Hi {{first_name | friend}}—
This summer & fall, we worked on our first project as Levy–the pilot we ran in partnership with DC Public Library that engaged 50 ex-fed and adjacent workers in hands-on, project-based AI learning, supported by AI mentors from the DMV tech community.
About six weeks into the twelve week pilot cohort, participants–who had been meeting in person every Tuesday and many of whom had stepped into leadership roles within the cohort–started asking “what comes next?”
Individually, the answers varied. For some, it was a job they’d landed during the program, where they were excited to deploy their newfound skills (and who found themselves now further along in their learning than their new colleagues). For a few, they launched on an entrepreneurial journey to develop the ideas they’d started working on. For others, the job search has continued, but with a new arsenal of stories & skills to share with interviewers, and a community to search alongside.
But collectively, The Upskilling Labs emerged. Spinning out of the pilot participant community, The Upskilling Labs is now a community organization in its own right, supported by leaders, both pilot participants and newcomers who believe in the mission.
The community is early, but is moving quickly to establish the founding chapter here in DC while also building out an ambitious vision for a nationally-scoped model for civic learning for emerging technologies.
They just held their first local meetup in November, juts a week after the pilot at DC Public Library concluded. Their first “build cycle” kicked off last week–a 3 month series of programming designed to help members identify problem spaces, explore projects, and build and learn in community. If this sounds interesting to you, you can join here.
We’ve been quiet in sharing the specifics of what we’ve been up to lately, but it’s because we’ve been busy supporting this nascent community in these critical first few months. As Levy, we’ve been helping the community in a few key ways:
identifying the early roles needed to get the organization off the ground
collaborating on programming design
helping set the vision for what the community can be
structuring the organization for viability and sustainability by focusing on funding pathways from the outset
Beyond the personal attachment that we feel to this work (given its genesis was in a pilot we cared deeply about the outcomes of), this is exactly the type of project we like to support at Levy. It’s based on creating real outcomes for real people, requires figuring out how to make civic infrastructure part of how you scale a solution, and creates a network of aligned, coordinated citizens who are trying to better themselves and our country.
The leaders of the Upskilling Labs are the archetype for our “Architect” tier of membership, where we get hands-on and deeply engage with leaders who are building something novel, innovative, and civically rooted.
If work like this is interesting to you, we think you’d like being part of the Levy Network. If you’ve been considering joining, now is a good time—there’s a lot coming up in the next week for our members.
On Wednesday evening (1/21): an invite-only happy hour for our Insiders on Wednesday evening
On Friday morning (1/23): Insiders get free access to our Builder’s Breakfast
On next Tuesday morning (1/27): our three-workshop Strategy Sprint series kicks off for our newest members, where we help you apply Levy’s models to your own problem spaces.
You can join the Levy Network as an Insider here.
If you’re interested in learning more about the pilot with DC Public Library and building the new Upskilling Labs community, we’ll be sharing more here in the coming weeks, so stick along for the ride.
Keep building,
Brendan & Ann Marie