A data engineer with a background as a registered behavioral technician, Courey Jimenez turned to the Apple Developer Academy to continue her transition into a career in technology.
Jimenez, a native Detroiter, enrolled in the Apple Developer Academy in August 2025 after learning about the program through a LinkedIn connection. Working with a team of fellow learners, she built a simple, easy-to-use app designed to support nonverbal users, a population she developed a passion for serving in her previous work and after a family member lost the ability to speak following a stroke.
“Sign & Says,” an augmentative and alternative communication app, now available in the Apple App Store, helps nonverbal and minimally verbal individuals communicate using picture cards, American Sign Language demonstrations and text-to-speech tools. The app is designed to simplify communication after Jimenez found many existing tools to be cluttered and overwhelming.
The project also earned Jimenez recognition as a Swift Student Challenge winner and the chance to attend Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference.
“It has been really inspirational,” Jimenez said. “If I have an idea, I can really follow through and put it into reality. That’s something the academy did a really good job of — showing us we could do anything.”
After months of intensive training in app development and business skills, Jimenez joined the academy’s fifth cohort of 200 Detroit residents, one of more than 1,800 learners who have gained skills for careers in technology through the academy’s free programs.
The Apple Developer Academy, in partnership with Michigan State University and the Gilbert Family Foundation, is the only academy of its kind in North America. The nine-month experience includes training in coding, app design, marketing and project management.
Graduates can apply to continue their education through the Renaissance program, a selective second-year experience where learners work on projects with local businesses and receive advanced training and real-world experience.
Apps with real-world impact
The Apple Developer Academy provides training and collaboration opportunities reflected in the apps learners create to entertain users and address real challenges.
Examples of learner-created apps include:
“Qcksave”: Provides step-by-step guidance to help those experiencing an overdose and works with or without internet connection
“HerNature”: Helps teens understand menstrual health
“Jellios Underwater World”: An augmented reality-based game for autistic learners
“Praxis Spatial and AED Practice Zone”: Provides emergency response training for using immersive technology
More than 30 learner-created apps have already been accepted for download in Apple’s App Store, reaching users around the world.
Beyond building entertaining and impactful apps, the Apple Developer Academy emphasizes skills beyond coding that apply across fields.
“We believe in the talent, creativity and determination of people here, and that is on full display in the exceptional work that you’ve accomplished over the last several months,” said Alisha Johnson Wilder, Apple’s senior director for Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives, at the cohort graduation. “You have spent this year learning to not just build and design apps, but to approach complex problems, to collaborate across perspectives and to use technology as a meaningful tool to create change in people’s lives.”
Haley Jennings, a learner from Woodhaven who completed the Foundation program in 2024 before finishing the full program this past year, entered without a clear vision for her future. After graduating, she returned to work with valuable skills and a promotion.
Jennings worked as a sales assistant at a family entertainment center when she began the program. Since then, her employer recognized the skills she brings back — including project management, design and creative thinking — and promoted her to head sales manager.
“I can see those skills get brought to life with this promotion that I never thought in a million years I would get,” she said, noting how the academy helped her build organization and leadership skills.
Jennings worked on a team with Ryon Baldwin-Williams and created “Leaf & Ledger,” a budgeting app that also is available on the App Store. Baldwin-Williams hopes to be accepted into the Renaissance program while developing an LLC specializing in website and app development while pursuing a full-time role in the technology field.
The Apple Developer Academy is part of a 10-year, $500 million commitment to Detroit by the Gilbert Family Foundation and Rocket Community Fund. The investment was not made as a safe bet, said Gilbert Family Foundation Director of Economic Mobility Linda Nosegbe, but because of a strong belief that Detroiters should be included in shaping the future of technology, innovation and economic mobility.
“You didn’t just finish your program, you claimed a seat at the table,” she said to graduates. “And as someone who has spent years building and expanding the table, I say this with full conviction: You belong in every room you enter and when that room does not exist, build it and bring someone else through the door.”
Pathways into the app economy
Apple Developer Academy graduates leave prepared to pursue careers in the growing technology workforce in Detroit and beyond.
Phillip Caldwell II, director of education and training for the Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation, encouraged graduates to take the credentials earned at the Apple Developer Academy and use them to connect to opportunities that lead to jobs and economic mobility, seeing themselves fully represented in Detroit.
“You are not just completing a program, you are helping to build Detroit’s digital future,” he said. “You are creators, innovators, problem-solvers, and your skills are exactly what this great city of Detroit needs.”
Graduates like Jimenez are now exploring career paths as they contribute to Detroit’s digital future. Caldwell and other speakers encouraged them to carry the skills developed at the Apple Developer Academy into the next phase of their careers.
“We believe in you more than you believe in yourself,” said Marcio Oliveira, vice provost for academic innovation at MSU. “We think that you can do great things in the world. Keep creating, go out there, create great things, solve problems. The world needs you.”
Learn more about the Apple Developer Academy.
