The six male winners should also write if the incentivized challenge was what compelled them to compete. I am curious if the same students in all would have competed if there was no tangible prize. Those young men should share their experiences that culminated in their decision processes that brought them to that deliverable in winning a prize but also share their nuance of wondering what they would do if they did not win. Would they ever try ever again to chase tangible carrots? Does anything motivate them without a shiny prize as the end result? Do they have the stamina for longer struggles that require endurance?

I want those same young men to explore what motivates them and if their was no short-term tangible goal would they still aspire to be more.

Is there any intellectual curiosity that is dependent of the hand-holding and prodding by HBCUs administrators and educators? Reading this post as well as several other posts I don't bask in pride here of what in contrast other schools who are non-HBCUs don't have to nurture constantly to get their students to ascend independently.

As a retired social innovator I have witnessed that this type of nurturing puts out college graduates who are not intellectually curious and they still wait for gatekeepers, doyennes, patricians, and celebrities to lead them.

This challenge with all other challenges has to accelerate exponiently for these young people to be anything other than just more of what we already have in Black college graduates who are rather dismally boring and yet full of themselves that they managed to graduate from college as if it is the hardest thing to do and the only critical accomplishment that matters.