About Launchpad Learning
Built From Experience.
Designed for Agency.
Launchpad Learning grew from the intersection of software engineering, education, literacy, curriculum design, and direct work with students.
Explore the journey
Its story begins with a simple idea:
People often discover what they are capable of only after they are given the opportunity to try.
That belief has shaped the journey from one student learning to code, to years of classroom experience, to the development of programs and technology designed to help students take greater ownership of their learning.
The Beginning
Capability starts
with evidence.
Launchpad founder Jordan Williams first discovered coding while trying to modify Civilization IV.
A desire to make the game behave differently led to online searches, experimentation, and eventually learning enough Lua to change the game himself.
The experience became early evidence that difficult things could be learned by asking questions, experimenting, and continuing until something worked.
That discovery helped shape a path toward computer science and professional software engineering.
Engineering + Education
Learning how to build.
Learning how people grow.
While studying computer science in Kansas City, Jordan spent roughly five years working with young people through after-school programs, technology camps, STEM centers, and other learning environments.
Engineering and education developed side by side.
Software engineering provided experience in systems, problem-solving, iteration, and turning ideas into working products.
Education revealed another side of the equation: attention, motivation, confidence, frustration, and relationships all shape whether learning actually happens.
Those two worlds would eventually become the foundation of Launchpad Learning.
2022
Launchpad Learning Begins
Launchpad Learning began in 2022 as a way to continue working with students while building a career in technology.
The original vision was simple:
- 01Teach coding one-on-one.
- 02Build a coding club.
- 03Create summer learning opportunities.
At that stage, Launchpad was primarily about giving young people greater access to technology.
The larger mission had not fully revealed itself yet.
2024–2026
The Classroom
Changes the Mission
Full-time classroom teaching expanded the vision.
Years spent teaching English, literacy, and curriculum provided a closer view of student behavior, motivation, confidence, and academic struggle.
The central challenge was not always access to information.
Students could have resources in front of them and still hesitate to use them because they did not yet believe those opportunities were for them.
One student taught in seventh grade had been placed on an IEP and tested for dyslexia. Two years later, she tested in the 97th percentile in English.
The lesson was larger than a test score.
With useful frameworks, consistent support, visible progress, and someone willing to believe in a student before that belief fully existed internally, a learner could begin developing evidence of their own capability.
The question behind Launchpad changed.
How can students be taught new skills?
How can students develop the confidence, knowledge, and agency to continue learning for themselves?
Summer 2026
Everything Comes Together
In summer 2026, Launchpad Learning launched its first full summer program.
Students explored coding, rocket engineering, T-shirt design, creativity, and technology through hands-on projects.
That same summer, Launchpad developed Mastery Garden, its flagship literacy platform.
Years of experience across engineering, teaching, literacy, curriculum, and learning design finally converged into one approach.
Engineering helps build the tools.
Education keeps them grounded in real students.
Learning design connects the two.
Launchpad Learning became more than a coding program.
It became a platform for helping students discover what they are capable of and what they can do next.
Where We Are Now
Students should leave education knowing how to take the wheel.
Launchpad Learning believes every student should leave education with the knowledge they need to make the life they want.
That takes more than information.
Students need experiences that affirm:
I can.
They need people who believe in them before they fully believe in themselves.
They need progress they can look back on and say:
Look how far I came.
They need to know how to ask the right questions so their real choices become visible.
Education should expand what students understand about the world, what has already been built, and what might still be possible.
Launchpad’s role is to provide the opportunity and the framework.