After Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine co-founded Beats Electronics in 2006, they focused on creating educational opportunities for minority youth in Los Angeles. In 2013, they donated $70 million to the University of Southern California to create the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology, and the Business of Innovation.
Now they are collaborating with Adidas to design a new education program in South Los Angeles that blends fashion, technology, and entrepreneurship, according to Rolling Stone. Adidas says in a statement, “Design and creative hobbies have become more than just that – they are an opportunity for youth to explore a future that can become a career.”
In addition to the new program with Adidas, Iovine, and Dre, who is performing in the Super Bowl halftime show, are launching a magnate school in South LA, set to open on September 22, 2022. Many youth in South LA come from low-income families, however Iovine says they can overcome their obstacles.
“A lot of these kids, they have all these words for them: under-served, disadvantaged,” the entrepreneur says. “But what they really have is superpowers.”
Iovine and Dre have become a super duo, producing several multi-platinum albums, and launching Beats by Dre. They were the subject of the 2017 Grammy Award-winning HBO docuseries, The Defiant Ones.
“We come from two different cultures, and we’ve collaborated for 30 years now,” the Interscope Records co-founder says. “We really complement each other.”
Following their success in music and audio, they hope for similar results in affecting education. “I grant that it’s a big idea, but we also believe that if you were to create a spark that’s powerful enough, a fire will happen,” Iovine says. “We think that this will catch on.”
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