When Tisch alum Jaycee Holmes was an undergraduate student at Spelman College — a historically Black, women’s university — the maker space lab for students consisted of one 3D printer and one laser cutter in a small room. Now, as co-director of the lab, Holmes is preparing for it to triple in size. 

After graduating from NYU’s graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program, Holmes co-founded CodeHouse, a nonprofit that guides students of color to access STEM careers through networking opportunities and over $1.9 million in academic scholarships. She has been applauded for her work with CodeHouse on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list and by the Obama Foundation. 

In an interview with WSN, Holmes discussed founding CodeHouse, shaping the computer science industry and meeting former President Barack Obama. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

WSN: Why did you pursue an undergraduate degree in mathematics?

Holmes: I grew up with a deep love for math, mathematical logic and foundational logic. In college, I had told a former teacher of mine that I was thinking about majoring in math. She laughed and said, ‘You don’t look like someone who would do well in mathematics. You don’t look like a mathematician.’ And it begged the question, ‘What does a mathematician look like?’ I wanted to show that no mathematicians do actually look like me, so that’s why I kept my math major.

Holmes said that she immediately applied to NYU’s ITP — a master’s program that combines the study of engineering and the arts — after earning her undergraduate degree in 2016. Throughout her time in the program, Holmes said she found a passion for user experience design and augmented reality. When they weren’t in classes, Holmes worked at Bloomberg as a data research fellow, and then as a product design apprentice at the New York City Mayor’s Office. In the summer of 2017, Holmes also taught computer programming with Girls Who Code, a nonprofit that hosts classes and career development opportunities for people worldwide in an attempt to someday minimize the gender gap in the tech industry. 

About a year after graduating from NYU, Holmes founded CodeHouse with her younger brother Ernest Holmes and Tavis Thompson in July 2019. The organization’s first event, which brought collegiate representatives to teach middle and high school students about pursuing computer science, saw 150 attendees. Holmes said that CodeHouse recently held a similar event but that this time, it hosted almost 3,500 students at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, GA. 

WSN: What inspired you to start CodeHouse?

Holmes: If you don’t have diversity at the development table when you’re building out these projects, things can go wrong. My mother is an immigrant from Panama, and she does have a little bit of an accent, and for some time, Siri on her iPhone could not understand her. Noticing that there was a lack of diversity, we wanted to do something to change that. I am really lucky that I went to Spelman for undergrad, because when I first entered computer science, all my faculty were Black women or Black men, and all my classmates, for the most part, were women or non-binary people. I learned computer science and math in this bubble that wasn’t representative of the larger world, so when I first went to ITP, or to work as a product manager at Microsoft, it was surprising how few Black women or Black people I saw in general. I thought I saw one person at one point when I was working in Seattle — it was in a mirror.  

Holmes and her CodeHouse co-founders made Forbes’ 30 Under 30 cohort for 2023 in the “Social Impact” category. In November of that year, Holmes was also part of the Obama Foundation’s inaugural class and leadership workshop, at which she met other innovators across the United States and discussed her ideas with Obama. Most recently, Holmes was named to AFROTECH’s 2024 Future 50 List which honors people driving the technology world to reflect a more diverse and inclusive industry. 

During their final year at NYU, Holmes worked at Princess Nora University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for two months after learning about the opportunity through an ITP alum. There, she developed the university’s first maker space — an experience that preceded her work as co-director of Innovation Lab, the student maker space at Spelman, where she has also served as a professor since 2020. 

WSN: What is it like to run the maker space? 

Holmes: It’s not just computer science students here at the Innovation Lab. Any discipline, any classification, any major — you can come on in and we will help you build whatever it is that you want. So you have French majors programming, International Studies majors working on AR experiences, computer scientists who are using our embroidery machine to embroider different designs on their pants. It’s crazy and super fun and interdisciplinary. Every campus needs that kind of space. Places where you can bring together different disciplines and put those students in the room and see what they come up with — any space that can do that is incredibly special. Every day is different, but every day is very fun.

This semester, Holmes is teaching four courses in a variety of subjects, including creative coding and user experience design. She also said that the CodeHouse team is working on meeting its fundraising goals and is planning to host virtual spring programs covering topics such as app development and prototyping.

WSN: What impact do you see CodeHouse having on its students? 

Holmes: We have so many ambitious students — students with great ideas, but need help to understand how to actually execute on those ideas. And so the more help that we get, the more nonprofits that are out there doing this work, and the more support that faculty get, the more we can empower these students to achieve their dreams. When I do see a student that has really wanted something — for example, they were aspiring for an internship, had been working on a project or there was a concept in a class that was super hard for them — and I finally see them get that internship, or finally finish that project, or finally understand that concept, I can see that confidence that is now built within them. It is so rewarding, and it constantly is a reminder to me that I’m exactly where I need to be, and I’m doing the work that I should be doing.

Contact Rory Lustberg at [email protected].