>> It's been almost two weeks now.

Time feels weird on the RV.

The days all feel really long, so it's weird but I love it.

I love the people that I'm with.

>> We're like a little bit, more than half way through the trip.

>> I'm feeling good.

the interviews are like, incredible.

>> Having an opportunity to talk to them face to face is crazy.

[LAUGH] [MUSIC] >> This is a really good thing for me.

Being able to take time off my regular day to day thoughts.

And like see what am I thinking about.

Who am I after all the crap has been taken out.

[MUSIC] I think my biggest challenge is finding a way to make the system work for me.

I just really want to integrate my passion for technology and social justice together.

And it's a risk, because there's not a lot of people doing it I feel.

Social justice isn't a profitable area.

[LAUGH] I told my mom, I really wanna be able to help people with what I'm doing.

And she was like, okay, I just want you in a place where you're going to be financially stable.

And I was like, yeah, that's understandable.

I'm really hoping to meet people that have made a difference in the world.

[MUSIC] >> We're in Detroit, Michigan.

>> I've never been to Detroit before.

It was different.

Just like so much abandoned and so much brokenness.

>> When we interviewed Mama Shu from the Avalon Village.

>>Hi >>Hi Hey!

I'm Mama Shu.

>> So Mama Shu is the founder of Avalon Village.

After seeing her community kind of go downhill, she took it into her own hands to create action and make an impact even if it was just cleaning up her own space and then it kind of snowballed into literally like a city, which is insane.

[MUSIC] >> Yeah, I'm excited.

Want to come onto my porch?

>> Yeah.

>> I'm an avid porch sitter.

[MUSIC] In this city, unfortunately, you know the library is closed, our schools were up under emergency management, our high school got tore down, our water plant was shut down.

The basic things in the city were lacking.

And that's unhealthy, mentally, spiritually and emotionally.

If you sat and looked at raggedy matches and toilet and a rat nest out of trash and stuff, what type of feeling would you have?

It makes you feel like you're the bottom of the barrel citizens, like you don't deserve to have something nice.

[MUSIC] >> I'm kind of wondering like what's your background, so I understand where you came from- >> How did I get here, to this point, okay.

So what I was doing in high school, I was always the organiser.

If a young girl got pregnant at 17, I was the one that planned showers for them in the neighborhood but also as a child, I loved my neighborhood.

We had a school.

I had stores.

The elders would sit on their porch and help you with everything.

It was just more resources and I just remember being comfortable on my block.

I moved to Highland Park in 2003.

And lived in a house on Rhode Island Street and was raising my family and everything.

And had another business, I had a store.

Now, I watched this blighted block for several years, actually.

I mean, trash, mattresses, just everything.

It looked nothing like it looks right now.

And then my little boy, his name is Jacobi.

He was hit by a car, hit-and-run driver.

He got killed.

He was two years, one month, and six days old.

So after he died and everything, I realize, I'm like, I don't have to live like this.

I don't care what nobody says.

I don't if money is short here or there.

We're going to get up and we're going to at least clean up.

My elders, this is what they taught us to do.

You work or you fix up your neighborhood.

You make it beautiful and you serve in any way that you can, so that's what I did.

My purpose was to come over here to transform the block.

Make my non profit organization in this house simultaneously I built the ministry and I built the park for my son Jacobi Ra.

This is my son's head stone, I put it here instead of the cemetery, so this is like officially his park for real.

[MUSIC] So this place looking the way that it looked, it took about eight years to clean it up.

I did one lot at a time, I rented dumpsters, anybody that wanted to help could help.

We gave them free lunch, the guys over here at the rescue mission, it's grass roots.

>> I love my neighborhood.

>> I love my neighborhood, treat my neighborhood good.

>> Avalon Village is a developing eco village in Highland Park, Michigan.

There's a lot of things that we don't have anymore that a other normal and regular cities have.

So basically, what we're doing is that we're building all of that.

And condensing it on one block where you can come and have town hall meetings and be safe.

There's a park here where you can have cookouts with your family and family events.

We have our homework house that will be opening next month.

The kids are able to have a meal and they're able to get help with their homework.

One of our main goals is to make this a green village.

A lot of our structures is built with recycled materials.

We have a solar roof.

We have geothermal heating and cooling.

So I won't have a gas bill or anything.

Those are the things, to me, it made sense to get.

Stuff that wouldn't create bills.

It wouldn't create overhead.

And I remember I had an interview with NBC.

They called me the unlikely urban planner.

I don't have schooling in architecture or none of that.

But I just haphazardly just was doing it.

And we get the work done.

>> How How is it that you saw this block and people that were living here already they maybe lost hope or something.

How was it that you were able to gain all of the support from the people in this community?

>> Well I think when you're looking at ugliness it tears everything down and folks don't wanna do nothing.

And they feel that it's hopeless.

So it's a whole mental thing too.

It's only so long that you can really live in a slum type environment, nor is it fair.

They deserve more.

So cleaning up was the first level.

We started with nothing.

A lot of people think that you need grants and big time money and everything to do.

We had none of that, it's just was simply starting and picking up a broom.

And I cleaned up my own backyard and my own lot right next to it and then it just started rippling, and then I couldn't stop.

Then what happens is, is that you start to get respect for the space because they know that that becomes sacred.

They don't throw trash or anything.

There's no trash around here because they know that this is the village.

They know don't throw no trash over there.

They just know that.

>> [LAUGH] I just I think it's so amazing that you are able to give people hope,on a block like this I can't even imagine what it used to look like before >> Yeah >> But is just you saw something that people didn't >> Yeah.

>> And you are able to push that.

>> Yeah.

>> Its just- >> Yeah, so basically [LAUGH].

>> These roadtrippers making us cry >> [LAUGH].

>> Stop it roadtrippers [LAUGH].

>> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] Look at you, Jordane, you're holding alright?

>> [LAUGH].

>> [LAUGH] Or you got it together [LAUGH].

>> [LAUGH] >> Okay look.

I know but yeah.

Cool, that's cool and I'm really happy that people can see like, okay, something can really get done here.

And so what happens is that, it makes them go get a rake, it makes them hey, Shu I got this and that, I'm leaving it on your porch, just resources and it just starts bringing people in.

>> Like how do you think the internet or how has tech in general helped spread word about like your mission?

>> The internet, woah.

Social media, all of that, that has been the bomb.

It has.

It has been wonderful.

We're able to spread our story.

The Kickstarter that we did when we initially started to help build, and then we got another donation to help finish and just been ongoing and stuff.

And that's what's happened, it's actually become infectious.

But that was my dream, for it to become infectious, not for us just to be one little place, I need for it to spread.

And you talking about overcoming stuff, it helps me with healing with my son.

This is something that I can just change my grief into glory basically, just to keep the love, or whatever, the healing going in my heart.

And I think about this too that this is one block, and I think about how far this is gonna go because I think about how far the grief actually goes.

I have enough, really, to build the world.

When you lose your kid.

But this is where I'm starting right now, the block.

[MUSIC] I just want to say, have no fear.

Have no fear in nothing that you do.

Anything is possible.

It doesn't matter what you go through, how bad that you think something is, or the trials and tribulations, you're always going to have that.

Matter of fact, I want you to factor that in, know that that part is gonna happen, but know that you can overcome it.

[MUSIC] >> Momma Shu- >> Momma Shu is some heat.

Momma Shu is the real deal.

>> She was able to look at this blighted block and think to herself, this could be a beautiful village.

And it happened.

[MUSIC] >> Everything that she had done for her community, everything that she had given, that was everything that I wanna give to my community.

>> [LAUGH] >> The purpose of this is to give people hope And I think the entrepreneurial mindset is that you're on your own a lot.

And Momma, she was never on her own.

I don't have to be alone in this.

A lot of people wanna help people, and it's just hard to sometimes like there's no path for it.

And maybe I have to take the first step and I have to trust in the fact that people will follow in my steps also and help me.

[MUSIC] >> Our next interview was Victor, and Mia.

They're in the early stages of tech entrepreneurship.

>> The Chicago leaders gave me a different perspective on growing up in these immigrant communities.

>> I'm Mia Velasquez.

I am co-founder and ceo of a company called Commit.

Commit's mission is all about How we can help people focus on relationships at events and not the details.

[MUSIC] >> My name is Victor Abundis.

I am a co-founder of Interpreter Tap, a mobile application that connects you to a live interpreter.

Via video or audio.

Being first generation Mexican American from the age of six was from the moment I learned a bit of English I became my grandmother's, my grandfather's everybody's, interpreter.

He's just like someone who knows his customer's problem inside and out cuz he really was someone who has lived through that problem.

I started going to medical settings, I started going to workers compensation.

I started seeing kind of more of how the disenfranchised were being treated.

There is interpreters that are out there but there is nothing that's really accessible.

Directly to the low income immigrant.

So that's where Interpreter Tap was born.

>> Can you tell us a bit about your upbringing?

>> I immigrated from Colombia to Texas when I was five, being raised in America by a family who is not fully American, but trying so hard.

To be American.

>> I came to America when I was four years old.

So the process of like coming here is really hard.

I was wondering, how did you not let these issues weigh down your ability to perform and execute on a mission?

>> Being Hispanic and all the things that came along with that I didn't highlight them and I wasn't super into talking about them, and when you're 17, 18, 21, and all you wanna do is fit in.

It's called covering, and so I just covered who I was til I realized that there was a significant power behind being a Hispanic female.

I'm ashamed that I turned my back on my Hispanic heritage for so long.

But those issues make you a thousand times more powerful of a human, and you're going to be able to do so much more for the children in our shoes now as they're growing up and as you mentor them, and as you share.

But you have to do something with it.

[MUSIC] Do you have any parting words of advice for us?

>> You guys are the future.

There's not enough women in tech, there's not enough people of color in tech.

Historically we've been taken out of any major movement and you have to reject the fact that history is gonna repeat itself.

[MUSIC] I think our government's made pretty clear that we're all we've got, us.

[MUSIC] Can't let yourself be left out of this movement.

It's a revolution, you got to be part of it.

>>Thank you >>Alright guys, see you later >> I feel like there's so much I've learned, on so many different levels.

But it's all about just starting small and just starting somewhere.

You don't have to have a huge vision like just start.

[MUSIC] >> Being on this trip, it's been relaxing actually.

Yeah, I'm feeling good.

[LAUGH] [MUSIC] I think the experiences that I'm having on the trip are giving me a moment to reflect and think about myself in a new context.

I watched people in my family and members of my community get abused.

And so that play like a huge roll in combination with the fact that I am kinda a loner, I do like to hang out by myself, think through my thoughts.

And so I wanna understand maybe how other successful people have navigated difficult situations and I'm really hoping to just get guidence.

maybe learn more about myself >> So we're about to interview Clarence Bethea of Upsie.

>> Clarence has really lived a interesting life, he came from this household that was abusive, but now he's built up this life for himself.

And I think that he's got a pretty interesting story to tell.

>> Hello.

>> Hey.

Burt, good to meet you >> Carissa, nice to meet you.

>> [LAUGH] >> Come on in.

>> I was selling young nickelbags by the time I was 14 on the corner I often venture capitalists.

They were like, Clarence, don't you think this is hard, like isn't this hard for you?

You're a first time entrepreneur, first time raising venture capital, first time to all these first, being black, all these first for them, right.

But you know what's really hard, like being shot at.

That's really hard.

[MUSIC] So my name is Clarence Bethea, founder and CEO of Minneapolis based Upsie and we are changing that consumors buy extend warranties.

These retail stores that sell you these plans, they were making so much money.

I'm talking about 900 percent mark ups.

And as a guy of the people, I felt like, man we can do this much better.

We can solve these problems for consumers, and that got us into Upsie.

>> So can you take us into your upbringing?

>> Yeah, so by group of a situation where my dad beat my mom for the first 15 years of my life.

And I saw alcohol, I saw a drugs, it was abuse.

So, as a young man I thought that my life was about that like if you want somebody to do what you said you got physical.

And then when I got to adulthood and I got to business, I figured out very quickly that's not the way to get things done.

>> So where were you when you were our age?

>> Quite frankly I was lost.

At the time I was working at this basketball academy.

And what we did was sell packages to parents for their kids, to train and learn basketball.

So, I got really, really good at that.

So, we went from $0 to about $1.5 million the first year and I was the only sales guy.

And I was so excited about it because I was just, if you could talk to people and get them to give you $5,000, that's pretty cool, right.

[LAUGH] So I was the sales guy, so I was supposed to be selling people all the time but I would sweep floors.

I would pick up basketballs.

I would shovel the walk during the winter.

To me it was about doing everything possible to show my value but I was still trying to figure out life and what I was gonna be and where I was gonna go.

But I came to the reflection point where a former CEO of a Fortune 500 company changed the direction of my life.

He told me I had the skills, I just needed to learn how to do business better.

>> How did you meet this guy?

>> I actually used to train his kids in basketball.

And I asked him, after awhile, like, hey, why me?

And he was, because I watched you, everytime I came in that gym you was there.

Didn't matter whether it was 7 o'clock in the morning or it was 10 o'clock at night, you were there.

I think that what impressed him.

If it's your goal in life to only do what's required of you, well you're not gonna be very successful.

Life is about doing over and above and doing more and so when given the opportunity I took advantage of it.

What started to happen at that point was you started to give me experiences that continue to help me grow.

And I started to really say to myself I could do business for anybody.

I just sat in a room with a billionaire and he respected what I said to him.

I can do this at a high level and I think that with that, I'm one of the few African-American founders that has ever raised millions of dollars of venture funding.

Being Black in tech is a huge no, no, less than 1% of venture funding goes to African Americans.

And so you have all these things kinda stacked against you, and I was really ballow myself am I the one to be solving this problem for our customers.

I actually contemplated do I need to go hire a white guy to be the face and I'd just be the idea.

And the clear answer was hell no.

I can do this myself.

>> Thank you for like saying that because I have thought about that myself, was this something I need to do.

Just hire some random guy and be, you talk to everyone?

>> How did you cultivate that mindset and confidence?

>> My thing is when I walk into rooms now, I have such a confidence about the things that I know, and what I know about our business, and what I know about our customers.

And there's power in being authentic.

So like when I walk in a room in VCs, I talk how I wanna talk, if this is not who you wanna invest in then I don't want your money, because this is who I am.

>> So in terms of my own life I can see some parallels.

For the first few years of my life my parents had a very toxic relationship and there was abuse.

As a child you have to process all of this.

How do you make sure that the personal baggage, that you carry doesn't become dead weight in any of these things.

>> Most of the times things are baggage because you haven't verbalized.

And you haven't put some meat behind it to somebody else.

Yeah, I went through therapy and counseling for a long, long time for about five or six years straight, twice a week.

But I think it took a lot of work and a lot of being able to be vulnerable to therapists and all that baggage I just left.

I just left it there, right, and it's like it's not who I am.

It's not what I'm about.

I don't carry it anymore, right?

That's the great thing about baggage.

You can drop it off whenever you like, right?

I think one of the biggest values that entrepreneurs get wrong is the value of being vulnerable.

Because if you keep all of that pushed inside of you and you think that you're gonna figure out how to get that stuff out, it just doesn't happen like that.

You have to let that stuff out.

You have to cry it out.

You gotta find a way to get it out.

>> Thank you.

He's just so confident about exposing his vulnerabilities and I think that's one might take way this being confident like this happen to be standing in the truth while putting down all the baggage from it.

>> Sweet, do I sign anywhere?

>> Yeah anywhere you want.

>> So we are going on the road we are gonna be interviewing some more leaders.

Do you have any parting advice for us?

>> Yeah, you gotta live life with grace.

It's amazing that people don't understand grace until they need it.

And so my advice is, don't be the person, That don't understand grace until you need it.

Live life with grace, give people grace at all times.

>> You choose what you carry on into the future.

And so I think going forward, making sure that I'm seeking help and people to support me.

It's changing the way that I see myself.

It was like this trip for me, it was this waking up point, like something in you that was already there just wakes up, like just a bunch of lessons coming together.

So like Victor on hard work, like wisdom in terms of like, well Mama she is building just to get things done, determination, dreaming large, the lessons about like time and being patient.

And I think I had a glimpse of this, but like throughout this road trip it just showed me a lot more.

[MUSIC, Hip Hop] So it's almost the end of the trip, we're in Montana.

>> What would you recommend for me to find the problem that I'm meant to solve?

>> Follow your gut intuition, lean into it with courage.

>> We're driving to San Francisco.

>> I did my first company, that is a drone delivery company.

Entrepreneurs are leaders, we're pioneers, we're going a step ahead, where there is no trail, where there is no path.

>> This type of opportunity only comes once in a life time, and it's just awesome that I had the chance to experience this.

[MUSIC] >> To learn more about how to get involved or to watch interviews from the road, visit roadtripnation.com.