The 12-week pilot
Twelve weeks of real responsibility.
The pilot is designed to build leadership, technical fluency, and service together, around a real project for the community. Participants should expect about 4–6 structured hours a week, plus project work, and at least 5 hours of community service each month.
The exact meeting days will be set with school and family schedules. The pilot should feel demanding but sustainable.
- Length
- 12 weeksIn 3 phases, ending in Demo Day
- Structured time
- 4–6 hrs / weekAbout 48–72 hours in all, plus project work
- Service
- 5+ hrs / monthCommunity service, required of everyone
- Cohort
- About 10 studentsSelective by design, for deep investment in each person
The weekly cadence
Three strands, moving together every week.
Each week is designed to advance leadership, a business or technology skill, and a real community project side by side, so what participants learn about people and building shows up that same week in actual work.
Leadership / people
Character, self-leadership, and how to work with and lead other people.
Business + technology / skill
Software, AI, and business fundamentals, grounded in how real organizations work.
Project / community milestone
A concrete step on a real community project, taken with the people it serves.
Phase 1, Weeks 1–4
Define the problem and prototype
Week 1
- Leadership / people
- Orientation, standards, cohort identity
- Business + technology / skill
- How Truth Computing works; AI/software landscape
- Project / community milestone
- Choose community problem and project team
Week 2
- Leadership / people
- Self-leadership, discipline, commitments
- Business + technology / skill
- Problem definition and user discovery
- Project / community milestone
- Interview community stakeholders
Week 3
- Leadership / people
- Communication and listening
- Business + technology / skill
- AI literacy + responsible use
- Project / community milestone
- Write problem brief and success metric
Week 4
- Leadership / people
- Integrity and judgment
- Business + technology / skill
- Building / prototyping fundamentals
- Project / community milestone
- Prototype v1 or field intervention
Phase 2, Weeks 5–8
Build and test with the community
Week 5
- Leadership / people
- Team leadership
- Business + technology / skill
- Business models, value, and customers
- Project / community milestone
- Test solution with community users
Week 6
Midpoint- Leadership / people
- Resilience and feedback
- Business + technology / skill
- Data, measurement, and evaluation
- Project / community milestone
- Midpoint review; revise plan
Week 7
- Leadership / people
- Persuasion and sales
- Business + technology / skill
- Presenting an idea; stakeholder buy-in
- Project / community milestone
- Secure partner/user participation
Week 8
- Leadership / people
- Service leadership
- Business + technology / skill
- Technology implementation / operational thinking
- Project / community milestone
- Run community activity or deploy pilot
Phase 3, Weeks 9–12
Measure, improve, and present
Week 9
- Leadership / people
- Conflict, accountability, delegation
- Business + technology / skill
- Career and industry pathways
- Project / community milestone
- Measure impact; document issues
Week 10
- Leadership / people
- Mentoring others
- Business + technology / skill
- AI + domain specialization sessions
- Project / community milestone
- Improve project; prepare final evidence
Week 11
- Leadership / people
- Executive communication
- Business + technology / skill
- How to present to leaders, clients, schools
- Project / community milestone
- Final presentation preparation
Week 12
Demo Day- Leadership / people
- Reflection and next-stage readiness
- Business + technology / skill
- Portfolio, next steps, fellowship pathways
- Project / community milestone
- Demo Day + advancement review
Highlighted weeks are review points
- Week 6: Midpoint review; revise plan
- Week 12: Demo Day + advancement review
What participants learn
A shared foundation first. Specialization after.
Every participant receives a common foundation. Specialization comes after participants demonstrate reliability and learn enough to make an informed choice.
The common core
For every participant, whatever they go on to specialize in
- 01Leadership and self-management
- 02Software and AI literacy
- 03Communication and public speaking
- 04Integrity, ethics, and professional judgment
- 05Resilience and disciplined execution
- 06Sales, persuasion, and relationship-building
- 07Project management and documentation
- 08Community service and civic responsibility
- 09Physical fitness and personal discipline
- 10Career navigation and mentorship
Then, once a participant has shown they are reliable
Seven specialization tracks
Specialization is earned, not assigned on day one. Participants choose a direction after they have demonstrated reliability and learned enough to choose well. In the pilot, everyone works through the common core together; separate tracks are designed to open as mentor and project capacity grows.
Engineering
- Software engineering
- AI systems
- Data
- APIs
- Systems thinking
- Product implementation
Go-to-market
- Customer discovery
- Sales
- Partnerships
- Negotiation
- Storytelling
- Account development
Leadership
- Team leadership
- Mentorship
- Operations
- Conflict resolution
- Decision-making
Media / Journalism
- Reporting
- Writing
- Production
- Interviewing
- Editing
- Distribution
- Media ethics
Design / Product
- User research
- UX
- Prototyping
- Product reasoning
- Visual communication
Education / Public Service
- Program design
- Community engagement
- Public institutions
- Facilitation
- Service delivery
Operations / Business
- Finance
- Project operations
- Process improvement
- Organizational systems
Community projects
Real problems, worked on with the people who have them.
Projects are the center of the Academy. Every first-cohort project should require community interaction rather than being completed entirely behind a laptop.
What makes a valid project
A first-cohort project is designed to meet every one of these.
- Address a real need identified with a school, nonprofit, local business, community group, or public institution.
- Require students to speak with the people affected by the problem.
- Have a bounded scope that can be completed or meaningfully advanced within the pilot.
- Produce a concrete artifact, intervention, system, event, report, prototype, or measurable improvement.
- Have an adult project sponsor and clear safeguarding boundaries.
- Allow the student team to explain what changed because of their work.
What first-cohort projects never touch
Participants include minors, so the first cohort works inside clear boundaries.
- Sensitive production systems
- Privileged legal information
- Protected health information
- Financial credentials
- High-stakes client decisions
Exposure expands only as participants show maturity and receive the training, supervision, and authorization a given kind of work requires.
Illustrative project ideas
These are examples of the kind of work that fits, not confirmed projects or partners. Real projects will be scoped with the people they serve and an adult project sponsor, within the boundaries above.
Illustrative example
Small-business AI enablement
- Community involvement
- Interview a local nonprofit or small business about repetitive work
- Possible output
- A supervised workflow, guide, or internal tool
Illustrative example
Student opportunity navigator
- Community involvement
- Interview students, counselors, and families about access to internships / scholarships
- Possible output
- Resource map, prototype, or outreach campaign
Illustrative example
Local oral-history / journalism project
- Community involvement
- Interview community leaders, educators, veterans, business owners, or residents
- Possible output
- Published multimedia story or archive
Illustrative example
Community service operations challenge
- Community involvement
- Partner with a food pantry, youth program, or civic group
- Possible output
- Process redesign, volunteer system, scheduling tool, or impact dashboard
Illustrative example
School technology improvement
- Community involvement
- Work with educators to identify a narrow administrative or learning pain point
- Possible output
- Prototype, research brief, or supervised automation
Illustrative example
Local business digital transformation
- Community involvement
- Study a willing local organization with low-risk needs
- Possible output
- Website/process prototype, analytics plan, or digital workflow
How leadership is developed
A cycle that repeats, not a class that ends.
Leadership development is not a single class. It is a repeated cycle of responsibility, feedback, reflection, and increasing ownership.
- 1
Teach
Short sessions on leadership principles, communication, discipline, judgment, integrity, resilience, and service.
- 2
Assign responsibility
Every participant owns real commitments: a project task, meeting, presentation, service activity, or team responsibility.
- 3
Observe and coach
Leaders watch how students behave when work becomes difficult, ambiguous, social, or inconvenient.
- 4
Multiply
Participants eventually mentor newer students so leadership is demonstrated by developing other people, not merely by holding a title.
Then the cycle repeats, each time with more responsibility and more ownership, as participants begin helping to develop newer students themselves.
Service
Service that grows into leadership.
Every participant completes a minimum of 5 hours of community service per month. Service is not treated as an isolated checklist; it reinforces the Academy’s leadership model.
5
hours every monththe minimum, for every participant
Service hours are logged and accompanied by a short reflection or evidence of contribution.
How the standard rises
The minimum stays the same. What rises is what participants are expected to bring to it as they mature.
Where it starts
Show up and help
Where it grows
Identify a need, organize people, improve the system, and leave the community stronger
Mentors, speakers, and workshop instructors
Four ways to be involved, each with a clear commitment.
The value is not only what is taught directly; it is access to people, problems, projects, and institutions that dramatically expand a participant’s horizon. Not every impressive person should be asked to mentor. The program distinguishes four forms of involvement so expectations remain realistic.
Speaker
- Commitment
- One event / conversation
- What it’s for
- Inspiration, exposure, career stories, domain perspective
Workshop instructor
- Commitment
- One or several working sessions
- What it’s for
- Teach a specific technical or professional skill
Mentor
- Commitment
- Recurring relationship with assigned student(s)
- What it’s for
- Development, advice, accountability, introductions
Advisor
- Commitment
- Periodic guidance to program leadership
- What it’s for
- Program quality, credibility, institutional access, specialist judgment
Mentors, speakers, and instructors will be introduced here once their involvement is confirmed. Every adult role will work within the program’s safeguarding standards and code of conduct.
Interested in mentoring or speaking?How we’ll know it worked
Evidence of growth, not seat time.
The pilot succeeds when participants can demonstrate that they learned, grew, delivered something real, and are ready for the next stage of the pipeline.
- 01
Program completion
Attendance, reliability, completion of required sessions, service hours, and major deliverables.
- 02
Project execution
Participant/team finishes or meaningfully advances a real community-facing project with documented output.
- 03
Leadership growth
Observable improvement in ownership, delegation, communication, initiative, and ability to lead peers.
- 04
Technical / professional growth
Evidence of new software, AI, business, media, or track-specific capability demonstrated through work rather than only quizzes.
- 05
Character and reliability
Mentor assessment of integrity, response to feedback, treatment of others, accountability, and professional conduct.
- 06
Community impact
Evidence that a community stakeholder benefited: users served, process improved, resource created, problem clarified, or measurable outcome advanced.
- 07
Communication and reflection
Student can explain the problem, work performed, failures, decisions, lessons, and next steps to an external audience.
- 08
Advancement readiness
End-of-program review determines whether the participant is ready to progress to the next Academy stage, needs targeted development, or should exit the pipeline.
Where to go from here
After the pilot
The long-term pathway
The 12-week pilot is where a multi-year pathway begins. See each stage the pathway is designed to include as the program grows, and what readiness looks like at each step.
- Foundation
- Truth Academy Fellowship
- Paid Build Trial
- Internship / Apprenticeship
- Rotational Program
- Launch / Full-time / External Path
Selection & interest
How participants will be chosen
Five steps designed to identify potential, character, and agency rather than polish or prior access, and how to tell us you’re interested.
- Nomination / application
- Short written response
- Small project or challenge
- Character review
- Final selection