Gyasi (pronounced “Jah See”) Kereenyaga Musa Williams, born and raised in Los Angeles, California, has a Bachelor’s Degree in History from the University of California at Berkeley. He has worked on and off as a jazz musician over the last 20 years, “while working in various industries to keep myself afloat (including IT, Sales, automotive manufacture, customer service, etc.).” During that time, he started a second bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, “which I am currently in the process of completing”.
In his own words: “I am joining the Cooperation Jackson collective because I am inspired by its solution oriented organizing strategy and approach. I hope to help advance the transformative work of Cooperation Jackson by becoming a Fab Lab technician and one of the worker owners of the Center for Community Production that the organization is working to build.
“I have lifelong interests in community activism, development, engineering design and economic empowerment for Black people. I am extremely excited to represent Cooperation Jackson at the Fab Lab training with the team at Incite Focus. This work combines two of the most important passions in my life: helping Black people take back control of their lives, and using engineering and creative design to do so.
“My goals for participating in this Fab Lab internship are two-fold. One, I intend to learn as much as possible about digital fabrication within the Fab Lab environment to be able to create concrete solutions to pressing challenges in the Jackson area. Two, I intend on learning the skills and design process well enough to train and empower as many as possible in the Jackson area to further economic empowerment and justice for people of Mississippi.”
