Nilton had just turned 17 the day before he was arrested and sent to the Martinez Juvenile Detention Facility. He was going through a point in his life where he felt lost and he felt like he had no purpose in life. The only purpose he felt he had at the time was to live the street life with his Hudson Court Family. Nilton said, "The worst part about being locked up is when you start to think too much. I would constantly think about irrelevant things but then it got more serious like reflecting on the mistakes in my life". He was later sentenced to do a 6-month program in Byron, CA after doing 3 months in Martinez. Nilton went to therapy and felt like he had changed a bit and was ready to come back. His first release didn't go as planned. Nilton could not find a job and got sucked back into his old ways. Within a couple of months, he got violated by his probation officer. He was on house arrest for a month then he went back to court. He was sentenced to another 6-month program at Byron, CA. Nilton realized he had no freedom and that as long as he was on probation his life was controlled by the law. This was the second year he was going to miss out on the holidays. This time Nilton said he was going to change. He began to learn more about business and personal development. The first book he read was called Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. Nilton didn't have a mentor or even know what the word meant but once he learned he said, "My first mentor was myself because no one else would have helped me at the time". He had to think about his mistakes and reflect on them all alone with no help. Nilton says, "Entrepreneurship saved my life because there's nothing else in the world that I would ever have seen myself doing other than being out in the streets". He wanted to be an entrepreneur so bad that he knew he had to change. He then focused on getting his high school credits and even got his high school equivalency there too. 

Nilton's second release was in March 2016. He talks about how the hardest thing after being released for him was not knowing where to start. Nilton was now a changed and knowledgeable young man, but what was out there to really help him? He was directed to join the ReSet Program which was a program provided by Bay Area Community Resources (BACR). Nilton managed to get his first legit job at Costco Wholesale and he was able to get his high school diploma and still make it for graduation at a continuation school called Live Oak High School. He knew the next step had to be college. He chose to attend Los Medanos College in Pittsburg, CA to study Business (but later switched to Computer Science because he wanted to be an entrepreneur in the tech industry). On the entry exam, Nilton scored as a college readiness student able to take Pre-Calculus/Statistics and College Level English. He joined the summer semester but did not know that it was an intensive semester, especially for someone who only had about a year of real high school. He got a 4.0 for the two classes that he took, but it was stressful. He was doing 30-hour work weeks plus going to class for the whole day with homework being due every day. He was not used to this environment of being in a school setting. For the Fall he joined LMCAS (Student Government), the Honors Program, the Computer Science Club, and he even started the LMC Business Club. He got a 3.85 plus doing all that in his first Fall semester. In October, Nilton got more exposed to entrepreneurship through the events he would go to at the Kapor Center in Oakland, CA. His first event was called Startup Weekend Oakland: Latinx Tech Edition. he went to pitch his idea for creating some type of Latinx mentorship platform. He had the largest team for the event but it was difficult for him because he's never done something like that before, but Nilton and his team won third place! Things finally started to look like it was going well for Nilton.

Conducting research is something Nilton would have never thought he would have been doing if you asked him a few years back. Through the honors program, Nilton was able to submit a research proposal to the Bay Honors Consortium for a chance to present it at the Honors Research Symposium. It was held at Stanford University in May 2017. Nilton's research got accepted! There were 228 submitted proposals with an acceptance rate of only 38% of the proposals (86) and Nilton's proposal made it. His research was on Latinx in Entrepreneurship and if you would like to read the full proposal click here. This gave Nilton another chance to speak but most importantly a chance to learn. He met with Latinx CEOs and founders who he got a chance to talk with via email or in person. Nilton was a sponge and absorbed as much information as he could. Although many people would think a college education is enough, Nilton did not. He knew the value of learning outside a school setting is a hundred times more valuable. With all the knowledge he gained from events, his newly established network, and conducting this research, Nilton set off on his first entrepreneurial venture!

Nilton Serva has shown a great transformation within himself and has helped many others to do so as well. You would think that Nilton would just stop and feel fulfilled with everything he has accomplished but that's not the case. Now through hard work and high levels of motivation, Nilton and his brothers started their first company ServaMedia. Nilton has many goals for what their company will do like infusing tech with media. He knows that an idea isn't worth anything without execution so he's still working out his plan for moving into technology. For right now, Nilton and his brothers have been focused on providing media services to build companies and even personal brands. It's difficult to plan and create content and distributing it is another wall to get over. ServaMedia has the ability to provide those services that companies and people need. It's a young startup but it's been picking up fast because Nilton and his brothers are grinding. This startup is displaying growth and progress, which makes it really attractive to follow up with now and in the future.