns, and criminal activity causing teenagers growing up in that neighborhood to be at high risk for getting involved in destructive activities.

In fact, John told me the story of how one night he was on the streets of Bayview, and a young man came up to him. The young man asked John if he had $10. When John replied no, the young man tried to intimidate John into giving him something. In the end, John ran away, but after that encounter, he said “I blamed myself because if that young man was participating in boombox classes every week, then he wouldn’t be trying to cause trouble on the street…I’m not mad at that young man. I understand he’s struggling. And I want this project to be a solution for kids like him.” Bayview was full of teenagers who were passionate and smart but they lacked access to many opportunities and often didn’t have parental models. On top of this, many of them struggled with economic problems along with traditional academics. So, John set out on a mission to solve this problem with his initiative—the BOOM.

How is he solving this problem?

While working in the local YMCA, he found that many of the teens in the area were very passionate about music, building things, and technology. After learning this, he combined this love for music with invention skills to create BOOM—which is a course that has students create boomboxes and loud portable speakers so that they can learn a variety of technical and mechanical skills. He didn’t want the program to be as focused on conventional education, because he understood that school is not for everyone, and instead teaches the teens important engineering and innovation skills like circuit design, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, user experience, and product development. They could then use these skills later on in life to get access to careers and opportunities that they might not have been able to obtain before.

What obstacles or issues did he have to overcome?

Throughout the lifetime of BOOM, the biggest issue that John has faced has been with funding and money. He has found it hard to convince funders and supporters that a non-academic, unconventional program like the BOOM could be successful. Many funders have low expectations for the population BOOM deals with, making them even more doubtful. Furthermore, due to the nature of BOOM, results can take 5-10 years to come to fruition but many investors focus only on projects that have short-term benefits. John believes that this is one of the greatest flaws in the current investing mindset and he has decided to focus on growing the project to demonstrate how successful it can be.

What has he accomplished?

So far, John has had a successful 3-year pilot program that ran with limited resources but still involved over 40 teens in building boomboxes. Teenagers were very enthusiastic and they even had a long waiting list. He has proved that the program can change the lives of teens-at-risk and from here, he hopes to keep on growing. One thing that he said was not an obstacle was the teenagers as they would be willing to sit patiently for hours while learning and building. Even those who were resistant at the beginning quickly changed their mind after they saw that they were building boomboxes. He has said that the most rewarding part of leading BOOM is the one-on-one interactions that he gets with the kids.

What are his goals for the future?

As John gears up to expand to other countries and cities and create a global community of teen boombox makers, he is designing and patenting some novel systems for the speaker. Once these systems have been patented, he can license them out to the public to raise money for the program. Also, he can incorporate the new technology into the boombox creation program of BOOM and that will allow the teens to sell the speakers and learn how to market and do customer support. He has currently applied for a patent on a battery mounting system which also won an award from Protolabs and he is developing a novel battery charger and wireless feature.

How can others help or get involved?

There are many ways to help and get involved in BOOM including donations or volunteering your time and help. John is currently looking for skilled volunteers such as professional engineers to help him develop their novel speaker systems. In addition, the BOOM is always interested in partnering with organizations and companies to take the project to the next level. Learn more about the BOOM at: theboom.org. You can contact John at john@theboom.org or 451-68-WHEEL. I encourage you to go check out and support The BOOM’s work and help provide opportunities to teens all around the world.