OAKLAND — Popsicle sticks became houses and bridges. Marshmallows roasted from sunlight reflecting off a mirror. Slices of apples and lemons – with the help of copper pennies, zinc nails and wires – powered an LED light bulb.
On the front lawn of Oakland Technical High School, over 1,000 people of all backgrounds and ages — from toddlers in strollers to a Class of 1968 Tech graduate — explored more than 25 stations that held lessons in electrochemistry, astronomy, biology and genomics. Amid all the interactive demonstrations and educational activities, kids ran around, laughed and learned. They played chess, created art and watched fish swim in a mobile aquarium.
The melting pot of science incarnated the vision of 22-year-old Ahmed Muhammad, the Oakland native at the center of it.
“It’s a great feeling because you’re like living your dream in real life,” Muhammad said. “I’ve dreamt of this. I’m still dreaming, still thinking of ways to expand and grow and teach the kids in as many creative ways as possible. But for right now, it’s just a really great feeling.”
Muhammad, the founder of Kits Cubed, the non-profit that held its fourth annual free STEM Fair on Sept. 14, has worked to uplift his community by helping young students discover and engage with science — particularly in Oakland, where standardized science test scores lag behind state averages. His foundation develops and distributes science kits with ready-made experiments and illustrated instruction pamphlets throughout the Bay Area.
This year’s STEM Fair was the biggest yet, Muhammad said.
“When people meet Ahmed, they see and feel his passion and his commitment to education and making science fun that is, like, contagious,” said Zarina Ahmad, a longtime ally of Muhammad.
Since going viral in 2020 for becoming the first Black male valedictorian in Oakland Tech’s 106-year history, Muhammad, now a Stanford senior studying mechanical engineering, has balanced his schoolwork and personal life with major community involvement.
He’s done it all with an assist from the Warriors.
“He’s broken a lot of barriers in his lifetime, and I’m here to see him break some more,” said Warriors Community Foundation board president Nicole Lacob.
Ahmed Muhammad makes a raffle during a STEM fair organized by Muhammad’s non-profit Kits Cubed at Oakland Tech in Oakland, Calif., on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
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Muhammad wasn’t surprised that his graduation speech went viral. He’d already garnered media attention for his historic academic success. He’d earned offers from Harvard, Princeton, Colombia, Howard and USC, and graduated with a 4.73 GPA. He’d already founded Kits Cubed.
But this was different.
Muhammad’s graduation speech, delivered on May 29, 2021, made headlines across the world. The Guardian published it in its entirety. California Gov. Gavin Newsom thanked him for his “powerful words” in a Twitter/X post. He appeared on Ellen Degeneres’ show to reflect on his journey.
The five minutes of fame was an opportunity to build momentum toward his vision.
Around that time, Lacob connected with Muhammad. The board president had Muhammad on her radar for a few years, but finally took him to a game — and on a behind-the-scenes tour of Chase Center — in 2021. Muhammad has loved the Warriors since they played in his backyard at Oracle Arena and Steph Curry shared a backcourt with Monta Ellis.
The game tipped off a partnership between Muhammad and Lacob’s Warriors Community Foundation. Kits Cubed has received grants from the foundation for the past three years, and Muhammad considers Lacob a mentor.
“For them to support the city I’m from and the work I’m trying to do in it, it feels almost magical,” Muhammad said.
In 2023, according to public tax filings, the Warriors Foundation’s $30,000 grant represented almost half of Kits Cubed’s contributions for that year. But the team’s involvement is deeper than dollars.
Muhammad and Lacob talk regularly. Ay’Anna Moody, the foundation’s senior director of social impact, advises him on Kits Cubed’s path. The foundation has offered professional development workshops and support services. He started Kits Cubed when he was 17 years old and had never run a business. The Warriors Community Foundation has helped show him the ropes.
“They want to cultivate leaders,” Muhammad said. “Leaders who can make actionable change in the community.”
Muhammad’s extended universe of mentors also includes his seventh-grade basketball coach, Chris Pearson; Hidden Genius Project CEO Brandon Nicholson; and Kinfolx co-founder Akintunde Ahmad, among others.
Moody met up with Muhammad while he was studying abroad last year in Chile. Lacob used her network to help him secure a summer internship at PG&E in corrosion engineering.
Over the summer, Muhammad asked Lacob how he could pay her back for her support.
“She just said, ‘Pay it forward,’” Muhammad said. “And so I’m paying it forward 1,000 times over, that’s my goal.”
Attendees look on while Ahmed Muhammad makes a raffle during a STEM fair organized by Muhammad’s non-profit Kits Cubed at Oakland Tech in Oakland, Calif., on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
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Early on during the pandemic, Muhammad babysat his niece and nephew, Ayla and Amir.
Still in elementary school, Ayla and Amir told their uncle that they hated science. Their innate aversion to science broke his heart.
So Muhammad scavenged the house for materials and made his first science kits. Amir, then 6 years old, was tasked with making a potato battery.
“As soon as his little light lit up, so did he,” Muhammad said. “In that moment, he realized he was wrong. He wasn’t bad at science, he could do it.”
That was the birth of Kits Cubed, which has since donated more than 40,000 kits to over 30 schools in the Bay Area. Muhammad is the first in his family to go to college, but his parents — dad Rahman and mom Sang — signed him up for as many after-school programs and camps as they could as he grew up. Kits Cubed gives other kids those opportunities.
Muhammad first made 60 trial kits for Piedmont Avenue Elementary School during the pandemic. With positive feedback, the next year he distributed kits to all 300 students at the school, where 76% of kids qualify for free and reduced lunch.
“It was just his way of volunteering and giving back with the love of science and the love of learning,” said Zarina Ahmad, then the Piedmont Avenue principal.
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Muhammad has since taught a series of science lessons — including elaborate experiments involving fire – at the school. Ahmad called him a “phenomenal” teacher and noted how important it was for the students to see a young African American scientist leading the way he does.
Lacob, a former high school history teacher, has a particular interest in education. As she reimagined the Warriors Community Foundation’s mission when her husband bought the team in 2010, she made a clear emphasis on addressing the wealth gap via education.
“I live in a fairly wealthy community,” Lacob said. “And I have friends who have children who go on to go to great schools and have great internships, and they’re able to do that because of who their parents are. I wanted the communities we play in to look like the community we live in. That’s kind of how the foundation started.”
The son of a Cambodian refugee and Oakland firefighter, Muhammad knows that there are so many people invested in his journey who helped uplift him to a place he never imagined. Paying it forward means doing the same for others in Oakland.
A young student uses sunlight reflecting off a mirror to toast a marshmallow at the STEM Fair held by Kits Cubed, a non-profit started by Ahmed Muhammad, in front of Oakland Technical High School on Sept. 14, 2024 (Courtesy of Kits Cubed)
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At the STEM Fair, children and their parents extracted DNA from strawberries. They played a game about RNA, got up close with a turtle and a snake, shot homemade rockets into the sky with air pressure and learned how astronauts stay safe in space.
The first 1,000 attendees received a science kit containing the parts and instructions to build a conductor and insulator, a solar-powered car, or a battery to power a hand-held fan.
The tents were run by local non-profits and universities. Even the Oakland Zoo had a station. All around, people in Kits Cubed shirts — Muhammad’s friends and other volunteers — made sure everything was going smoothly.
“This is what it means to be from Oakland and to be from the Bay,” Muhammad said. “We rally for each other, we show up for each other.”
During the event, Muhammad led two raffles atop the school’s front stairs. Among the prizes were four Warriors tickets and a signed Andrew Wiggins jersey.
At one point, Karega Hart, Muhammed’s high school basketball coach, popped out from the school’s front doors to dap up his former point guard.
When Muhammed played for Hart, he and the other coaches would call Muhammad a “unicorn” because he excelled on the court and in the classroom. He appreciated the compliment, but at the same time “hated” the context behind the word.
To Muhammad, Kits Cubed is a way to end the unicorn narrative.
“I got into Stanford and they put it all over the news,” Muhammad said. “I don’t want that. I don’t want it to be such a shock for a kid from Oakland to get accepted into a prestigious university. I want it to be so normal, so normalized and so regular that the next time it happens, we say, ‘Good job, that’s another one.’”
The next ones just might have been toasting marshmallows with sunlight or assembling a solar-powered car.
Malcolm Madison, 7, holds up a voucher of four tickets to a Golden State Warriors game he won in a raffle during a STEM fair organized by Ahmed Muhammad, left, and his non-profit Kits Cubed at Oakland Tech in Oakland, Calif., on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)