Tyler Menezes

Tyler Menezes is a Canadian-American computer programmer and businessperson. He co-founded several startups, and is currently the Executive Director of the nonprofit organization CodeDay.

Tyler Menezes
Menezes speaking at CodeDay in Atlanta, 2017
Born
Toronto, Ontario
EducationUniversity of Washington,[1] Y Combinator[2]
OccupationExecutive Director at CodeDay[3]
Known forCodeDay
Websitetyler.vc

Early life

Menezes was born in Toronto, Ontario, and moved to Spokane, Washington when he was young. He has stated that his interest in technology started during a period of long social isolation while living in Spokane and being uninterested in sports like the rest of his classmates.[4]

His formal introduction to computer programming came after moving to Redmond, Washington, when he stumbled on a book offering to teach the creation of a slot machine in Visual Basic.[4][5] Menezes has said his later interest in STEM education was a result of realizing his luck in finding that book at that particular time.

In high school, Menezes participated in a video game programming competition organized by Microsoft,[6][7] which would later serve as the inspiration for the CodeDay program.[8]

Technology and Startups

Menezes worked on CAPTCHA research in Microsoft Research's Machine Learning and Applied Statistics department while attending the University of Washington.[1] In early 2012, he dropped out of university to found TapIn.tv, a startup focused on live video streaming, and in mid-2012 he moved to East Palo Alto, California[9] to attend Y Combinator for TapIn.tv.[10][11] In 2013, TapIn.tv, now called Framebase, switched its focus to providing live video infrastructure as a service,[12] and Menezes left shortly thereafter.[13]

Despite having a business focus since 2012, Menezes is a C# and PHP programmer, and is the author and maintainer of several open-source projects.[14]

Work in Education

During his time in the technology sector, Menezes was also volunteering at CodeDay (at the time called StudentRND),[15] a not-for-profit headed by Edward Jiang which operated a 3,500 sq.ft. makerspace in Bellevue, Washington[16] where he helped start the CodeDay event.[17]

After leaving Framebase in 2013, and frustrated at what he perceived as Silicon Valley's focus on problems which didn't serve most of the population, Menezes moved to Seattle, Washington and joined StudentRND full-time to lead the growth of CodeDay events.[4][18] Menezes and Jiang's work in this period was profiled in the book Be a Changemaker: How to Start Something That Matters.[19][20] Jiang left the organization in 2014, with Menezes becoming the new leader of the organization.[21]

Menezes' work in education is focused on educational motivation. He has said that he believes that creativity and excitement are an important part of motivating students to learn which are ignored in school, and believes that by focusing on facts over creativity in STEM disciplines, schools are responsibility inequity in the technology industry.[22][23] He believes that programming is a possible way to ease inequity because it requires few resources and can generate wealth [24] and empower disadvantaged students.[25]

In recognition of growing CodeDay's community to span across the entire United States, Menezes received a number of awards, including his inclusion in Forbes Education "30 Under 30" in 2019.[26][27][28]

References
  1. Darko Kirvoski; et al. (24 May 2001). "A Few Simple Guidelines Related to Image CAPTCHAs" (PDF). ICASSP 2011: 1. Retrieved 2006-11-13. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  2. Lawler, Ryan (August 8, 2012). "YC-Backed TapIn.tv Launches To Bring Instantaneous Live Video Streaming To The iPhone". TechCrunch.
  3. "About | StudentRND". CodeDay.
  4. "Why I Do What I Do". Retrieved 2016-11-13.
  5. Halvorson, Michael (1998). Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Professional step by step. Redmond, Wash: Microsoft Press. ISBN 1572318090.
  6. Decker, Mary (27 May 2010). "RHS students to participate in Microsoft's 'Hunt the Wumpus' game design contest - Redmond Reporter". Redmond Reporter. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
  7. Coyne, Marley. "Best Of Canada: These Are The Forbes Under 30 Innovators You Need To Know". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-09-15.
  8. Edward Jiang (May 14, 2014). "Why I'm Excited for CodeDay Spring 2014". Archived from the original on August 27, 2015. Retrieved 2016-11-13.CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  9. "TapIn.tv | crunchbase". www.crunchbase.com.
  10. Taylor, Colleen. "Y Combinator S12 Demo Day, Batch Three: Dreamforge, BigCalc, Tracks.by, And More". TechCrunch. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
  11. Constine, Josh. "TechCrunch's Picks: The 10 Best Startups From Y Combinator's S12 Demo Day". TechCrunch. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
  12. Kumparak, Greg. "YC-Backed TapIn.TV Evolves Into Framebase, Aims To Make Building Video Products Less Painful". TechCrunch. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
  13. Menezes, Tyler (3 November 2016). "A History of StudentRND, As Told By Files I Found On My Old Hard Drive". The StudentRND Blog.
  14. "tylermenezes (Tyler Menezes)". GitHub. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
  15. "Y Combinator for high-school kids? It's students only at this new startup incubator". GeekWire. 2012-03-29. Retrieved 2020-09-15.
  16. Author (2014-05-27). "Meet Changemaker Edward Jiang, founder of StudentRND". Laurie Ann Thompson. Retrieved 2020-09-15.
  17. "Tyler Menezes". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-09-15.
  18. Contributor, The Macallan. "The Macallan BrandVoice: Inventing Impact—Decisive Moments Of Under 30 Visionaries". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-09-15.
  19. Thompson, Laurie Ann. (2014). Be a changemaker / how to start something that matters. Simon Pulse. ISBN 1-4844-3942-2. OCLC 1003837377.
  20. Author (2016-11-28). "Be a Changemaker update: StudentRND". Laurie Ann Thompson. Retrieved 2020-09-15.
  21. "Tech Moves: Rosenthal returns to Madrona: Aronchick lands at Chef; and more". GeekWire. 2014-07-14. Retrieved 2020-09-15.
  22. Schlosser, Kurt (November 11, 2016). "Geek of the Week: After startup stint, StudentRND's Tyler Menezes returns to focus on kids and coding". GeekWire.
  23. Cook, John (29 March 2012). "Y Combinator for high-school kids? It's students only at this new startup incubator". GeekWire. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
  24. June 2019, Sascha Zuger 24. "Game Changers: Tech & Learning's Most Inspiring in EdTech in 2019". TechLearningMagazine. Retrieved 2020-09-15.
  25. "Sapphire Now 2018 - bridging the tech divide by getting youth the digital skills they need". diginomica. 2018-06-06. Retrieved 2020-09-15.
  26. Merritt, Doug (18 October 2015). "Using Splunk – It's a Revolution!". Retrieved 14 November 2016.
  27. MC. "425 Business". 425business.com. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
  28. "30 Under 30 2019: Education". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-09-15.
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