Milan Drake is a Black designer, educator, and community builder whose work bridges Hip-Hop, design, and education to create transformative learning experiences. Born in Seattle, raised in Waco, grown up in Berkeley, and rooted in East/North Oakland (“The Town”), Milan calls all these places home—they shape how he leads, designs, and thinks. As Community Design Lead at Stanford’s d.school, Milan co-teaches Print on Purpose, a course blending design, social justice, and printmaking. He is also the creator of mixTAPE x maniFESTO, a globally recognized workshop connecting Hip-Hop culture with design thinking. With over 25 years of experience in education, advocacy, and program development, Milan’s work focuses on dismantling systemic barriers, designing learning-based alternatives to incarceration, and empowering communities through participatory advocacy and creative infrastructure. His approach moves beyond conversation to action, leveraging design thinking to reimagine processes, build platforms for impact, and amplify voices often left out of traditional systems.
Milan was born in Seattle, WA, raised in Waco, Texas, grew up in Berkeley, CA, and has lived extensively in The Town (East + North, Oakland, CA). He has 20+ years of experience working with communities and organizations that serve students and their families social and emotional needs in the Bay Area and beyond.
Milan’s work spans providing support services to transfer students + supporting formerly incarcerated/system-impacted students and families from various socioeconomic backgrounds. He has participated in the work to dismantle the poverty-to-prison pipeline and all things prison industrial complex/mass incarceration, through learning-based alternatives to jail/prison time for transition-age youth. Milan has successfully integrated research-based practices to deliver holistic, culturally respectful, human-centered services and curriculum in abolishing academic inequities, exploring the sociology of education, race and culture, culturally relevant career development, and social-emotional + metacognitive learning.
As a reentry, student-parent, and transfer, Milan received his BA in Social Welfare (with an emphasis on Education + Race) from UC Berkeley. He is also a husband, father, servant, book club member, podcaster, and truth seeker, who can be found partaking in fine music and metaphors. Milan remains the only mortal to have completed their Grand Master Jedi training in the highest mountains of Wakanda.