![\"\"](\"https:\/\/colleges.claremont.edu\/thehive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2026\/04\/brian-solo-e1776803448481-300x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
A double major in Media Studies and Mathematics (Pomona, 2022), Brian co-founded Didomi, <\/span><\/i>a social enterprise addressing the water crisis, <\/span>while in school. He then spent a year as a management consultant at The Boston Consulting Group before enrolling in graduate studies at the Interactive Telecommunications Program (aka, The Center for the Recently Possible) within NYU\u2019s Tisch School of the Arts.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n I chose Pomona because of the Hive.<\/span><\/p>\n I got into a bunch of good schools\u2014Princeton, Brown, Macalester\u2014and they all had the usual good-school things. Then I walked into the Hive and thought: <\/span>Wait, am I still at a college?<\/span><\/i> There were workshops, people hanging around, stuff getting made. It felt closer to the real world. Not in some corporate way\u2014but more like: <\/span>We\u2019re here to work together and make cool things.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n One thing I did with the Hive was grow <\/span>Didomi<\/span><\/i>. We sell reusable stainless-steel water bottles to universities, sports teams, corporations\u2014and use part of our profits to fund water projects in Africa. We didn\u2019t want people to give back because they felt guilty: we wanted them to picture a world where there is no water crisis. We worked with Kareem to build our visual narrative, and with Shannon\u2019s class to develop an immersive experience called The Oasis that got students excited\u00a0 about combatting the water crisis.<\/span><\/p>\n The other big thing was rebuilding the Sound Box, one of the making spaces at the Hive. I was a student worker at the Hive, and I said: \u201c<\/span>There\u2019s this space, and I haven\u2019t seen much happening there. Could I take that on?\u201d<\/span><\/i> On a more typical campus, somebody would\u2019ve told me to slow down. But at the Hive, the message was: <\/span>Go for it. <\/span><\/i>I raised money, bought equipment, and brought in some on- & off-campus musicians to lead workshops. Students now had a space to collaborate on music, and they started putting together performances. The idea needed room to grow, and that\u2019s what the Hive provides.<\/span><\/p>\n On most campuses, the music studio is for music majors. And only the photography students get to use the darkroom. But the Hive is interested in the creative talent that\u2019s in all of us. It gives you permission to use these tools, even when you don\u2019t yet know how. Even when you\u2019re not yet sure if you belong in a music studio or a woodshop. The people here are all about helping you find your edge: the part that pulls you closer to the next possible version of yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n I did two theses while I was at Pomona: one for media and one for math\u2014but both of them were transdisciplinary. One used mathematics to inform creative decisions. The other was all about the idea of \u201ctotal artwork,\u201d which basically means: don\u2019t restrict yourself to one medium or another; instead use as many as you deem necessary to create the vision in your mind. The Hive gave me the space and funding I needed to build out both\u2014the chance to iterate, practice, and perform my ideas.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I spent a year after college at The Boston Consulting Group, before going back for graduate studies in Interactive Art and Technology\u00a0 at NYU. The <\/span>Center for the Recently Possible<\/span><\/i> feels like the Hive\u2014if the Hive were in Brooklyn. My work is all about traveling across technological and narrative boundaries: I\u2019ve been experimenting with breath capture and coding music; as well as producing events that center emerging Black new media artists.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I grew up between African, American, and Hispanic cultures\u2014and my interests are a mix too: media, math, music, social impact, entrepreneurship, technology.\u00a0 The Hive pulls in people who combine various kinds of expertise within themselves\u2014and it gets them mixing together. The middle of that mixing is where innovation happens.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n written by Dan Coleman<\/p>\n published by Salina Mu\u00f1oz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A double major in Media Studies and Mathematics (Pomona, 2022), Brian co-founded Didomi, a social enterprise addressing the water crisis, while in school. He then spent a year as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":245,"featured_media":5867,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-profiles-in-impact"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\n
\n