Start-up founder Ruben Izmailyan knows the power of technology to solve problems. His app, Budgit,  helps people make better spending decisions and save for what they care about.

For two semesters, Ruben has mentored with our CS First program at Rosemont Elementary in Dallas.

For a second semester, Maddy Butzbach is mentoring our ideaSpark team at the UT Dallas Arts & Technology building. 

A recent Cornell grad, Maddy is originally from California and is currently a Technical Account Manager at Microsoft.

Lucinda Krahl joined our mentoring team last fall and now supports ideaSpark students at The MIX. 

As a software consultant at Pariveda Solutions, Lucinda solves cool problems every day and codes full stack - a passion she brings to her team of 11-14 year olds each week.

Farida Bharmal mentors with the ideaSpark team at The MIX in east Dallas. 

She's also an Azure Technology Lead at Microsoft, where she ensures that Microsoft Azure products are easy for customers to use and troubleshoot when things go wrong. 

We met Sara last October when Bold Idea and Women Who Compute of UT Dallas collaborated on a computer science workshop for girls. Now, we're happy to have Sara on our mentoring team, working with 11–14 year olds at our UT Dallas Arts & Technology location.

Now in his third semester as a Bold Idea mentor, Karthik Velayutham mentors a small team of 13–15 year olds at the Frisco Athletic Center, who are just a few years younger than him.

Karthik is a Senior at Plano East Senior High School. With years of experience as a self- and school-taught programmer, he has his sights set on studying computer science in college. 

Claire is a software engineer at nThrive Monday – Friday and an ideaSpark mentor on Saturdays. Claire lends her programming experience to 5th and 6th grade students each week at the Frisco Athletic Center, who are now learning mobile app development.