The Process.

What you accomplish with us

Origins

Safwan Ali, a rising 6th grader, was dead-set on one thing: learning how to develop video games. But as a middle-schooler during quarantine, there were a lot of factors working against him. He had virtually no access to any form of help -- no free, easy-to-access services or teaching organizations that would personally guide him. His path was frustrating: he wasted months searching for a viable course, and when he finally found one, it took him far longer than it should have to get through even a week's worth of material. There was simply no one there when he hit technical walls or confusion.

That experience stayed with Safwan through the rest of middle school -- and eventually pushed him to act. In his freshman year, he founded the Coding Club at the Thousand Oaks Library. Building on its early success, he ran the program again in his sophomore and junior years, and expanded it with a second chapter at the Newbury Park Library.

Success at Coding Club was hit-or-miss. Many sessions simply did not draw many members, and Safwan found himself back at the drawing board. He reconnected with his sixth-grade self -- and realized exactly what was missing. Coding Club was decent at teaching Java fundamentals, but because it never asked students what they actually wanted to do with that knowledge, attendance suffered. Students were not inspired to show up for a curriculum that did not feel like theirs.

"What is it that we are missing?" -- the question that changed everything.

That epiphany sparked the creation of NextStep CS. Founded by Safwan Ali, NextStep CS does not just give students programming experience -- it gives them real-world experience by letting them learn through actually building the things they want to build. It is the organization Safwan wished had existed when he was twelve.

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