Awards & Grants

Early in 2022, Body Centered Cubic, LLC, applied for the Arc’teryx Community Grant Program, as part of the ongoing Simple Cubic: Community Project.

The purpose of this grant is to fund the exploration of Mexican-American and other Native-American (indigenous) athletes in the outdoor adventure sports (technical/sport climbing, skiing/snowboarding, and alpinism) space and how they interact with the outdoor industry, set up corporate sponsorships, and fund their activities in a way that allows them to operate professionally in their sport of choice.

We also want to explore how the San Francisco Bay Area (Silicon Valley, from San Jose to SF) has changed over the decades. What used to be nothing but farmland and cherry orchards has become the center of technology as well as the leader in high-priced living. The Bay Area has always had a Mexican-American presence and some of those people have Native American ancestory as well. The cultural dynamic has changed drastically over the years as people from all over the world came here to work in the early electronics, instrumentation, and testing industries (Fairchild, Hewlett Packard, Intel). This included my father Goerge E. Smith (). This predates the current Software mega-corp landscape we see today with Google,

When people from the tech world finish up a long and arduous workweek of pushing new code to the cloud or testing a new robotics design in the lab, they flock to local National and State parks to recreate over the weekend. Outdoor spaces are seeing record numbers of people from all over the world. How has this impacted the land? How has this impacted access for people who have grown up in the Bay Area and remember more modest times with fewer crowds? What do Mexican American Communities and Native American Communities think of these changes? How can the outdoor industry work closely with these communities and give them an opportunity to represent their sport as well as culture? What tools and resources can we create and provide so that local Mexican Americans and Native Americans can gain more professional industry support of their outdoor sporting activities?

Inspiration for the Grant:

My grandmother as of 2022 is 103 years old (amazing Mexican American & Native-American DNA built for the hardiest of outdoor environments). That is over 10 decades of living through and experiencing change in California. She immigrated from Guadalajara Mexico with my Grandfather in , to work and live in the Bay Area’s Farming Industry. My mother also grew up in the Bay Area, Santa Clara. We have all experienced the change and growth of the San Francisco Bay Area (Silicon Valley).

The Bottom Line…The Plan:

Team up with Arc’teryx in the Bay Area and find upcoming Bay Area outdoor athletes with a Mexican-American and/or Native American (Indigenous) background who are also part of the Silicon Valley space (leaders in science, engineering, or medicine).