By Philip Courtney, CEO, Urban Arts
Let me admit something up front: I am no AI expert. I’m a CEO who was willing to step out of my comfort zone and build something new, even when it was well outside my area of expertise.
That’s where the story of Founders Lab begins.
Last September, we convened an AI accelerator. We brought board members, professionals from the tech industry, our alumni, and our staff into one room and asked a simple question: how could Urban Arts use AI to accelerate our mission and equip our students with the skills they’ll need for the future?
We wrestled with several Big Ideas, two of which gained real traction. The first was an AI tutor to support our game design programs. The second was an initiative to teach software as a service (SaaS) and AI-first entrepreneurship, a way for students to build an entrepreneurial mindset and maybe even create the Next Big Idea.
So we did both.
Sometimes things just seem to line up. Jeff Hine, Nelson Chu from our Tech Advisory Board, Urban Arts alum Mabel Inoa Mejia, and I got in a room and started shaping a vision for what became Founders Lab. Our board member, Carlton Charles, of Hearst, saw the promise in the idea early and helped seed it , a key founder before there was anything to found. You drop your ideas into a weekend and ask the question every founder asks: do they get traction? In this case, thrillingly, yes.
We produced a tight pitch on AI-first entrepreneurship and went out to test the appetite of board members, corporate supporters, and partners. My first full Founders Lab pitch was to the Philanthropy Team at Comcast. Gwyneth Gaul, Vice President Strategic Partnerships & Philanthropy, and Sarah Finkelstein, Director of Strategic Partnerships and Philanthropy, liked the initiative right away, and our first funding was secured. Nothing makes an idea real quite like money in the door.
Comcast’s longstanding commitment to connecting people to the internet, closing the digital opportunity gap, and building a future of unlimited possibilities aligns closely with Urban Arts’ Founders Lab. By investing in training, technology, and hands-on entrepreneurial experiences, Comcast is helping students turn digital access into pathways for future success.
“Digital opportunity is about more than access. It’s about giving young people the tools and confidence to create, innovate, and lead,” said Gwyneth Gaul, VP of Strategic Partnership & Philanthropy at Comcast. “Through Founders Lab, students are developing entrepreneurial and technology skills that can help turn their ideas into possibilities for the future, and we’re proud to support that journey.”
Now we actually had to build it.
The next four months were weekly meetings—iterating, building the curriculum, sharpening the vision, with Jeff and Nelson carrying much of the load. We contracted with Floreo Labs to build curriculum assets, and they were an excellent team—Naomi Arroyo and Cam Flowers among them. They turned our vision into something students could actually work through logically, step by step. We designed a 10-day program that would take students from problem definition all the way to Demo Day. The goal was ambitious: get them to build and ship real businesses, using AI to accelerate the building, the iterating, the research. In two weeks.
It had been a while since I’d taught a class, and I’d forgotten a few things. Teaching is all-encompassing. Teaching is hard. Teaching is exciting. Teaching is fun. Teaching is problem-solving. I felt my own brain expanding through this program as—again—I am new to AI. But I am willing to try boldly.
There’s another person who ensured this initiative ran smoothly. When we needed someone for the day to day, I ran a full external search. Then it hit me: the best person for the job was already one of ours. Dylan Chin, an Urban Arts alum now studying computer science at NYU, became the glue of the whole program. He kept the lessons moving, kept the teams on track, and turned a plan on paper into something that worked in the room.
That’s a double bottom line. We hire our alumni back as teaching assistants because it’s good for the program and because it’s good for them. They know the material, they’re invested in giving back, and they earn money for college—a win-win-win.
Founders Lab launched in early July. Ten days later, our students were standing at Hearst Tower, presenting to a panel of judges that included guests Arveena Ahluwalia at ViaTouch Media, and Lauren Reeves from MGV.VC. Carlton made that day possible from every angle. He coached the teams on the art of the pitch in the days prior, and he opened Hearst Tower to us, pro bono, for Demo Day itself. The guests could not believe what these young people had created in ten days. It was a genuine testament to the power of focus, teamwork, and yes—the ability to use AI as a power tool, not a shortcut.
What the students told us
We surveyed students on their relationship with AI, before and after the program. The results were illuminating.
They walked in seeing AI as a homework shortcut, a cool toy, or, for some, a little threatening. They walked out seeing it as something else entirely. Seventy percent landed on the same idea, captured by the phrase so many of them chose: “A power tool — great, but I’m in charge.”
That last part matters most. These students did not hand their creativity over to a machine. They drew a line, and drew it deliberately. Rayhan decided AI shouldn’t be used to make images, “because it takes data from real art.” Paola refused to use AI for any of her team’s design work, determined to keep the philosophy of the product human. Sadia drew her line at narrative, because she believes AI can’t relate on a truly human level.
They also discovered something that surprised them: using AI well takes more knowledge, not less. To direct these tools, they needed a real grasp of business logic and how a product actually gets built. AI didn’t replace learning, it raised the bar for it.
The numbers backed up what we felt in the room. An 8.5 out of 10 average likelihood to recommend, for a Net Promoter Score of +55. A 4-out-of-5 confidence that they could now build something real on their own. Ninety-five percent wanted us to keep the business and entrepreneurship curriculum right alongside the technical building. And 65% said the program changed how they think about their college major or career path, several of them newly curious about startups and full-stack development.
A rock star in the room
One of the most memorable days came courtesy of our guest speaker Phil Wiser. Phil built a career as a technology executive, but before that, he was a bassist in a working rock band. For our students, that combination landed hard.
Paola put it best. Paola’s a creative who values the arts. It was inspiring, she said, to meet someone who didn’t start off as an “academic, someone in such a big corporate position, but a literal rockstar.” Fawaz called Phil’s path proof that “a non-traditional background is no barrier to success.” Kadyn took away that “your current position in life doesn’t necessarily mean you have a set path you have to go down.” And Ayden left with something more personal: a reminder to be his “own strongest advocate” when building something from the ground up.
Sadia summed up the value of a day like that. Meeting a professional of Phil’s caliber, she said, felt like getting a real head start in a field she had assumed was out of reach.
That is the whole idea.
Phil was just one of several guests who gave their time to our students. Carolina Acosta at VN, Jameson Lee at Pydantic, and Brian Bodell from Movemint each brought their own hard-won experience into the room, and our students told us how much that mattered. Different voices, they said, kept ten intense days fresh.
Where this goes
We’re on a journey. At Urban Arts, students learn STEM and the arts through game design and emerging technologies. By the time they finish and launch into college, with 100% acceptance, they’ve built a far broader skill set: entrepreneurship, product thinking, and the discipline to design for a real client, to look at the world around them and ask what it actually needs.
Since Comcast’s initial support, we’ve attracted even broader backing, and I could not be more excited about what Founders Lab can do to evolve our mission and our programs. As our students step into an AI world, the entrepreneurial mindset won’t be a nice-to-have. It will be essential.
We taught them to use a power tool. They showed us they intend to stay in charge.
Interested in learning more about Founders Lab or our other game-changing programs? Reach out at Devleopment@UrbanArts.org.
Urban Arts is the national nonprofit that teaches digital game design as a pathway to college and career, offering free instruction for students to open doors in STEM and the arts.
Urban Arts uses games as education, and the power of play to unlock opportunity.
Impact: 100% college acceptance rate
Impact: $71M+ in college scholarships since 2017
300+ original games created by students
Alumni now work at Lucasfilm, Unity, Salesforce, Amazon, more
Founded: 1992
Headquarters: New York City, partners nationally in 15 states and Washington, DC
Contact
Jen Walter
Director of Marketing and Communications
