Growing up in Guyana, the only thing Inclusion founder Saeed Jabbar wanted as a kid was his own video game console. But that luxury was out of reach for his family, until they moved to Jamaica, Queens when he was about 10 years old.
“Every kid is interested in video games, right?” he asks. “But I wanted to do more than just play around. I wanted to build my own. But it wasn’t that easy. I mean, the internet wasn’t where it is today. You couldn’t just Google about how to build a video game.”
Soon after he moved to the U.S., he taught himself enough code to create his first game. It was the start of a lifelong love affair with technology.
“By the time I was 13, somebody told me I could make money building websites for people,” he says. “And the rest is history.”
Jabbar was bullied as a teenager, so when he was 16, he transferred to a high school across the East River in Manhattan. It wasn’t far away on the map, but it seemed like a different planet.
He began to immerse himself in a world he didn’t know existed: New York City’s bustling startup culture.
“I never went to class, really,” he admits. “I spent my last two years dabbling with startups and learning the ropes at tech companies.”
Jabbar realized how valuable his experience could be for all the kids back in Queens.
“The people in my community don’t even know opportunities like this existed,” he says. “I knew if they could learn how to code, it could completely transform their lives.”
That’s when he came up with the idea for Inclusion, a nonprofit that he hopes will help close “the digital divide.”
Jabbar envisioned teaching more than just coding. His classes would include important business tools like Microsoft Office. He says when it comes to analyzing data, he always teaches Excel.
“This is something that we consider essential for our students,” Jabbar says. “There’s no better way to train for data analytics.”
Jabbar launched his company at the end of 2015. It was an immediate success. At the beginning of 2016, Inclusion partnered with the State University of New York to offer classes in coding.
We started out with zero budget, just a classroom and a few computers.
“We expected it to appeal to young people,” he says, “but the students ranged in age from 20 all the way up to 66.”
And the nonprofit has already attracted the attention of prominent investors and was named a finalist for the New York City Creator Awards.
“We started out with zero budget, just a classroom and a few computers,” Jabbar says. “But seeing the transformation of the people we’ve taught made it worth it. We’ve proven that you can make a difference.”
Want to learn more about Saeed Jabbar and how Inclusion is using Microsoft Office? Check out this profile by the Office 365 team.
