OZY and Chevrolet Announce Their Genius Award Recipients

The OZY Genius Awards (OGAs), sponsored by Chevrolet, offers 10 college students the grand opportunity of up to $10,000, along with the time and mentorship to turn their genius ideas into reality. This year’s genius winners have just been chosen by a judges’ panel featuring Padma Lakshmi, Katty Kay, Jalen Rose, Marc Lasry, Carmen Yulín Cruz and Dr. Monique Umphrey.

The winners were announced at OZY Fest, the media company’s virtual festival of bold conversations and live performances. This year’s winners are more diverse than ever and represent an intersectional range of interests and backgrounds, including 60% BIPOC (including Indigenous representation), 30% of students representing HBCUs or Black-serving Institutions, students with different abilities, international students and students on the LGBTQ+ spectrum.

The winners, in alphabetical order, are as follows:

Joel Baraka (University of Wisconsin)
Dan Eggers (Baldwin Wallace University)
Grace Fisher (University of Santa Barbara)
Marcinia Johnson (Bennett College)
Antonia Ginsberg-Klemmt (New College of Florida)
Arleen Lopez (Rutgers University – Newark)
Dyllen Nellis (Stanford University)
Brandy Star Merriweather (Clark- Atlanta College)
Gabriel Saruhashi (University of Pennsylvania)
Tony Shu (Harvard University)

“I think this year’s winners represent the best of the best,” says Carlos Watson, CEO of OZY. “In a year filled with difficulty, their bright ideas really shine through and give me hope for the future.”

Previous OGA winners have gone on to world acclaim, including Amanda Gorman, who spoke at the 2021 presidential inauguration and is the current poet laureate, and Rohan Pavuluri, whose free bankruptcy app Upsolve was named one of Timemagazine’s best inventions of 2020.

ABOUT OZY

OZY is a next-generation media and entertainment company that aims to help curious people see the world more broadly and more boldly by introducing them to “the New and the Next” — narratives that defy convention, change perspectives and ignite ideas. Beginning as a digital magazine in 2013, OZY has evolved into a modern media company, featuring award-winning podcasts, 100,000-person festivals and Emmy-winning TV series with leading networks, including A+E, HISTORY, Lifetime, Amazon, Hulu, OWN, PBS and BBC. Led by journalist and TV host Carlos Watson and co-founder Samir Rao, OZY is based in Mountain View, California, and backed by leading Silicon Valley investors such as Emerson Collective, Marc Lasry and Tom Franco. Learn more at OZY.com. Follow OZY on Twitter at twitter.com/ozy, Facebook at facebook.com/ozy and Instagram at instagram.com/ozy.

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About the Author

Dr. Jerry Doby Editor-in-Chief of The Hype Magazine, Media and SEO Consultant, Journalist, Ph.D. and retired combat vet. 2023 recipient of The President's Lifetime Achievement Award. Partner at THM Media Group. Member of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, the United States Press Agency and ForbesBLK.