Year Up built my runway. I'm building New Generation Academy's.
A free AI and technology literacy program for underserved youth in South King County, taught by someone who took the exact same first step they are about to take, and built a career most people would call impossible from there. Not a concept. The teaching is already happening, the name is what's new.
The same starting line
A technical support certificate and 36 college credits — the on-ramp Year Up exists to build. I started in the front-end track. Not where I ended up, but the first proof I could build things.
Same starting line. Different name for it now.
Year Up, Bellevue College
A technical support certificate and 36 college credits, the on-ramp Year Up exists to build: closing the opportunity divide for capable city youth with the ability but not the direction. I started in the front-end track there. It was not where I ended up, but it was the first proof I could build things.
12 years, Fortune 50 databases and AI
Year Up placed me at Expeditors International as a software tester, then MongoDB DBA. Same work at Allstate. Now at Progressive, it is AI: MongoDB and Neo4j at Fortune 50 scale, production agentic systems, and the same instinct that made me the person people pull in for anything tech related outside my own role. Self-taught the entire AI layer, in real time, over the last two years. Full path is in the graph above.
Teaching it forward, for free, right now
I have gotten many people into Year Up over the years. I now manage two interns through Progressive's ITAHIP program, evaluating them for full-time conversion, the same door someone once held open for me. I teach tech and AI fundamentals to underserved youth for free, because I know exactly what it looks like from the other side of that gap. New Generation Academy is a name for work I already do, not a plan for work I might start.
The proof students would learn from is real, working software.
Not textbook examples. Production AI systems, in production, at a Fortune 50 company, that I designed and built myself. I also built one for the love of the game: an AI system that answers plain-English questions about NBA stats, in the same gyms where I referee every week. This is what "learn AI" means when it is taught by someone who ships it for a living.
Basketball. So I built a real database of NBA stats around it.
Then an AI that answers plain-English questions about those stats.
Now it plugs into Claude, so anyone can ask it questions, not just me.
Twelve weeks. One real project each student can show in an interview.
Modeled on the Year Up cohort structure that worked for me, and built around what one working founder can actually deliver: one class a week, plus an open lab session for anyone who wants more hands-on time. Runs twice a year, fall and spring.
Computer & office foundations
Files, email, and spreadsheets, taught as the on-ramp they actually are. Ends with the question that sets up everything after it: what happens when your data outgrows a spreadsheet.
The bridge
What a program actually is, first real use of a command line, and a plain-language answer to "what is a database." The step most free courses skip, which is why they stop working the moment they get interesting.
MongoDB fundamentals
Real hands-on practice on a free cloud database, tied back to the actual work I've shipped with it at Fortune 50 scale.
Neo4j fundamentals
Graphs: nodes, relationships, why connections matter. The same idea underneath a lot of modern AI, taught before students touch AI directly.
AI capstone
Using a real AI tool against real data, then presenting what they built. Every student leaves with one thing they can point to and explain.
The opportunity divide is not a lack of ability. It is a lack of anyone showing you the next concrete step. I am the proof that step leads somewhere.
Looking for partners, funders, or a conversation.
Whether that is a school district, a workforce board, a foundation, or someone who has done this before and can tell me what I am missing, I want to talk. This is early, and I would rather build it with people who know the funding and compliance side than guess alone. New Generation Academy is a registered Washington nonprofit corporation (UBI 606 261 645); 501(c)(3) recognition is in progress.
newgenerationacademyseattle@gmail.com ›