Neurodivergent Creativity

WeXL believes that “neurodivergent” should not be seen as a weakness nor a deficit, but rather understood as a variation in how everyone functions in regard to learning, thinking, and behaving. Neurodiversity is necessary within the creative process because it allows us to see a different perspective as well as come up with unique solutions in solving big world problems.

EIR Fellowship Candidates: Neurodiversity

Post-Prison Prosperity

Our first Excellence In Residence fellow was Ornell Caesar, a software engineer in New York City who taught himself JavaScript programming while serving 8 years in prison for a crime to which he pleaded innocent.

The generosity of the Forge team at Autodesk enabled WeXL to produce an event showcasing Caesar’s thought-leadership at DeveloperWeek San Francisco. Our program matched Caesar with mentors at Autodesk, Google, Quora, Nag, Inc., and TripActions. We also provided Caesar with travel and accommodations to California. During his trip, Caesar was a guest on the episode, “REPRESENT: Post-Prison Posterity,” where he joined now California State Senator, Josh Becker, to discuss prison reform and recidivism.

Caesar is now a full-time software engineer at RippleMatch. Before hiring Caesar, RippleMatch’s head of engineering watched Caesar’s presentation, “Visual Storytelling on Prison Reform with D3 JavaScript Libraries,” available on the WeXL YouTube channel.

Mental Health Advocacy

In 2020, an EIR fellowship was awarded to Gabriella “Gabby” Deyi, then Miss Wisconsin USA, and a journalism fellow at The University of Wisconsin. As a mental health advocate, Gabby raises awareness of mental illnesses, including those that afflict her mother and brother.

Through the EIR program, Gabby received a salary to work with the WeXL team on producing and hosting American Wellness, a WeXL original docuseries on mental health in the United States. Gabby also participated as a mentor for our Boundless Youth: Self-discovery through Filmmaking program. Over Zoom, Deyi was emotional as she shared her story to an audience of predominantly Black and LatinX students at Girls Prep Bronx Elementary School. Gabby talked to the girls about growing up and being bullied. A few weeks later, the girls shared Gabby’s heartbreak as we watched the Miss USA pageant over the Internet. 

When the chapter on competing in beauty pageants closed for Gabby, she began to reevaluate her goals and next steps. Also, she questioned her path in television news, which is losing viewers to Web-based content. About a month after Miss USA, one of WeXL’s partners, Logitech, saw Gabby’s work on American Wellness. Deyi started a full-time position at Logitech in February 2021 as a corporate storyteller.

The 2020 EIR program culminated in a webinar with the Panhellenic Coalition of Women of Color (CWC) at Rutgers University on women’s mental health, which featured Gabby and other mental health experts from the WeXL community. Over 140 sorority women participated in the event.