Mikeal Vaughn

Mikeal Vaughn is the founder and Executive Director of Urban Coders Guild, a Tulsa-based nonprofit organization that provides web and mobile application development skills to underserved and under-resourced communities.

After spending nearly two decades working in IT in the US and Southeast Asia, Mikeal is a global industry veteran who knows well what it means to be one of the few Black faces in the workplace. He also knows that it takes more than tech skills to succeed in the ever-changing STEM industry environment. He believes that tech skills and experience paired with soft skills training are vital but more can be done to ensure that young people of color or women thrive in STEM industry jobs. We must also be intentional in building strong ecosystems – communities of belonging – in which they learn and thrive. Mikeal equates this as a powerful means to combatting income inequality and the wealth gap.  

Mikeal is a native Tulsan and a graduate of Booker T. Washington High School. He is an advocate for education, human rights, and mental health awareness. When he’s not actively promoting Urban Coders Guild, Mikeal is an avid pop-culture enthusiast who enjoys urban exploration, ethnic goods, and Italian opera. He spent almost a decade living in Japan and speaks fluent Japanese. He holds a BA from the University of Maryland and an MBA from Temple University Japan.

1921 Historic Black Wall Street Online Business Directory

Mikeal Vaughn collaborates with his students in the Urban Coders Guild to program The 1921 Historic Black Wall Street Online Business Directory, a digital database that honors the legacy of Black Wall Street businesses. Vaughn and his students give digital life to businesses once active in the Greenwood neighborhood, imagining a present for them after their future was cut violently short.

The Urban Coders Guild is a free after-school program that teaches web design and coding to underserved and underrepresented communities, equipping them with skills to pursue their own paths in the future. Participants in the directory project will be guided through the programming of web pages for each of the businesses destroyed in the Massacre. The 2020-2021 Urban Coders Guild Mobile App Development cohort will then create a mobile application compiling these pages and incorporating augmented reality technology.

Virtual attendees will be able to log into the created website starting May 1.