Tech

Future 5 Helped Him See What was Possible.

Justin Martinez didn’t grow up believing he was “a tech person.” In his first coding class, he struggled. He asked for help constantly. More than once, he wondered if he belonged in a field that felt intimidating and out of reach. But someone believed in him. And that belief changed everything.

Today, Justin is a Computer Science major at UConn, building real-world technology and helping other students find their way forward.

One Moment Can Change a Path

Justin’s curiosity began in high school, when a simple coding project showed him something powerful: he could create. Not perfectly. Not easily. But honestly. That moment of finally understanding, of watching something he built come to life on a screen, sparked a love for problem solving that still drives him today.

Where Future 5 Stepped In

Justin found Future 5 while looking for academic support. Even before he was accepted, he kept showing up, attending workshops, and staying connected. When he joined, he didn’t just gain access to programs. He gained people.

Through Future 5 and partners like the Synchrony Skills Academy, Justin learned tools, frameworks, and real-world skills that helped turn curiosity into confidence.

From Needing Help to Giving It

One of Justin’s proudest achievements was building a cybersecurity training platform during his internship, a tool designed so other students could practice safely and learn by doing.

Today, Justin is a teaching assistant in a class he once struggled through, helping students who feel exactly the way he once did. That’s the ripple effect of support.

A Mind for the Puzzle

One of the things that pulled Skyla deeper into tech was an online mystery that worked like a giant, collaborative puzzle: an image, an encoded message, a clue, then another clue. It wasn’t about the internet hype. It was about the process.To Skyla, it felt like the same logic that lives inside code: If this, then that. Test it. Decode it. Try again.

Later, when “Hour of Code” came to her school and students built a simple Flappy Bird-style game using logic blocks, Skyla was all in. Even before she was writing full code, she could feel herself getting closer to what she’d been wondering for years: how systems actually function.

Where School Helped

Like a lot of students, Skyla lived through the shift from paper homework to Chromebooks and Google Classroom. For many kids, it was frustrating. For Skyla, it was an opening. She searched for every opportunity she could find, even when eligibility rules or life circumstances got in the way. And when she needed something real, consistent, and supportive, she found it through Future 5.

Future 5 Was the Door That Stayed Open

Skyla came to Future 5 during a difficult season in her life, looking for tutoring and support. What she found was more than help with schoolwork. She found a place that connected her to opportunities, mentors, and programs that didn’t treat her potential like a maybe.

Through Future 5’s partnership with Synchrony’s DAE program, Skyla found what she had been looking for: hands-on learning, a real tech community, and guidance that made growth feel possible. She describes it as a turning point, the moment things clicked into place.

Building Real Skills and Real Responsibility

Skyla doesn’t just talk about technology, she uses it. She’s built an app from the ground up as part of a startup focused on protecting privacy in images and video. She also uses AI in practical ways, like turning class syllabi into a clear calendar so deadlines don’t slip through the cracks.

She works in IT freelance, taking on real tickets, real systems, real troubleshooting. The kind of experience you can’t get from a worksheet. And through it all, Skyla has learned something important about tech: Staying humble is part of staying sharp. The moment you think you know everything is the moment you stop learning.

A Mentor Who Believed in Her

When Skyla thinks about Future 5, she thinks about people who showed up consistently. Her mentor Polly checked in, encouraged her, and treated her goals like they mattered. Skyla also speaks with gratitude about tutors who didn’t just teach, but cared enough to make sure she truly understood. That kind of support is rare. And it changes what students believe about themselves.

Joaquin Diaz-Huerta
Stamford High School 2023
Wharton School of Business, U Penn 2027

Although reading philosophy by Marcus Aurelius is only a pastime, there’s no question Joaquin digs deep to learn about and experience the world around him, and in his own words, he’s “committed to making an impact on mankind”.

Raised by a single mother who immigrated from Peru when he was six years old to give him a better life, Joaquin honed his entrepreneurial skills early on, building websites and selling goods online to help support his family during his early years of high school.

Now a Future 5 Ambassador, Joaquin joined the organization during his Junior year, and after years of navigating life quietly on his own, soon “felt I was in a hidden away magic community.” He praises the Future 5 staff and community for providing a welcoming and supportive place to grow. He’s taken advantage of almost every community service event, noting that one of his favorites was being out on the Long Island Sound in a kayak, cleaning up marine debris with local partner, Soundwaters.

When Joaquin first learned about Questbridge, a not for profit matches low income, first gen students to opportunities at national colleges and universities, he never expected to become a finalist, crediting his college coach, Carolyn Brook, with adding structure and discipline to the process. “She was a role model for me,” recalls Joaquin, adding, “Seeing her business background made my path more tangible and I immediately saw how much I would learn from her.”

A few weeks ago, Joaquin learned that he had received a National College Match through Questbridge, resulting a four-year scholarship to The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he plans to study Entrepreneurship and Social Impact, so that he can “do his small part to advance the human race.”

Claudia Lucien
AITE 2019
UConn Storrs 2023

Following in the footsteps of her older brother, Shiller, an early Future 5 member who graduated from Stamford High School in 2012, Claudia joined Future 5 as a sophomore and hit the ground running.

Claudia took advantage of tutors, a college coach, Sharon Katz, and engaged in so many community service events in the interest of “paying it forward” that she was awarded a $7,500 scholarship for outstanding community service at the 2019 Citizen of the Year event in Stamford honoring Dan Malloy. “Future 5 has always been there for me,” she shares, and “I would not be the person I am today without Future 5.” Claudia was always willing to do the work, but she needed to tap into her inner strength, and in Future 5 she found a support system that helped her build skills to push herself out of her comfort zone, develop confidence in her abilities and project that confidence to the outside world. She recalls even the most basic “soft skills” she learned in the Future 5 Job Prep workshop – the importance of eye contact with a smile and a good handshake.

Claudia’s growing confidence translated into other accolades and scholarships as well, including college awards from Person to Person and 100 Black Men of Stamford, some of which provided financial support for all four years of undergraduate college.

Every year, Claudia makes a list of goals that she’s determined to achieve. Last year, as a Junior at UConn Storrs, she shifted her major to Human Development and Family Sciences. Having worked at UConn’s Student Health and Wellness Center and focusing on getting into med school, she’s currently working on pre-med post-baccalaureate applications. She hopes to pursue a career as a physician in Orthopedics, EMS, ObGyn, Surgery or Internal Medicine, with a focus on women’s health and health disparities in minority or underrepresented communities.

Leslina Dangler
Stamford High School 2015
Norwalk Community College 2019
University of Bridgeport 2022

Leslina says she would never have reached her goal of becoming a dental hygienist without the support of Future 5, describing her youth as a perfect storm of every imaginable challenge.

Relying solely on her grandmother to provide family, financial or emotional support while caring for a younger brother, Leslina latched onto Future 5 as the safe haven she never had at home.

Upon becoming a member, Leslina immediately re-structured her life to come to Future 5 every day after school to do homework, learn about the college process and hone her interviewing skills and credits Clif, Beth and other members of the team for shining a light on what had been a dark and lonely path.

In Leslina’s words, “Future 5 made a difference in the course of my life every step of the way.

Clif made a difference…

Beth made a difference…

Ellen made a difference…”

Along the way, Clif connected Leslina to a dental hygienist who inspired her to be persistent in her career journey. But the path didn’t get easier, and Leslina needed to postpone school to support herself and her brother before heading to NCC in 2017 and throughout her time there. She stayed connected to Future 5 for help with course selections and the transfer process to University of Bridgeport and proudly graduated with a degree in Dental Hygiene in 2022, passing her boards a few months later.

Today, Leslina is thrilled to finally be working as a dental hygienist at Pearl Dentistry in Stamford and Trumbull, where she says even the 10-hour days on her feet fly by and she enjoys educating her patients while she works on their dental needs. As another alum who wants to give back to Future 5, she is sharing her experience in the medical community with younger student members who are interested in a similar career.