1. Defining the Opportunity

How does a city known for its blue collar pride become a hub of tech talent? According to some, Memphians relish the opportunity for blue collar work (Coleman, 2025). However, how can Memphians directly benefit from companies such as xAI and 5C Group building data centers if a critical mass of Memphians lack the technical skills to even act with digital literacy, let alone expertise, in matters of AI? How can a city with oscillating and low but potentiating literacy and math rates, both closely associated with critical thinking skills, expect to have workers capable of ushering in technological innovation? What networks exist to integrate AI into Memphis culture noninvasively, cost-effectively, and for the enhancement of community? Most importantly, how would these networks do so alongside community from ideation to implementation? In other words, how would the power of such an AI remain within the ownership of Memphians, not a detached amoral billionaire, the dubiously outlined Digital Delta plan, or the questionable efficiency of the Memphis school system? Memphis sits in a peculiar position. In truth, the city balances an unwavering entrepreneurial spirit with deeply rooted philanthropy and mission-oriented work. Another truth: Memphis suffers from poor digital, physical, and educational infrastructure to the degree that many aspects of life, particularly centered around the social determinants of health, are adversely impacted for large portions of the city. Despite this, Memphians have empowered ourselves through channeling the grit engrained in us. We are innovators pushing Memphis culture forward with community-based investment projects; we are adaptive educators well-equipped to prepare youth for fast-paced industries; we are a hub of critical thought in fields like medicine, advocacy, and law. 

The construction of Colossus in 2024 jumpstarted a nine-county initiative called the Digital Delta. The Greater Memphis Chamber is responsible for it. Within the larger context of the supposed “AI arms race,” this move demonstrated the national trend of providing tech companies tax incentives and inexpensive property for creating the power necessary to sustain AI. Competition spurs innovation, and AI is no different. The factors discussed in this proposal and the questions posed above find their roots in a simple principle: innovation without infrastructure is more of a gamble than a guarantee. The sheer amount of quantitative and qualitative data afforded to Memphis researchers, businesses, educators, and policymakers makes it irresponsible to permit outside forces to capitalize on our culture and land without tangible, agency-enriching, well-known benefits for native Memphians. This research proposal outlines a solution to fill this infrastructural gap. 

2. Technology in Afrofuturism     

The U.S. Department of Energy defines technology as follows: “Technology is derived from basic or applied research, development, engineering, technological demonstration, economic and social research, or scientific inquiry into phenomena or technology applications. It includes the use and application of scientific equipment, may be recorded or spoken, may be represented in a medium for storage of communication, and may be contained in computer software with scientific and technical applications” (2021). Merriam-Webster offers a more concise definition: “the practical application of scientific knowledge especially in a particular area” (2019). The overarching theme is the application of knowledge for specific purposes chosen by human beings. Agency and access to knowledge - and thus educational equity - serve as the foundational assumptions for either of these definitions to exist. However, within the context of Memphis, TN, and in lieu of South Memphis’ use as the arguably unethical (Penn & Conger, 2024; Southern Environmental Law Center, 2025) springboard for Greater Memphis Chamber’s Digital Delta initiative, technology has seemingly lost its way. On June 5th, 2024, the city of Memphis received a spatio-temporal shock – partly due to its nontransparency – in the form of a declaration made possible by the Greater Memphis Chamber, MLGW, and Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris: AI was landing in Memphis. Elon Musk’s recently created AI company, xAI, was permitted to build the “world’s largest supercomputer” in the Boxtown neighborhood of South Memphis. Boxtown is a predominantly working-class Black neighborhood in South Memphis that suffers at the hands of one of technology’s greatest pitfalls: pollution. In January 2026, xAI lost a lawsuit to the NAACP and the Southern Environmental Law Center in regard to the company’s illegal use of 35 portable methane turbines, which “pump harmful nitrogen oxides into the air, which are known to cause cancer, asthma and other upper respiratory diseases” (Kerr, 2026). Memphis activists have been fighting against the data center’s pollution given the neighborhood’s history. According to one study, South Memphis experiences cancer rates 4 times the national average (Jia & Foran, 2013). A 2020 study found South Memphians had a life expectancy 10 years lower than other parts of the city (Collins, 2020). xAI’s acquisition of the former Electrolux facility reportedly caught South Memphis city council members by surprise (Kerr, 2024), and the secrecy of the project – secured through NDAs signed by the Greater Memphis Chamber and MLGW (Emerson, 2024) – all compounded the fact that South Memphis had been blindsided (Chow, 2024). 

The lack of transparency and historical context of South Memphis demonstrate technological innovation devoid of humanity. The AI race should not supersede the needs of the entire South Memphis community. It certainly should not erase their sense of agency for little to no economic benefit, which will be briefly examined in this research initiative’s final paper. Agency and knowledge have been eroded throughout the entire process of xAI’s construction. Environmental racism is a well-documented phenomenon, as are Memphis' educational and economic development needs, as well as the empirical relationship between education and economics. Economics being a social science (Hudson, 2017), education’s obvious role in society, and the socio-cultural context of South Memphis (predominantly Black with a rich history) all highlight the need for a return to technology’s core via redefinition for the Memphis context while maintaining the city’s prominence within the forward-thinking aspects of the Digital Delta initiative. The purpose of the proposed research initiative is to outline the creation of an ethical, culturally relevant, and innovative community-owned and operated educational AI, programmed to train critical thinking skills in K-12 youth, to benefit the Memphis educational ecosystem at 3 levels; the autodidactic or tutoring level, community-based school level, and MSCS track for digital learning.  

Afrofuturism brings ethics back to Memphis technology through technology’s redefinition as “an experiential tool designed to facilitate community agency.” This definition was developed during another spatio-temporal shock – this time with community buy-in – called Embodying Freedom. Embodying Freedom was a community gathering held as the culminating event for a research initiative completed by Alyssa Nickell, PhD and Colette Ngana, PhD with Case Western University and Holly Harriel, PhD with MIT. The researchers explored the current state of reparative development and its future possibilities in the prominently Black cities of St. Louis, Missouri, Atlanta, Georgia, and Memphis, Tennessee. Researchers sought to investigate a means for land developers, reparation activists, and Black communities to equitably develop land. Their outcomes revealed these stakeholders lacked the trust, communication, and mutual cultural awareness necessary for reparative land development. Pulling from Adrienne Marie Brown’s concept of emergent strategy and the culturally-relevant speculative power of afrofuturism, the researchers concocted the 3-day conference as the means to connect creatives, academics, land developers, artists, youth, activists, policymakers, and researchers. Day 1 included an afrofuturist and reparative framing of the research. Day 2 had informative sessions from architects, land developers, and Memphis community members to catalyze participants’ thoughts for breakout sessions. The five breakout sessions were as follows: Community Investment as Sacred Practice; Collective Ownership, Generational Progress, and Collective Power; Inviting Artists and Culture Keepers into Spatial Reimagination; Defining and Designing Reparative Development; and Reimagining Tech's Role in Development and Wellness. This last group redefined technology. Day 3 completed the gathering with group shareouts that left community members hungry for transformation. This research initiative would be impossible without the influence of Embodying Freedom. The Embodying Freedom convening clearly demonstrated that a dedicated network of community members can overcome historical restraints for multi-variate approaches to community change.  

Specific groups within a community who may benefit from or actualize an initiative in the fast-paced tech sector can be difficult to identify. In a 2022 article, Molenaar proposes a common language meant to “facilitate a meaningful dialogue” about AI in education between what she calls the “quadruple helix stakeholders.” The quadruple helix stakeholders include researchers, education professionals, entrepreneurs, and policymakers. This framework has the potential to actualize in Memphis. There is a community of afrofuturist here, as well as numerous academic institutions with various research strengths (University of Memphis, Rhodes College, Christian Brothers University, Southwest University, LeMoyne-Owen College, and University of Tennessee Health Science Center to name a few). In fact, Molenaar’s article is published on the website for the Learner Data Institute, a National Science Foundation funded project operating within UoM. Its stated mission is to “harness the data revolution to better understand how people learn, improve adaptive instructional systems (AISs), and make the learning ecosystem more effective and cost-efficient” (Learner Data Institute, 2020). MSCS is the largest governmental employer in Memphis (Schnell, 2024), creating an intersection of education and economics that presents itself as a robust opportunity for community growth. Memphis has a strong entrepreneurial spirit encapsulated by our “grit and grind” attitude. This is reflected in the realm of nonprofit organizations, with Memphis being cited as the city of its size with the most nonprofits (Smart City Memphis, 2016; Cause IQ, 2025). Initiatives such as More for Memphis and Shelby County’s 2024 YPAR report (Barnes et al, 2024) demonstrate the possibility of nonprofits, entrepreneurs, and local governments acting within powerful networks for community enrichment.     

Technology and Agency through an Afrofuturist Lens

Roger Frie defines psychological agency as “the human capacity for reflective action, and is based on the potential to imagine and create new ways of being and acting in the world. This generative potential is only possible within the collective meanings and social and material relations that shape our lives” (2008). Afrofuturism’s specific aim is Black agency. Black agency entails the freedom for Black Americans, and all peoples of the African Diaspora, to have the space, time, and freedom to exercise our imaginations for the purpose of shaping our lives. Afrofuturism (AF) arose from our necessity to self-define outside the historical constraints of the African Diaspora. This can be difficult when a large portion of our population has a past marred by cultural separation and alienation, slavery, and the well-documented racial terror of Western civilization. AF contextualizes Blackness as science-fictional “in the sense that these flights of fancy [anti-Blackness in all its forms] have used science to create the fiction of race as it is applied to black people – indeed, to all people of color” (Lavender III, 2019). Blackness as science-fictional captures the absurdity of racist oppression and positions AF as the necessary frame for situating speculation within the present context. I posit that Blackness is a technology in the sense that race is a deliberately crafted invention. Furthermore, framing Blackness as a technology assists in recognizing AF as a practical tool beyond its use for critique, as a reading practice, or a literary practice. I will explore this point in further detail in the final research paper.

AF does two things that make it feasible to redefine technology for the Memphis context. Firstly, it technologizes the Black experience. If Blackness is indeed a technology, then it exists as an experiential tool binding Diasporic peoples; thus, Black agency is simultaneously a methodology and a state of being. Black agency as a methodology centers our psychosocial reality similarly to how the participatory action research framework centers the lived experiences of a studied population. Secondly, AF frames technology as agency-centered. According to Lavender, freedom is a technology in the sense that it can be used to create potentialities. There are many forms of freedom technologies. Literary, spiritual, and social technologies are such examples. The agency-centered frame for technology and the understanding of Blackness as an experiential tool create the foundation for the present studies working definition of technology.         

3. Afrofuturism and Critical Thinking 

A critical theory “refers to a family of theories that aim at a critique and transformation of society by integrating normative perspectives with empirically informed analysis of society’s conflicts, contradictions, and tendencies” (Celikates & Flynn, 2023). AF is a critical theory because it reexamines the underlying assumptions of racism, cultural narratives, and the process of future-making for the praxis of Black agency. “Critical Theory as a Foundation for Critical Thinking in Music Education” (2005) and “Situation critical: critical theory and critical thinking in engineering education” (2012) demonstrate both the history of combining critical theories with critical thinking (CT) for education enhancement and the flexibility of the combination’s application and outcomes. Why does this combination work? The American Psychological Association defines CT as “a form of directed, problem-focused thinking in which the individual tests ideas or possible solutions for errors or drawbacks” (2014). More succinctly, CT is “the study and evaluation of one’s thoughts” (Paul & Elder, 2008). Although the specific dimensions are somewhat disputed, a point to be explored during the research, consistent themes include an analysis of one’s thinking, its evaluation based on internal consistency, accuracy, precision, fairness, and consistency (other evaluative criteria have been hypothesized), and the cyclical step-based nature of this process (Paul & Elder, 2008; Swartz et al, 2008). Given their definitions and alignment with reflective thinking for the purpose of truer and/or more intentional action, critical theories are to societies what CT is to individuals. Therefore, a society that seeks truth, freedom, and abundance must train individuals to build those concepts within themselves, for and via community. As such, AF elevates CT through its emphasis on agency and speculation. Agency requires reflective action, which is internally generated from reflective thinking if we are to accept the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy perspective; this introduces the concept of reflective thinking-action (RTA), which is merely a condensation of systematic CT resulting in voluntary and agency-enriching action. The social trends, beliefs, and contradictions that AF critiques result, in part, from the lack of consistent, valid, and institutionalized RTA. Speculation requires the extrapolation of thought threads pulled along only insofar as they satisfy criteria overlapping with those necessary to judge the quality of one’s thoughts; in other words, the degree of the effectiveness of one’s RTA serves as the primary catalyzer for RTA’s encoding as a cognitive pathway, boosting its chances for use in the future. This fact is a matter of neuroplasticity. 

Like many psychological and cognitive science theories, CT has been critiqued as culturally biased (Atkinson, 1997; Fox, 1994; Norris, 1995; Santos-Meneses, 2020). However, Maha Bali casts doubt on such claims given “the ideas and practices of CT exist in my own Egyptian Islamic culture” (2015). Furthermore, Zamel suggests such claims conceal reductionist or deficit-oriented mindsets (1997). Admittedly, I was shocked to find someone outside of the Western context defending a “Western” theory against claims of cultural bias. As a Black researcher, it is par for course to stumble upon theories incompatible with my experience or cultural context. Bali and Zamel’s knowledge grounds me in the Kantian fact that social theories are context-specific. Viewing them as such, instead as being culturally biased, makes the application of a theory more attainable. In alignment with this, AF addresses the context of Memphis to shape an AI geared towards training critical thinking skills. I work at the Youth Action Center (YAC), a subsidiary of Bridges USA. As the youth training coordinator at the YAC, I am responsible for designing curricula around youths’ interests and needs to boost their power for the purpose of youth and adult equity. It is during these trainings when I hear youth’s perspectives on their futures. Overall, the youth are hopeful. However, I am consistently disheartened, but never shocked, when I hear how many youth in Memphis feel they have little to no power in their homes, at school, in their districts, in Memphis, or at the county level. I am disheartened because these youth think so deeply and work so hard to center youth voices in decisions that affect them. I am never shocked because their sentiment was true when I was a student of MSCS from 2006-2019. Youth identify a bevy of factors contributing to their feelings of powerlessness – anti-Blackness, misogyny, disregard for youth mental health, lack of transparency in decision-making, outright lying on behalf of teachers and school administrators. For some, particularly Black boys, these factors compound into feelings of oscillating apathy, fear, and hopelessness. It was no surprise that after my colleague and I facilitated an internalized oppression training to address anti-Black comments made by some of the youth, many youth gravitated towards the afrofuturist tools recommended as a way to unravel internalized oppression. During the design of the second curriculum, youth enjoyed the creative freedom granted through afrofuturism and its clear-cut connections to the real world. At the YAC, we recognize the historical thread of segregation and its implications in Memphis schools (Bauman, 2017) and the intersections of the inequities affecting youth. I experienced the systemic racism of MSCS in two key ways. Firstly, as a student. Secondly, I witnessed the effects of both racism and misogyny on my mother, who worked as MSCS’s director of policy for the majority of my adolescence. Although not a youth, her anger, disenchantment, and bewilderment about some of her colleagues’ commitment to white supremacy confirmed the systemic nature of my experiences as a youth. It was through understanding her tired yet keen eyes and unwavering dedication to youth voice that I developed my own sense of CT, one that I continue to refine. 

AF addresses the Memphis context aligned with four dimensions: 1) demographically, 2) psychologically, 3) culturally, and 4) educationally. The first dimension is a matter of math. Memphis is 62.9% Black (QuickFacts: Memphis City, Tennessee, 2024). The second dimension emerges from the truth that hope is a core component of AF; the APA’s definition of hope is “the expectation that one will have positive experiences or that a potentially threatening or negative situation will not materialize or will ultimately result in a favorable state of affairs. Hope has been characterized in the psychological literature in various ways, including as a character strength; an emotion; a component of motivation that is critical to goal attainment; a mechanism that facilitates coping with loss, illness, and other significant stresses; or an integrated combination of these features” (2018). Psychologically, “Hope in childhood has been tied to robust positive outcomes in academic achievement, problem-solving capacities, social competence, and resilience to adversity” (Dixson & Worrell, 2016; Snyder, 2000 as cited by Sparks, 2021). AF posits radical self-acceptance of one’s expression of Blackness. Since there is no objective definition of Black culture, AF positions itself as a critical theory designed with tools shaped for the needs of all African Diasporic peoples regardless of context. It is for us, by us. Finally, most educators and researchers would agree that CT is particularly significant in an age of mis/disinformation and the seeming disintegration of communication between groups, both real and ideological. The introduction of AI into the public sphere has only made AI’s critical adoption more necessary. As previously illustrated, critical theories are uniquely positioned to train CT. Exploring and strengthening the web of connections among AF, CT, and education will be done in the next phase of research. Indeed, four preliminary questions emerge pertaining to this web of connections: 

1. What role does CT play in today’s sociopolitical and technological (AI) contexts?

2. Given the proposed answer(s) to the above, what role does CT play in economics and education?

3. More specifically, how does CT fit the current context of Memphis economics and education?

4. How does MSCS currently measure CT?

These questions create the framework for tackling the speculative question, “What if an AI accurately aided the growth of CT skills while ensuring cultural and psychological relevancy?”   

Hypothesis / Proposed Solution 

1. Hypothesis 1: The integration of an ethically-owned and operated educational AI trained in afrofuturism into Memphis City’s educational infrastructure will improve education outcomes – specifically, the critical thinking skills – for youth.

2. Hypothesis 2: The community-based construction of such an AI will create jobs within Memphis City, ensuring the economic impact of AI is felt at the community-level. 

4. Agentic Reverberations: The Software and Hardware Perspectives of Data Center Impacts 

  AF highlights the agency-enriching possibilities for the Digital Delta plan. Specifically, the trickle-down economics of data centers is reframed through the lenses of a “hardware perspective” and a “software perspective.” These perspectives elucidate the social networks that transmit economic reverberations throughout Memphis while simultaneously nurturing community.

The Hardware Perspective

Assessing AI’s economic impact is highly circumstantial. A comprehensive evaluation of AI requires examination from a “hardware perspective,” which is inclusive of the financial ramifications of data centers. According to technology analyst Christopher Tozzi, the “typical data center results in an almost negligible number of permanent jobs relative to its scale,” yet “Under the right circumstances, data centers can contribute a fair number of employment opportunities to local communities. A single facility won’t put thousands of people to work forever, but ongoing data center construction, along with data centers that require especially high numbers of staff, can result in large-scale ongoing employment” (Tozzi, 2025). Evidently, the economic variability of a data center clouds the judgment of potential impacts. In a city like Memphis, with its well-documented history of neighborhood disinvestment and inequitable resource distribution, a data center’s economic variability provides more ammunition to label the language from local politicians and bureaucrats as fluff. 

Proponents of xAI have cited the interconnectedness of the economy as a measure of the data center’s positive impacts; this claim echoes that of trickle-down economics. In December of 2024, Ted Townsend, the president and CEO of Greater Memphis Chamber, and the Chamber itself specifically mentioned NVIDIA, Dell, and Supermicro as large tech companies interested in Memphis. However, none of these companies have corroborated those claims. More broadly, xAI proponents like Tennessee representative Brent Taylor and Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton believe Musk’s gamble could attract more businesses to move into Memphis (Finton, 2024). According to some studies, this claim may carry weight. Michael J. Hicks is the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research and Professor of Economics at Ball State University. In his study titled “Data Centers and Local Job Creation,” he reviews previous research on data center impacts. He examines five different input-output analyses shown below. 

Figure 1.1

Hicks, 2025. Input-Output Models of Data Center Impacts. michaeljhicks.substack.com. https://michaeljhicks.substack.com/p/data-centers-and-local-job-creation 

An input-output analysis “focuses on how economic sectors or industries rely on each other for inputs (raw materials and intermediate goods) and outputs (final products). This form of macroeconomic analysis is commonly used for estimating the impacts of positive or negative economic shocks and analyzing the ripple effects throughout an economy” (Kenton, 2021). Figure 1.1 shows two key observations: 1) direct construction jobs are the primary and initial economic boost of a data center, and 2) total employment, calculated with multipliers, may provide insight on how to mitigate the otherwise negligible economic benefits of a data center in both its initial phase and ongoing operations. The initial construction phase of these studied data centers tracks with a report produced by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Chamber Technology Engagement Center (C_TEC) that estimates an average 1,688 local workers are hired for data center construction projects (Chamber Technology Engagement Center, 2017). The Greater Memphis Chamber claims that “xAI will bring up to 500 quality, high-paying jobs to Memphis in its initial phase, with plans to grow more” (Greater Memphis Chamber, 2024), which falls considerably short of the C_TEC estimate. Musk’s decision to prioritize a speedy construction influenced his decision to choose Memphis. The Electrolux location already contained enough of the infrastructure necessary for xAI to complete construction in just 122 days (xAI, 2026), thus demonstrably reducing the number of contractors needed. The claim for 500 jobs in the initial phase seems dubious at best when, as of January 12, 2026, there are only 43 job openings on xAI’s website. The lack of transparency on the project’s timeline makes it difficult to know when the initial phase ends, adding another layer of uncertainty. A review of publicly available LinkedIn profiles and other online sources found only 99 people actively working at xAI’s Memphis facility. Of those, 53 have been hired from outside the Memphis region. Forty-three of those profiles “indicate they were previously based in either Greater Memphis or Tennessee,” casting further doubt on the data center’s lofty promises (Ecarma, 2026). The blue collar work seems all but completed, and most evidence points to that work having barely benefitted Memphians. If the “blue collar pride” (Coleman, 2025) is the language used to describe the work xAI is providing, then that casts further doubt on Taylor’s claim that xAI could catalyze Memphis into the “largest concentration of Black tech talent in the country" (as cited by Finton, 2024). 

The Software Perspective

Upon further examination of Figure 1.1, one will notice the use of multipliers in the “Total Employment” section. Multipliers in economics are used to estimate the expectations of an investment. The chart demonstrates that the data centers moving into Memphis could generate hundreds to thousands of jobs. The question remains to what extent. Given xAI’s current habit of outsourcing talent, Memphis stands to gain more from the proposed economic reverberations these multipliers allude to. This is where a two-pronged “software perspective” emerges, i.e. the training of and upward mobility of native Memphians as technical workers (software engineers, data scientists, IT specialists, chip designers, electrical engineers, etc.) and the hypothesized socioeconomic reverberations of AI’s integration into Memphis’ education ecosystem. Figure 1.2 pictures the relationships among five levels of socioeconomic reverberations. 

Figure 1.2

Levels 1 and 2 represent the hardware perspective while the remaining levels represent the software perspective. Levels 3-5 interact with each other through the software perspective. The characteristics of each ring’s lines represent the permeability of informational and financial resources. The thickness of the first two levels demonstrates the limitations of the hardware perspective. As the groups comprising each ring diversify, permeability increases and community networks can be more easily strengthened. Below are key considerations proposed by this working model. The specifics will be explored in future research: 

• The hardware perspective has an expiration date. Once data centers are physically completed, the direct influx of economic value to a local economy ceases. Information regarding the inner workings of the data center and the economic context in which it operates remain unknown to most. As a result, any community-boosting opportunities cannot be identified and acted upon. The hardware perspective shows us that data centers are more like a gentrifying force than bastions of technological innovation; that is to say, xAI has moved in with a narrative of luster but in reality operates discriminatorily.     

• The software perspective poses serious questions for local officials and community members to answer together, such as: Do Memphians have access to opportunities that would help us economically and educationally take advantage of tech companies coming here? Do we have the infrastructure to support access to such opportunities? How can we ensure companies aren’t extracting talent? How can we ensure they are providing tangible, ethical, and culturally relevant benefits for Memphians?

• The software perspective is transhistorical and socially generative.  AI, and data centers by extension, typically fall under utopian or dystopian narratives (Ekbia, 2008). These types of narratives make bold speculations about potential futures. Ideally, such thought extrapolations result from a keen understanding of the present context. Another unique quality of AF is its conception of time. Yes, it utilizes speculation for the sake of crafting potential futures, but it does so non-linearly. The sequence of “past to present to future” is amorphous; the historical uncertainty characteristic of Diasporic peoples gives us two advantages. Firstly, it grants us the freedom of a chosen past. The cultural narratives pertaining to Blackness abound, and AF exists to help us choose wisely. Secondly, it intertwines timelines. Haggard (2002) found that the perception of time changes when we act with agency; that is, the time between a voluntary action and its perceived effect moves closer. These two factors are the glue holding together the foundation of Memphis’ workforce development infrastructure. Levels 3-5 leverage local entities' relationships and remain grounded by the history of those who choose to participate. My time in the Memphis nonprofit sector has shown me that accessibility and alumni engagement are critical issues. Shelby County’s 2024 YPAR report illustrated young adults’ desires for economic and educational opportunities, so the pool of people power is here. A healthy integration of AI into the Memphis ecosystem provides yet another opportunity to guide young Memphians towards happy and productive lives, which happens in the community. CodeCrew and The Collective Blueprint are examples of existing workforce development providers with wide-ranging social networks built to educate community members. Their partnership produces entry-level software developers with the hard and soft skills necessary to compete in the tech industry. Additionally, both organizations boast 5+ years of alumni. The software perspective encourages alumni engagement via a “graduate and grow” mentality rather than a “graduate and grab” mentality. The latter is defined as pushing people through a program for the sake of “grabbing” a stat; the former is defined as nurturing graduates by offering them the choice to be embedded directly into a community-based post-program project. The details of such a post-program project will be outlined in the next phase of research. 

• The further a ring is from the data center, the more diversity within the group(s) constituting the ring. A strong community network involves the effective coordination of different groups across the system. The quadruple helix stakeholders (researchers, policymakers, entrepreneurs, and education professionals) serve as the social foundation from which other social networks are identified and fostered; this function will be expanded upon later. An example of a rung’s diversity is level 3. Level 3 contains groups such as software engineers, data scientists, UI designers, app developers, game developers, and other creative career avenues accompanying AI or made possible by it. Marketers, artists, computer science researchers, and digital literacy teachers/advocates are examples of tech-adjacent actors that fit within level 3. Human systems work analogously to the brain. A brain’s connections are measured by neural density. The denser a pathway, or neural network, the stronger the connections and therefore the easier the associated function (that is, the performance of an action). The more density within a ring, the stronger the social connections. 

• The Memphis Educational Ecosystem interacts with Tech Workers by providing teaching and learning opportunities in the form of formal schooling and non-traditional avenues. Indeed, the national rise of AI’s use by students, often uncritically, presents itself as an opportunity for tech workers to provide insights in how to maximize technology’s augmentation of the human learning process. These conversations need to happen between Memphis’ education professionals and tech workers invested in Memphis youth. The software perspective encourages tangible, community-involved solutions from these conversations. Such solutions are systematized. 

• The Memphis Educational Ecosystem interacts with Local Businesses by partnering with businesses relevant to the tech industry. A practical example of this interaction could mimic the Jefferson County Public Schools UPS partnership (Romine, 2023). This program allows students to take college courses, attend their high school classes, and work at UPS. What would it look like if FedEx partnered with MSCS to provide tech internships or apprenticeships for students at scale? Given FedEx’s digitization (IRU, 2025; FedEx, 2024) and their history of supporting Memphis’ school-to-warehouse pipeline, such an opportunity could undo years of the company’s disinvestment in Memphis youth.     

• Tech Workers interact with Local Businesses through strategic partnerships meant to increase businesses’ digital capacities while stimulating the local tech sector. Memphis has suffered from a quiet brain drain for decades. The prevailing narrative across socioeconomic demographics is to “get out of Memphis.” The Mid South’s position as a favorite location for tech companies means Memphians have the opportunity to upgrade. Local businesses investing in the education of tech workers in connection to the community networks of the other levels creates an agentic feedback loop; local businesses partake in the shaping of native Memphians’ futures as tech workers who then work for local businesses.  

5. AF, AI, and the Opportunity for a Memphis Narrative Change 

It is worth briefly describing the narrative-changing intention of this research initiative. Memphis’ national reputation is that of a crime-ridden city devoid of growth opportunities, an obvious exaggeration, especially given the 25-year low of overall crime (Memphis Crime Drops to Historic 25-Year Low Across Major Categories - Memphis Police Department, 2025). The interactions among crime, the social determinants of health, and education have been well studied. The information is clear: by improving access to equitable education, thus improving economic outcomes, a community ensures the youth develop into actualized, productive, and healthy members of society. A key part of the proposed AI’s creation is an outline of a narrative strategy that dispels the notion that Memphis is a crime-ridden and uneducated city and garners support around the AI. 

6. Overall Aim

   
   

The overall aim of the proposed research is to lay the theoretical and, to the extent possible, technical blueprint of an educational afrofuturist AI for the Memphis education ecosystem. There are two auxiliary aims: 1) discovering or establishing a mathematical model of afrofuturism for the purpose of programming the AI, and 2) outlining the institutionalization of the AI from socioeconomic and organizational perspectives.  

Assumptions

There are some assumptions that need to be acknowledged:

Assumption 1: Afrofuturism is functional beyond its use as a critical theory.

Assumption 2: The Memphis City community is supportive of AI’s integration in 

   education and business.

Assumption 3: Memphis City has the talent, drive, infrastructure, and support networks 

  (financial and social) to create and own a powerful AI. 

Assumption 4: Greater Memphis Chamber’s “Digital Delta” initiative fails to address the 

     long-standing educational and economic issues of Memphis City. 

Assumption 5: Youth, teacher, and school system support of AI at large. 

Assumption 6: The current MSCS curriculum and school environments 

   inadequately measure and fail to address students’ critical thinking 

   skills.

As more assumptions arise, they will be noted within the research. Assumptions 2-6 are context specific; if all of them are proven incorrect, then the overall aim is still applicable to the wider context of “educational AI.” If Assumption 1 is proven incorrect, then a Large Language Model (LLM) can still be fed afrofuturism text. In this case, the AI would produce afrofuturism content. Assumption 6 is necessary until I can study MSCS’s curriculum along with at least one community-based learning curriculum as a case study. 

Research Questions 

These research questions will be refined and grouped based on their connection to the proposed study’s variables. The questions are listed here to showcase the strategic direction of the proposed research. 

1. What is a functional and tested mathematical model of afrofuturism to serve as a basis for coding an AI? 

2. More specifically, what predictive model best fits afrofuturism? Does a predictive model for speculative power need to be developed, and if so, how could this model be used to code an afrofuturist educational AI? 

3. How can afrofuturism serve as the basis for a generative AI? 

   1. Is it already in use, by whom, and what is its level of effectiveness in producing ideal outcomes? 

4. What’s the logical connection between afrofuturism and critical thinking? Why should an AI be programmed specifically to help students improve critical thinking outcomes?  

5. What’s the proposed AI’s budget? 

6. How have Memphis and Shelby County historically used the tax revenue generated by large corporation deals? Have they been used to benefit the education system, and if not, how could the rise of tech companies’ Memphis investments be used to leverage AI within the school system? 

7. Why are there so many nonprofits here, and what are their tangible impacts? What effects do nonprofits have on the creation of new businesses? On existing businesses? 

8. How many nonprofits are the result of entrepreneurship? 

9. How has capitalism affected the way Memphis creates community-based solutions?  

10. What effect does the integration of AI within a school and/or school system have on immediate and long-term economic outcomes for employees and students? What about educational outcomes for students? 

11. Given the educational and economic context of Memphis City, how can the integration of culturally-relevant AI into community-based learning environments improve the educational outcomes, and thus future earning potentials, of Memphis students? 

12. What are the economic and cultural trends the Digital Delta initiative uses as a basis for its wide-reaching claims, and do these claims match Memphis City’s economic and cultural reality? 

13. How feasible is a community-owned AI within the current AI market? What models, if any, already exist? 

14. Who would have decisionmaking power over the AI? 

15. What models of community-based investment have worked in Memphis, and how will such an investment affect the production and maintenance of a community-owned AI? 

16. What’s the validity of the current learning theories used by educational AI to educate Black children? 

17. What digital learning programs does MSCS have? Does it make sense to plug the AI into any of the existing programs, and if so, speculate what that looks like. How is digital learning currently plugged in at all three levels (autodidactic, community-school, MSCS)?  

7. Methods

A mixed-methods approach serves this research initiative best. The research will include an integrative literature review, interviews, and AF as a critical qualitative inquiry method as described by Eseonu and Okoye (2024). 

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