A Message from Jax

Hi. It's Jax, Jax Hutton, CEO and co-founder of Gemstone Academy. I wanted to take this time to explain where Gemstone Academy actually came from, because it is a really interesting story.

Essentially, when I was growing up, I was always really interested in computers and computer science. I was a bit of a nerd for it. Everyone else was playing video games or soccer or whatever after school, but I would go home and I would try to teach myself how to make a Minecraft mod. It was a really interesting time for me because I had to do it all on my own. My brothers were not really interested in computer science. My friends weren't really that interested in it either. So it was really me. I had to have the discipline myself to go home every night. It was easier for me because I really wanted to do it.

But I would have to go home and figure out not only what I wanted to code but how to do it, where to even begin. And it took a really long time. I remember in sixth grade, I had computer lab. And in one of these labs, we were taught how to use code.org. By that point, I had already been doing computer science and coding for a decent amount of time. I started out making Minecraft mods and then I moved into creating projects with Ruby on Rails because I really wanted to make websites and thought that the icon for Ruby looked really pretty. So I was like, "Okay, this is what I want to do." It was really that: I would search up how to code something.

From there, it was just me on my own whenever I felt like I really wanted to, finding a project to work on and then working on it on my own. We didn't really have AI, so it was just about Googling everything. And if I didn't understand something, I had to ask somebody online and that was it. Pretty much, I was alone because I didn't have anybody that did coding in my family or my friends. So it was kind of tough for me to stick with it.

Over time, eventually I found an interest in it again. As I said, that computer lab in sixth grade reignited my love for computer science because of that code.org lesson we had. I was like, wow, I'm actually really good at this. This is sort of coming back to me. And then I just continued on. Throughout high school is when I met Mr. Roscioli, and I ended up coming to school here at Northeastern University, where I currently am a third-year in computer science.

I always tell people Gemstone Academy is the spitting image of what I would have wanted growing up. I was always so desperate to meet other people—it really took until coming to college for the first time that I finally met others as interested in computer science as I was. That was a real challenge for me, and I think I shouldn't have had to go through that. I wanted to create something for people who are like me: people who wanted to code but just didn't know where to start. They didn't have real discipline or rigor when it came to projects to work on. They didn't even know what to work on. They didn't have friends that did it. They didn't know anyone their age who did it—they didn't even know if that exists! Are there other people in sixth grade interested in coding? The answer is absolutely yes. I was one of those kids. There's a million of those kids out there, and we just need to get kids interested in computer science.

I think that Gemstone Academy is going to do great things for that. I really, really am excited for the future of this company and I really hope we can bring people together in a way that is kind of difficult to come by a lot of the time in this community, because everyone in computer science is very isolated a lot of the time. That's the nature of it—especially when you're teaching yourself and before you come to college.

So I think that Gemstone Academy is the perfect place for kids to meet other kids who are just as nerdy as they are and to work on cool projects. The entrepreneurship side is also something that's really, really cool. I just think that's going to provide a lot of value. It packages everything together into: let's build something that has a purpose. Let's build something that's practical.

Yeah, so that's my speech about Gemstone Academy. This is why I started it. I just hope you guys have as much fun in Gemstone Academy as I had making it. And we are always creating new lesson plans and new ideas and events and everything, so stay tuned and bye-bye.