Kalimah Atreyu Priforce

Candidate for City Council (At-Large), Emeryville

Kalimah Priforce grew up with his younger brother in a Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn group home. At age eight he led a hunger strike against the home to get more books added to its library, which drew the attention of Buddhist monks and nuns who privately tutored him until age 14. As a teenager in Harlem he was mentored by educator Dr. Lorraine Monroe. By 16 he had started a computer-repair company, Whizz Kidd Computers, training teens to make IT house calls in low-income neighborhoods; he sold the company before turning 20. After his teenage brother was shot and killed near their childhood elementary school in 2000, Priforce committed himself to education work for underserved youth. In 2010 he relocated from Brooklyn to Oakland to co-found Qeyno Labs, an education-technology venture that uses hackathons and mentorship to connect under-served K-12 students with STEM career pathways; in 2014 the Obama White House recognized him as a Champion of Change for expanding STEM access and diversity. He has served on the Emeryville City Council since 2022 and describes himself as California's first Haitian-American elected official.

Priforce highlights that Emeryville ranks last in homeownership among San Francisco Bay Area suburban communities and has organized around tenant protections and evictions. He has pushed to establish an independent public ethics commission for the city. He has also weighed in on utility-company accountability, including PG&E's positions on regulatory measures affecting ratepayers.

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