Apple Developer Academy Graduation Day in Detroit

CONGRATULATIONS ADA COHORT 2024

You did it. You made history. You are the 3rd cohort graduating from the only Apple Developer Academy in North America. You stuck with it for 10 months. It wasn’t a race, it was a marathon. You are now armed with valuable skills, knowledge and experience. You now know how to create a product from a single idea, and get it to the App store. Today is the day that you can talk your talk because you have walked the walk for close to a year. Pat yourselves on the back, today is monumental.

DID YOU KNOW?
THE ONLY APPLE DEVELOPER ACADEMY IN AMERICA IS IN DETROIT

The Apple Developer Academy in Detroit is currently the ONLY Apple Developer Academy in North America. Yep, that’s FACTS. It’s a collaboration between the Gilbert Family Foundation, Apple, and Michigan State University for Detroit residents to skill up to be more competitive in today’s tech career market.

The application takes less than 5 minutes. If accepted, they supply you with a Macbook and iPhone that you can keep should you complete the program! It’s a major level up. Apply HERE

LET’S GET PERSONAL
TESTIMONY SERVICE

In the beginning of 2022, I found myself newly divorced, separated from my son, and practically homeless. I just graduated from the NuCamp Full Stack Web Developer Bootcamp but felt discouraged. While I acquired coding skills, I discovered I didn't enjoy it as much as design research. Despite my hopes that the bootcamp would be transformative, I felt unprepared for the job market. This wasn't a reflection on NuCamp; they were very supportive and provided all the necessary resources for project completion. It was just a personal realization.

That Spring, I received a text from the homie De’Angelus. It read,

“Peace Bro, I think you would be a good fit for this:

https://developeracademy.msu.edu/academy/index.html

It’s a quick application, it’ll take you 5 minutes.”

I was reluctant, but he insisted, so I applied. To my surprise, I was invited in for the interview.

When I first entered the interview venue inside the First National Building in Campus Martius, it was like walking into a state of the art lab from a dream. At the time, my life was challenging, so the warm energy from the mentors was a much-needed reprieve. As a result, I not only got into the program but also thrived.

I acquired skills in coding, design, and project management. However, the real gem was discovering my true self. I initially thought coding was my path to financial success. But all along, I'd been writing comic book scripts and studying cinematic storytelling. During my time at Apple, I used these skills to design presentations and pitches, which led to this newsletter you're reading now.

I had to recognize my true strength—what I was good at, what came naturally to me, and what someone would pay me for. It wasn't coding. It turned out that my real talents lay in storytelling and leadership. If you knew my life story, it would make perfect sense and you might even say, "Well, duh!"

I hope you've spent your time in the Academy discovering your superpower and using it to positively impact your world. You don't have to change the whole world; just making a difference in your own world would be a great start.

GETTING STARTED
APPLE FOUNDATIONS

Apple offers a 30-Day Foundations Program that provides an overview of their app development process. This free program teaches design research, Swift development, and project management to help you bring an idea to life. This past June, two teams completed the program and realized their ideas. Here are the apps they created:

FAM- Focused Art and Music
Developed by Saalim Mixon & Mo Finley

Mo and Saalim, both passionate about music, created a social network app to aid in music-media production. The app, designed for indie artists, helps them gain recognition in the thriving indie music scene. It features a user-friendly interface, event listings, and a matchmaking system where users can swipe to indicate their preferences.

Saalim dedicated his efforts to connecting people with shared interests and enhancing his Swift programming skills. Meanwhile, Mo prioritized creating appealing visuals and valued the diverse and communal atmosphere. Both highly recommend the program.

HALLMATES
Developed by Stewart Sharpe & Adeoluwa “Timmy” Olokesusi

"Hallmates" was created to help new college students transition smoothly from living at home to the campus life and to build lifelong friendships. The app differentiates itself with course code matchmaking, community building with student organizations, and resource availability. The developers learned valuable skills and insights throughout the process, including collaboration, research, structured thinking, and the iterative process from idea to product.

FOR STARTERS

Apple Foundations is a great start if you are technology curious. Within 30 days, you will learn the exact process Apple suggests to solve problems with technology. They will give you access to all of their gadgets as you build an actual application in one of the most beautiful work spaces I have ever seen.

Whether you are considering a career change, or simply curious about the world of application development, take 5 mins, and fill out the app below.

Apply to Apple Foundations HERE

THE BIG SKILL UP
APPLE RENAISSANCE

If you do well in the cohort, you may be invited to be apart of the Academy’s upper level, The Renaissance Program lead by Theo Caldwell of Michigan State. And if so, be prepared to cash every check your mouth wrote to get in. Only 50 of us made it out of the 200 ambitious dreamers that attended the 2023 Cohort. We interviewed before a panel of mentors, educators, and counselors, we presented our ideas, and was given the chance to go from learner, to professional.

The Renaissance program provides an opportunity for learners to gain real world experience building solutions for the Academy’s partners, managing their outreach endeavors, recruiting worthy candidates, or building a business. I had the pleasure of being incubated as an entrepreneur, and building my business from the ground up while in the space.

I had the pleasure to work alongside visionary creatives, all with their own flair and focused approach. You can only get in by graduating the cohort first, so make sure you bring your best self everyday if you so happen to get in. And make sure you step in and step big like the following creative…

CONNECT WITH YOUR AUDIENCE
featuring AALIYA DAVIDSON

Aaliya Davidson spent her days in the space working diligently, with a singular focus to innovate digital storytelling. Her collaboration with her client Eugenie, includes not just website development, but also social media management and photography. Giving her the opportunity to sharpen her toolkit, and fully utilize her capabilities. This dynamic effort helped Eugenie expand their digital footprint, grow their organic audience, and significantly enhance their website's user experience.

Davidson's teamwork with Eugenie also paved the way for a rewarding partnership with PAR x INI. This journey began with the creation of a social calendar, followed by launching meaningful campaigns for Black History and Women's History. They take pride in promoting Detroit's black-owned non-profits and office designers, specifically honoring the women making a difference in their respective fields. This project offered valuable insights about team dynamics, improved service, and feedback reception, with the delightful result of doubling their reach to 5.6-6.5k.

It was an honor to work in the space with her. She is insightful, meticulous, and driven. For all of us, she was an amazing force in the space, and always a reliable eye for quality feedback. Aaliya stays in her bag, and it shows in her work. If you are someone looking to increase engagement for your social media outlets, she is someone who will elevate your brand. Make sure you check out her work HERE.

OPERATIONS SCHOOL
with RACHEAL ALLEN

Thank God for Theo Caldwell of MSU and Raven Scott of Apple for bringing Racheal Allen to Apple Renaissance to provide a proper capstone for those of us pursuing founderhood and entrepreneurship. We learned Racheal’s steps to becoming a legitimate OPERATING business directly from the GOAT herself. With her main goal with helping entrepreneurs automate their businesses, essentially creating businesses you don’t have to put hands-on everyday.

We had the opportunity to spend 4 months with Racheal, listening to her stories and absorbing her wisdom. We were fortunate she catered her services to us, tailor making the experience within the space. The service was top notch, coming along with a business mentor and advisor. Her team checked in with us routinely, and responded quickly to any questions we had.

Creating a business is one thing, but operating it well is what will make it profitable. If businesses were engines, Racheal is a tenured mechanical engineer that only builds the well-oiled kind that last for well over 400,000 miles with a high resale value. If you want to go from creator to operator, you NEED to check out Operation School

GRADUATION DAY
ADA 2024 COHORT

The energy was thick with anticipation as John Danial opened the event by sharing his story of how he made it to America from Iraq, which began with an abrupt request from his dad to move. And how he made it here to the states, by the faith of his parents. It makes sense why John Danial was always locked in to the work while in the Academy. Always a sponge, and armed with a smile to warm the coldest of hearts, everything John Danial did was with intention. He was later joined by Maya Caldwell, as both were co-MC’s for the event. Her hardwork for the year got her into the Renaissance program, so she will be returning to take the dream even further.

They were guided by the first class mentorship within the cohort, lead by Anny Staten, a Detroit native who stays focused on improving the program every year. Anny leads with grace and truth, putting the learners development first, providing them with opportunities to be great. The cohort is like a tech Montessori school for adults, and it takes a special person to guide the next great tech minds into the future as they face the everyday struggle of being human.

While under her leadership, and guidance of her innovative team, I blossomed into my full self professional. Every learner in the space was boiling over with promise, as they watched their colleagues present their projects they’d been working on for the last 12 weeks. 2024 Cohort showed out!

Three teams presented their apps Catisfaction, Scroll Spike, & Hynago.

HYPNAGO

Hynago helps to wake you up at a certain point during your rem sleep when you should be at your creative peak. Once the alert comes to wake you up, you can either journal, draw or voice record to release that creativity. This presents an innovative way to harness the power of your creativity by being productive. Download here

SCROLL SPIKE

Designed to help you stop doom scrolling by using health kit to monitor your heart rate. So when your heart rate spikes while your scrolling you’ll receive notifications to take a break, etc. I’m pretty sure we all need this, and can’t wait until this app is available in the app store.

CATISFACTION!

A cat themed wellness app, built to help people to relax using yoga, nature, laughter, and spending time with their pets. Download from the app store now!

CALL TO THE MONEY
BAG TIME

Palms itchy? Feel your pockets vibrating? Ears tingly? I hope so…because you are on your way to the money. During this time, you need a plan of attack. It’s going to be a lot of handshaking, nodding, laughing at jokes that aren’t funny, and applying to 100s of jobs to land your first official. Well, I mean, that’s if you take the regular degular route. You’ll land a job if you manage to not die by 1000 Rejections. I’m not sure if that’s a real thing, but it can get a little dark out there trying to break into a new industry.

But don’t worry my friend, ya boy AJ has your back. I’ve been out there in the trenches for years, and have all the cheat codes to shorten that path. So, because I appreciate you for sticking with me as I figure out this newsletter game, I created a Notion page to boost your search for your dream tech job. Competition is getting thicker everyday, you can’t move like the rest of the world moves if you want to win. With 20 years in tech sales, and 6 as a technologist, you can imagine I have been through the grinder. But that’s ok, I did that, so hopefully you won’t have to go through that.

This is for you: BAG TIME

I can help you 4 ways:

1. Write compelling narratives to immerse your potential clients and investors in the world of your creation

2. Provide gamified narrative design for user engagement

3. Storytelling strategy for investment

4. Simplification of complex ideas 

Let’s grow together.