The Programming Foundation - Founder and President - Sat, Mar 7, 2020
Building a smarter us
In 2018, I posted a video on my YouTube channel regarding The Programming Foundation. I created a prototype of this platform so that anyone can learn the basics of operating systems and computer programming. My main goal was to aid the goal of my operating system while I’m in the process of building it. The following video introduced the idea:
Besides, an introductory mission video was created:
I’ve very limited knowledge of CSS or JavaScript. With my limited middle school knowledge in HTML, I was able to create this prototype. It was not scalable. Years passed by, I was invited to give talks at San Francisco Bay ACM, HackerDojo, and other places about my operating system - I’m very grateful for that. I was preparing for interviews since I was finishing up with college. I was very busy so I wasn’t able to create content for this platform. When I was done with college, I was trying to get a job to survive in silicon valley because I wanted to focus on my operating system. My parents were very worried about me since I needed to earn to survive - if I can sustain myself financially then I’d be able to focus on my operating system. I was fortunate enough to get a job as a DE Automation Engineer at The Pill Club. It was a forward-thinking startup. The nice thing was that I didn’t have leftover work after leaving the office so I was focusing more on my operating system. It’s hard to save when you’re in the SF bay area. In early 2020, I decided to change the company since I wanted to accomplish things faster. I started spending the majority of my paycheck on this nonprofit. I was invited to speak at WTD San Francisco’s LinkedIn event regarding The Programming Foundation. I was very nervous in this talk since 90% of the audience were technical writers.
The pandemic became a thing a few days after this event. In the meantime, I started working at another amazing company called BetterHelp. However, things started to become more serious due to the pandemic. Before the launch, I received a tremendous amount of support and assistance from my peers. The Programming Foundation was finally launched in the third week of April. We did receive financial support from Google for our YouTube ad campaign. The Programming Foundation’s charter video got over 12k views on the first week:
I also posted a video on my YouTube channel regarding the launch of TPF during this difficult time:
Since the launch, The Programming Foundation has received an unprecedented amount of visitors. This clearly shows the enthusiasm among the general population. The majority of the visitors were from the United States, India, and certain countries from Africa. The most popular subject to learn was C followed by Unix and Python.
The Programming Foundation has received support from TypeForm and Squarespace. As a founder, I’m thankful to them.
You can visit The Programming Foundation at theprogrammingfoundation.org or smarterus.org
Together, we’ll build a smarter us.