The problem that became my doctorate, and the app I build today

It started with people coming home from prison

Before my doctorate, I built an employment app for the Community Anchor program in Colorado Springs, which helps people coming home from prison find work. In my conversations with Juaquin Mobley, one problem kept coming up. People without a bank account pay check cashing fees just to use the money they earn.

I could not put that problem down

I made it the subject of my doctorate. I built Pay'd, a phone app for sending money and paying bills without a bank account, and put it in front of a review panel of software developers and finance professionals. They liked how simple it was to join. They also warned that the cryptocurrency under it could turn people away. I kept both lessons.

Now I build for the same community

Community Anchor Academy is the client for TAP-in, a workforce app for its participants and employers, built under a paid software contract and billed in milestones. Participants can save jobs, react to them and ask questions on the jobs screen. Employer job pages show a questions card, and participants have their own network page. Planned next: participant groups and new employer pages.