Letter from the Executive Director
To our students, families, partners, and friends,
Thank you for trusting Urban Coders Guild with your children and with this shared work. In every classroom and showcase I am reminded that opportunity changes everything, especially for Black, Latine, Indigenous, and female-identifying students in my hometown, and our approach is simple and youth first. We make sure students have access to welcoming spaces, the resources to participate fully, real opportunities to learn and lead, and steady support and encouragement from adults who believe in them. That is what our Explore, Equip, and Empower pathway does each week across Tulsa.
This report reflects the 2024 program year from July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025, a year that showed how far a single opportunity can travel in a young person’s life when a community clears the way with transportation, meals, caring mentors, and patient instruction, and when that community keeps its promise to be both rigorous and welcoming.
I am a kid from North Tulsa who had people open doors, and when I watch a sixth grader debug a stubborn loop or a high school junior ship a first app, I see the same gifts and drive I was given, and I also see the gaps we still have to close if we want every student in this city to feel like tech belongs to them. Our programs stayed focused on that work this year, with hands-on web, mobile, Unity game development, Python, and cybersecurity in afterschool classes and summer, taught in a way that builds comfort, courage, confidence, community, and competence alongside the technical skills that move from classroom to college to career.
We measured progress not by activity alone but by movement along the pathway and by belonging, because belonging is the soil where persistence grows. Students moved from Explore to Equip to Empower, and many earned their first industry-recognized credentials through certification exams offered last summer and again during this summer’s bootcamps at the University of Tulsa, where learning on a college campus helps the next step feel close at hand.
Two community moments framed this program year and reminded us that Tulsa’s story in technology is both historical and unfinished. Last fall we hosted a community conversation with Emmitt McHenry, a Tulsa native and tech pioneer, and hearing him reflect on legacy and possibility in a room full of students and neighbors in Greenwood was a reminder that the internet itself was shaped by people who started their journeys in places like ours, and that our responsibility is to make sure the next generation can see themselves in that story.
In February we gathered for our Black Futures Youth Hackathon during Black History Month, an all-day experience hosted with Atlas School that invited middle and high school students to honor the past while building for the future, and while the projects were impressive, what stayed with me was the joy, the long tables of laptops and snacks, and the sense that a city becomes what it celebrates when it puts time and resources behind learning that is communal, creative, and connected to real opportunity.
Our students also stepped into Tulsa’s wider tech ecosystem. In October, they joined Tulsa Community College’s first cybersecurity competition, solved puzzles, and met peers and faculty who want to see them thrive, and moments like that matter because they expand a young person’s network and their sense of what is possible in a field that needs their talent.
We aligned our local work with a national community of practice by joining the CSforALL 2024 commitments, which keeps us honest about goals that center broadening participation, building capacity, and improving equitable outcomes, and it connects our team to peers across the country who are pushing toward the same north star. We also learn with and look for partnership opportunities across national networks such as CSforALL and the STEM PUSH Network, which link local programs to research-backed practices and pathways that help more students from historically excluded groups access higher education and careers in STEM.
Tulsa’s ecosystem is gaining momentum through efforts across our region, including the federal Tech Hub designation and subsequent investments that aim to expand innovation in ways that will create more on-ramps for our students, and it is equally true that afterschool remains the crucial entry point where middle and high school students first meet this ecosystem, practice real skills, and find mentors who will walk with them. Our role is to keep that door open, to widen it with partners in local schools and districts, with higher education, with city and state allies, and with national organizations that know what it takes to build durable pathways.
What we accomplished together
Expanded free afterschool and summer programs in web, mobile, game development, Python, and cybersecurity, guided by a clear Explore-Equip-Empower pathway and backed by supports that keep access real for families.
Hosted an inspiring community conversation with Emmitt McHenry that linked Tulsa’s legacy to our students’ future in technology.
Celebrated learning and cultural pride through the Black Futures Youth Hackathon during Black History Month, giving students a full day to build, present, and belong.
Participated in community competitions and campus-based learning that expand networks and confidence, including TU summer programs that help make college feel within reach.
Supported students as they earned first industry-recognized certifications through summer exams and TU bootcamps, strengthening the bridge from classroom to college and careers.
Where we must do better
The demand we see from families is larger than our current capacity, and we know we must keep pressing toward gender balance, higher credential completion, and more paid learning through internships and apprenticeships, while also strengthening the scaffolding of transportation, meals, and mentoring that makes persistence possible in a city where commutes and costs can get in the way. During this past program year, we also faced increasing headwinds in funding and public support for afterschool programs, particularly those centered on students of color, which makes partnership and investment from local, state, higher education, national, philanthropic, corporate, and community allies even more essential.
Priorities for the year ahead
We will serve more students while keeping programs free to families. We will expand certification pathways in cybersecurity, mobile, game development, and web development. We will grow internships, apprenticeships, and mentorship with local employers who want to hire homegrown talent. We will deepen evaluation so we report not only who participated but who advanced and how quickly. We will continue to invest in a team, an alumni network, and reserves that make this work durable. We will build meaningful, youth-outcomes focused, cradle-to-career partnerships across Tulsa’s emerging Tech Hub ecosystem so students can move from first exposure to real opportunity with clarity and support.
How you can help
Students need access, resources, opportunities, and support. If you are a company, host an intern, mentor a student, or sponsor a cohort. If you are a funder, philanthropic or corporate, invest in the access supports that keep doors open, in certification fees that turn learning into credentials, and in the people who teach and coach. If you are a higher education partner, keep opening your classrooms and labs so our students can see themselves on campus. If you are a state or local ally, help us align policy and investment with the afterschool work that begins the pathway. If you are a neighbor, volunteer and help us tell this story so more families know what is possible here in Tulsa.
I carry a simple belief into every classroom and community event. Tulsa’s young people are brilliant, and when we build the right environments and say yes to their curiosity, they rise. When we align schools, higher education, employers, and civic partners, opportunity multiplies. When we hold each other to equity and excellence, we plant roots deep enough to weather headwinds and still keep moving, together, toward a future where the tech workforce of this city looks like the neighborhoods we love.
With gratitude and great optimism,
Mikeal Vaughn
Founder and Executive Director, Urban Coders Guild
Tulsa, Oklahoma
