Last year at the age of 33 I found out that my child welfare case was fraudulent and that my 7 siblings and I were illegally removed from the care of my mother and placed in foster care, where we were all adopted. I was stolen. I was sold. I was human trafficked. I felt a lot of things. Of course, there was a lot of anger, a lot of sadness but what surprised me the most was the relief… Now I could see that I wasn’t crooked; the room was. This cognitive study was once performed to test how individuals located the upright in any given space. They found that most humans naturally refer to their surroundings to determine their positioning. Subjects in one study were even placed in a slanted chair, in a crooked room with crooked fixtures. Many of them reported being straight simply because they felt aligned with their crooked surroundings. Up until that moment most of my life I had been walking around feeling crooked and out of place. No matter how I twisted, and bent, or adjusted myself, or my identity, I just couldn’t find myself upright. That day, it was like a bubble of illusion popped. I remember thinking weren’t there supposed to be rules? Rules like the ones that I had been trying to follow my whole life to overcome my circumstances. Now it made sense why it seemed like the finish line kept moving. There are a lot of crooked rooms in this world. My tech journey started 3 years ago and honestly, I look at this field like a Swiss Army knife. All I see are endless possibilities. I love to learn, and I have a unique way of approaching problem-solving because creativity and relentless determination were necessary for my survival for a long time. If you had asked me then what my dream job was, I would say any job where I can just learn and research every day. I find that in tech. I find artistry in tech, and I find opportunity. I fell in love with coding and the community in 2021 after losing my two jobs in hospitality. It was difficult to secure a remote job so I looked into skilling up and that one pivot set me on a course of life changes that brought me to a place I never imagined I could be. My ultimate goal is entrepreneurship so I can help break down barriers and create more safe spaces to nurture authentic power. For decades economists have warned of the labor shortage that's occurring now. We have entered an expert economy where there is a general lack of workers who possess the expertise required to meet the demands of the high-skilled job market that is growing exponentially. I am learning as much as I can so that I can better teach. I could only imagine what a job in tech could’ve done for my mother. I can only imagine what a job in tech could do for the hundreds of thousands of parents who lose their children every year due to circumstances of poverty. I can only imagine what the foster youths who transition out of care every year and are written off as lost causes could do. I’m going to get these tools in as many of those hands as possible. How much power is there in having more flexibility with your schedule, access to quality healthcare, and the safety of a steady reliable income? LIMITLESS.