Student Spotlight

Three Atlanta Teens Built an App
to Help Their Unhoused Neighbors.

They started with zero coding experience. They ended with a live app — and took it all the way to Minneapolis.

Three Atlanta teens walked into a room with an idea.

Natan Kifle, Alexander Williams and Bereket Feleke wanted to create something that could help people in their own city. There was just one thing — they had zero coding experience.

They had never built an app. They hadn’t designed a brand, researched a community problem or worked through the process of turning an idea into a real product.

Five months later, they had done all of it.

Their idea became ATLift, a free resource hub designed to connect Atlanta’s unhoused community with shelter, food, healthcare, legal aid and MARTA directions. And what started as a student project eventually took them from Atlanta all the way to Minneapolis.

It Started With a Real Problem

We talk a lot about preparing young people for careers in technology.

But what happens when we stop asking students to only learn technology and give them the opportunity to use it to solve something they actually care about?

That was the opportunity behind ATLift.

Instead of building something just to complete an assignment, Natan, Alexander and Bereket had to think like actual creators.

Who are we building for? What do they need? What information would actually be useful? How should someone move through the experience? And most importantly: Would someone actually use this?

Those questions took the students beyond coding. They were learning how technology, research, design and community can work together.

Zero Coding Experience. Seriously.

This is the part of the story we don’t want people to miss.

They didn’t come into this already knowing how to do it.

That’s important because young people can look at an app in the App Store and assume the person who created it has been coding forever.

Not these three.

They learned while building. There were problems to solve, things that didn’t work the first time and plenty they had to figure out along the way.

That’s real tech.

You don’t have to know everything before you start. Sometimes you start — and that’s how you learn what you need to know.

Then They Took It to Minneapolis.

Building the product was one thing. Presenting it was another.

The ATLift team traveled to Minneapolis and presented their work at the Best Buy Foundation Charity Classic Showcase.

Think about that for a second.

Students who had started without coding experience were now standing in another city explaining a technology product they built.

That’s the kind of moment that changes how a young person sees themselves.

They’re no longer imagining: Maybe I could work in tech someday.

They have evidence.

I built this.
I shipped this.
I presented this.

That’s different.

It Took a Community to Get Here.

The students did the work, but they didn’t do it alone.

Vincent Chukumah and Dr. Cheryl Small from Fulton County Library, along with Samaria Spencer, Best Buy and the Best Buy Foundation, helped coach and support the team throughout the journey.

And that’s something we believe deeply at We Create Tech.

Talent is everywhere. Access isn’t.

When young people have access to mentors, technology, spaces where they’re allowed to experiment and adults who take their ideas seriously, they can do extraordinary things.

Not hypothetical things. Real things. Things people can download.

The App Is Live. 🤎

ATLift didn’t end as a presentation sitting on someone’s laptop.

They shipped it.

The app launched on both the App Store and Google Play, turning a student idea into a resource people can actually use.

That’s a win for Natan, Alexander and Bereket.

But it’s also a reminder of why We Create Tech exists.

We don’t just want young people learning about technology.

We want them creating with it. Building with it. Solving with it. And eventually realizing that they belong in the rooms where the next generation of technology is being created.

Three Atlanta teens started without knowing how to code.

Look what they built anyway.

Ready to See What Our Students Can Create?

Learn more about ATLift, download the app or support the students’ work.