Looking Back to Move Forward Part 2: My Schwarzman Scholars Application Essay
As 2025 closes and I look forward to the next decade of progress, prosperity, and potential, I gratefully practice the concept of sankofa: looking back to move forward. If you read the 2022 version of this article, you'll remember that I'm a fan of big questions. While in DC over the past two years, I sought an answer to the question: "What is power?" I left DC with a satisfactory answer (let's discuss more in-person) and now find myself in Beijing, China as a Schwarzman Scholar exploring global approaches to governance, leadership, and future design.
As I open up to opportunities in the companionship tech sector in 2026, many of my past tech, government, and nonprofit colleagues may be looking for a new adventure in the midst of shifting circumstances. If the opportunity to discuss big questions directly with changemakers gives your stomach butterflies, eating at delicious canteens alongside China's future tech talent makes you want to dance, and going on morning walks with citizens of 45 countries makes your shoulders shimmy, I happily share my Schwarzman Leadership application essay below as a peek into how I chose this path and the steps I intend to take along this new journey. Wish me luck and I will do the same for yall 🇨🇳🇺🇸
Thank you to @ken kato (inspiration for the essay structure), @andrea Hershatter, @marisa Levine, @zhaohan Amanda li, and endless others for helping me move forward.
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"I love that idea - what if we focused on accessibility?" Those ten words catapulted technology-powered equity from an idea I bounced amongst my cubicle mates into an office-wide initiative. Five months after graduating from college and three months after joining Google's Global Customer Experience team, I recognized that people with disabilities like myself were an often overlooked community of colleagues and product users. My curiosity about leveraging resources to create outsized impact led me to develop internal disability inclusion champions.
For the next few weeks, I dedicated my evenings and weekends to designing Project Access, a program to promote disability inclusion awareness and behavioral change among Googlers in my Boulder office. I meticulously tested the program components - two disability inclusion workshops and a professional education learning plan culminating in a certificate of completion - with my team before launching it to our division. The positive feedback was heartening, with one participant saying, "Thank you for sharing your insights into becoming a better ally for people with disabilities... You did a great job of keeping everyone engaged through humor."
Months after receiving her Project Access certificate, my colleague, Keni Herman, had an idea. She wanted to organize a Boulder Startup Weekend event at Google. Recognizing my ability to mobilize resources and launch initiatives, she approached me as a collaborator. We agreed to co-launch a hackathon - a 48-hour competition for software engineers, hardware developers, designers, and other problem solvers. After a brief discussion, Kenj agreed to make serving people with disabilities the theme of our event.
Building on my reputation from Project Access, my first step was to reach out to senior leaders across the organization. Their social capital and institutional knowledge would be invaluable for our nascent steering committee, given their ability to allocate resources from their coffers and inspire others to do the same. While Keni handled logistical resources and internal politics, I transformed our committee from two ideators with no budget to six doers with more than $7,000 to invest.
As a leader, I took on various roles: coach, waterboy, and quarterback.
As a coach, I managed a team of four seasoned professionals with more than 26 years of combined tenure at Google while my 26th birthday remained years away. Despite initial apprehension, their dedication to creating equitable opportunities for people with disabilities through entrepreneurship inspired me to become the leader they needed.
As waterboy, I helped manage dozens of people eating, sleeping, and working through the night in our office building. From pizza runs to pep talks, my team and I corralled and cared for our participants.
In the event's final hours, I put on my quarterback helmet. As the event drew to a close, the steering committee and I celebrated a fantastic accomplishment of 300+ RSVPs for the final showcase- a keynote presentation, demos from the competitors, and the crowning of 1st place winners. But before we could pat ourselves on the back too thoroughly, our keynote speaker texted, "Sorry guys, the roads are too icy, so I won't be able to make it." Given my experience as a public speaker over the prior six years, I drafted a keynote speech extolling the 30+ event volunteers, thanking our four company team sponsors, and congratulating our 60+ hackathon competitors. Next, I solicited feedback from the steering committee to ensure their perspectives were reflected in the final speech. Finally, I delivered our keynote, which focused on making tomorrow better than today through innovation.
Ultimately, our metrics were strong, attendees were happy, and sponsors committed funds to repeat the event the following year, but none took top place in my memory of that weekend. My favorite moment arrived when a local small business owner approached me after the prize distribution to say, "I would never have signed up for a [technology-focused] hackathon if I had not seen a person like you [Black, female, and disabled] leading the charge." Since that moment, the triumvirate of curiosity, courage, and collaboration has been the North Star of my leadership ethos.
As a Schwarzman Scholar, I will engage with global issues and continue to positively impact the world, following the example of leaders like Dean Xue, CEO Stursberg, and Stephen A. Schwarzman. Schwarzman Scholars shape the future of equitable technology through intentional collaboration, and I look forward to joining them.
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For more on what it means to be a Schwarzman Scholar, check out my cohort mates ongoing “day in the life” blog here: https://wherelucasgoes.substack.com/p/foreign-to-familiar
#Schwarzman #SchwarzmanScholars #EboniJDFreeman
