**Tech should be for everyone, but not everyone is benefiting from it, let alone building it. We’re changing that.**

Tech should be for everyone. But right now, it’s not.

We're living through a period of overwhelming, profound, and rapid change; politically, socially, and technologically. In the tech space specifically, we're seeing and experiencing a lot of turbulence, layoffs left and right, many questionable and aggressive moves by big tech, a competitive job market, and a ton of anxieties around AI and its impact on the job market, industry, and everything in between. At the same time, tech continues to be the future.

That future can't continue to be shaped by the same few companies and voices.

At Rita [https://www.ritagroup.co/], we’ve created a space where creatives, builders, and entrepreneurs, no matter their background, can connect, learn, and create together. A space where the next generation of technologists and creators can succeed and achieve generational wealth - often times for the first time ever.

Through our three initiatives - Rita Lab (community hub), Rita ABC (career tracker app), and Rita XYZ (tech for good creative collective / agency) - we’re helping people break into tech, building the future of tech education, and supporting small business owners.

But changing the reality in tech today and building the future takes more than lots of ambition and the best of intentions. It takes people. It takes resources. It takes you.

What We’ve Built So Far: Our Current & Latest Impact

We’re not just talking about change - we’re making it happen. Here’s what we’ve built so far...

The Infrastructure

Rita Lab

Rita Lab is our main community hub where we bring people into tech and complement and supercharge their learning journey.

Virtual & in-person events: In-person and virtual inclusive tech + design events featuring amazing speakers.
Live & on-demand seminars: Affordable seminars to provide more educational onramps to diverse tech beginners.
Mentorship & support: Free personalized guidance from a vetted list of trusted experienced creatives, technologists, educators, and entrepreneurs.

Rita ABC

We're building an app to support the next generation of hustlers! In short, we're leveraging AI to help career seekers get career opportunitirs in tech instead of banking on AI taking opportunities from us. Instead of waiting for the disruption to take place, we're doing the disrupting. Our a AI-powered app will create personalized tech career plans to guide professionals and builders throughout their entire career journeys.

Rita XYZ

Rita XYZ is our creative collection where we support diverse creatives through mission- and purpose-driven technology.

One the one hand, we support diverse small business owners and entrepreneurs, especially those just starting out with limited resources, by offering them premium digital services at affordable rates.

On the other hand, we support the careers of diverse technologists and future innovators by giving them the opportunity to work on mission- and purpose-driven causes, projects, and companies.

We call this a win-win!

The Numbers

🔥 2,300+ members in the Rita Community
📲 1,000+ followers across our growing Social Media Community
🎤 700+ people have attended our Seminars & Events
📚 25+ live & on-demand seminars to educate the next generation
🎟️ 25+ community events bringing people together

The Impact

Beyond the numbers, here’s what really matters:

💡 We’ve helped beginners land jobs in tech - breaking down barriers and creating real career opportunities.
🎓 We’ve exposed beginners to knowledge not taught in bootcamps - expanding the way people think about their careers.
🚀 We’ve helped inspire the next generation of technologists, creatives, and entrepreneurs - building a more diverse and innovative future in tech.

And the crazy thing is: we’re - just - getting - started.

Why We’re Raising $20,000 (and Why It Matters).

This fundraiser will help us build the future of tech, creativity, and entrepreneurship. Your donation doesn’t go into some faceless company - it goes directly into the people and programs working to make tech more inclusive, accessible, and innovative.

Every dollar raised will help us:

🚀 Grow & Support Our Community

We’re creating more opportunities, more mentorship, and more connections for the next generation of technologists. Your support means bigger and better events, more free resources, and stronger community programs for career seekers, creatives, and entrepreneurs.

🤝 Support Our Interns, Apprentices, and Volunteer Innovators

We do all that we can to offer stipend-based internship opportunities to give career seekers the experience they need to get hired. Our interns, apprentices, and volunteer team members are helping invent the future of tech education. Your donation helps us provide them with stipends, training, and resources to continue their work.

🎨 Fund Rita XYZ’s Mission-Driven Projects

Rita XYZ connects diverse technologists with small business owners to create meaningful digital solutions. Your donation helps fund creative and tech projects that support under-resourced entrepreneurs while providing real-world experience for up-and-coming designers and developers.

📲 Launch Rita ABC App, the Future of Tech Education

Traditional tech education is expensive, outdated, and not always accessible to all. We’re changing that. Rita ABC is an AI-powered platform designed to help people navigate tech careers with personalized guidance, action plans, and real support. Your donation helps us get this platform into the hands of the people who need it most.

🌍 Keep Rita Alive & Thriving

We’re not here for a quick win, we’re here for the long game. With your help, we can sustain our community, keep pushing forward, and enter the next phase of our journey with momentum.

Tech Needs Us Now More Than Ever.

The industry is at a crossroads.

Tech used to be the industry many of us looked to for life-changing career opportunities. Things have changed. With layoffs showing no sign of slowing down, many questionable and aggressive moves by big tech, an increasingly competitive job market, increasing AI anxieties, and anti-DEI rhetoric, it’s never been more important to invest in diverse voices, new ideas, and thoughtful career innovation.

To keep it real, we truly simply refuse to sit back and wait for someone else to fix it.

We’re building the future of tech education, career support, and thoughtful career innovation right now. And with your help, we can do even more.

This is your chance to help us make a real impact, and make a real impact yourself.

Your donation isn’t just about keeping Rita going, it’s truly about making sure the next generation has the opportunities, guidance, and support they need to build a better future.

Every penny and dollar makes a difference. Every donation brings us closer to a more inclusive, more innovative, and more human-centered tech industry.

This isn’t just a fundraiser. It’s the beginning of a new tech space: by us, for us.

Meet the Founder: Who I Am & Why I Do This

Hola! I’m Michael A, and this mission is personal to me.

I’m a Design Leader, Tech Strategist, Founder, and Educator with over a decade of experience in tech. I’ve worked with teams big and small - from the City of New York to NPR to Meta - building digital products, leading design teams, and shaping the future of AI, tech, and design education.

But before all of that, I was just a kid from Brooklyn, raised by immigrant parents from Mexico who worked multiple jobs to make ends meet. I grew up watching my dad hustle, sometimes working three jobs just so we could have the essentials. That work ethic shaped me, and now, I operate the same way.

I fell in love with tech early. To be honest, Hip Hop was one of my first teachers. I spent hours making my own mixtapes on an old family boombox. Something about the process of creating resonated with me, even as a kid. Later, in high school, I took a class called "JavaScript" where I didn’t actually learn JavaScript, but it put me on the path to tech. That summer, I taught myself everything I could about building web products.

Since then, my journey has taken me through software engineering, product design, AI, leadership, and education. I’ve built design teams from scratch, mentored hundreds of aspiring technologists, and helped countless people break into tech.

But the biggest risk I ever took? Leaving my full-time job in 2024 to build Rita Group - an ed-tech company designed to make tech more accessible, inclusive, and human-centered.

Building Rita from the ground up hasn't been easy, but doing so for the purpose of making sure the next generation doesn’t have to figure it all out alone like I did is 100% worth it.

Featured In:

Building Tech Futures: How Rita Group Supports the Next Generation of Hustlers by New York Weekly
CEO Michael A Offers a New Pathway Into Tech for Minority Communities by VC Magazine
Michael A: Empowering Underrepresented Communities in Tech With Rita Group by Startup Observer
Michael A: Building Pathways to Success with Rita Group by US Reporter

Join Us. Donate Today.

👋 $25 let's us know you're showing love.
💡 $50 helps us continue to host free community events and seminar.
📲 $125 helps us support apprentices and interns.
🚀 $250 helps us bring our Rita ABC app to life.
🌍 $500+ helps us reinvent the future and compete with big tech (and we all know big tech isn't in this for US).

No matter what you give, you’re helping shape the future.

Let’s build something better - together.

👉 Donate now and be part of the movement.

Supporting the Next Generation of Technologists & Builders: A Rita Community Fundraiser

Investing in the future of tech, creativity, and entrepreneurship - because we deserve better.