From Shortcut to Power Tool: Reflections on Our First Founders Lab
Founders Lab, an AI-first startup accelerator built for technically skilled high school seniors who are ready to build, launched this August. Founder’s Lab is an accelerator where high school students from under-resourced NYC communities form startup teams and use AI tools across every stage—market research, prototyping, code scaffolding, go-to-market—to build a live, investor-ready product. No idea-to-deck simulation: real Demo Day, real judges from the venture community, real money for the winning team.
Game Design Is an Economic Mobility Engine. We Have $71 Million in Proof.
Eight years ago, I made a decision that a lot of people in arts education thought was a mistake.
It was time for Urban Arts to grow up and decide where we would focus and where we could be really good. Urban Arts had spent years as a broad-based arts education organization, a little of everything, for as many kids as possible. In 2018, I decided to bet the whole institution on a single, almost contrarian idea: that the art and science of game design could be an engine for economic mobility. Not enrichment. Not exposure. A pathway to career-ready skills and to STEM and STEAM degrees for students who too often don’t imagine themselves within the industry.
That bet required conviction, a board willing to follow me into it, and a curriculum built from the ground up. And it required choosing the right platform to build on. Unity was the platform.
Why Unity?
We evaluated the available game engines against two requirements that usually pull in opposite directions: accessibility for a tenth grader writing their first lines of code, and rigor for a senior designing in 3D. We needed a platform that could meet a beginner where they are and still refuse to let an advanced student coast.
OpportUnity and CommUnity
Two years later, that choice stopped being a technical decision and became a transformative one. At the Unity for Humanity Summit, I met Jessica Lindl and Rachel Pohl. They cared about game design as a creative medium, but what made the partnership real was that they cared more about outcomes. They asked the questions I wish every funder asked: What are your students actually achieving? Where are they enrolling in college? What are they studying? What careers are they walking into?
That alignment — an obsession with student trajectory, not just student participation — became the foundation of everything that followed. We learned from Unity’s engineers and educators. We traded curriculum ideas. Philanthropic investment came too. But the capital was never the point. The shared belief was.
Urban Arts’ Class of 2026 Achieves 100% College Acceptance Rate, Bringing Cumulative Scholarship Total to $71 Million Since 2020
A group of teenagers from low-income communities across New York City has earned $25 million in college scholarships this year, not through a traditional academic pipeline, but through video games.
These students are not outliers. Urban Arts, the national nonprofit that teaches video game design as a pathway to college and career, announced that its Class of 2026 has achieved a 100% college acceptance rate. This year’s results bring Urban Arts’ cumulative scholarship total to more than $71 million. All instruction and college access services are provided free of charge to students and their families.
At the Urban Arts Game Academy, students build original games, creating narrative, music, animation; pitch their work to industry professionals for real-world feedback, learning entrepreneurship, iteration, teamwork; and graduate with portfolios, credentials, and career networks that most of their peers, at any income level, don’t have.
Celebrating Gary Andersen: Game On Teacher Named Finalist for NC CTE Teacher of the Year
As we finish up the 2025-26 school year, we are proud to celebrate our outstanding Game On by Urban Arts teachers. One of those incredible teachers is Gary Andersen, Computer Science teacher at A.L. Brown High School in Kannapolis, NC, who was named a finalist for the NCCAT 2026 Burroughs Wellcome Fund North Carolina Career & Technical Education Teacher of the Year Award. Gary was one of 23 exceptional educators selected from across North Carolina for this distinction, and he joined his fellow finalists for a week of professional development before being honored at a special ceremony this past December.
Urban Arts Opens Google-Powered Studio, Designed by Award-Winning Producer IMAKEMADBEATS
We’re proud to announce the opening of our state-of-the-art sound studio at the Urban Arts Game Academy—powered by Google and built by Memphis-based artist/producer and UNAPOLOGETIC. Founder and CEO IMAKEMADBEATS. Our students helped build the space themselves—hands-on, with power tools and high-tech installations, making it a true reflection of our mission: creativity in action.
The Pixel: Urban Arts Newsletter – March
On March 8th, Urban Arts and sponsor partner Microsoft threw the illest party in Manhattan—the Urban Arts Color Ball. We raised $650,000 to support our programming and level the digital playing field. Enjoy our “Best Of” Image Gallery and a play-by-play of the evening! For more photos, click the button below. Urban Arts and Microsoft […]
The Pixel: Urban Arts Newsletter – February
The Color Ball is unlike any gala you’ve attended. Dynamic, powerful, high-energy, colorful and stacked with powerbrokers from tech, finance, art, and media. Dress code? Color is a must! A bright green ball gown, a Zelda costume, or your favorite Hawaiian shirt—they’ve all graced the red carpet in years past. Celebrated illustrator Timothy Goodman will […]
The Pixel: Urban Arts Newsletter – December
I remember being 18 and starting college with the far-off knowledge that I’d one day have to pay off debt. I remember not worrying about it. I was told I’d graduate in time, get a good job, have lots of support from my parents and their peers and use my many (very expensive) hobbies to […]