I'm the Founder of Tipping Point Partners, a public interest studio. Over the past twenty years, we developed a three-part "system": building the software products that people need, the organizations that sustain innovation, and the financial models that create freedom from venture capital.Casebook, the first web-based child welfare system for state government, has been in production since 2012. NYC Votes, the nation's first mobile campaign contribution platform, has been running since 2012. Carina, which connects home care workers to the families who need them, has been running since 2017.Our current focus is on the base of Maslow's hierarchy — food, shelter, health — in the belief that personal freedom is only possible when the most basic needs are met.The political landscape makes this work urgent. One side of the aisle is dismantling the systems people depend on. The other side avoids the hard decisions that could transform them.We want to meet others who share our convictions, are obsessed with a problem, and bring deep technical and product skills to the work.

I am an Adjunct Lecturer at the Columbia University School of Professional Studies, in the M.S. in Technology Management Program, where I have taught Digital Strategy & Leadership; Organizational Design, Strategy & Governance; and the three-semester Executive Seminar Series: Problem to Business.

I ran for Mayor of New York City in the 2021 Democratic Primary. Universal Childcare was my tentpole issue, and my policies included a Digital Bill of Rights and a plan to Reboot City Hall. See my mayoral campaign at this link.Prior to that I was a member of the NoIDC Coalition that flipped the NYS Senate, enabling foundational reforms blocked by Cuomo and the GOP. Before that, I served on the Board of the NYC Campaign Finance Board and helped to expand small-dollar democracy by co-creating NYC Votes.Today, I'm a political activist in New York City, aligned with the Working Families Party and New Kings Democrats. I support candidates who fight for working people and the poor, especially AAPI and LGBTQ communities. I am a technocrat who advocates for process and technology reforms to fix government dysfunction in addressing basic needs.

I moved to New York City in 1985 without a job and only $400 in my pocket, hoping to realize my dreams.My greatest achievement is finding a community, raising a healthy family and building a real home in Brooklyn, forging a new path from my challenging background.I was born in Jim Crow Atlanta to Korean students, who raised me and my brother and sister in a violent and abusive home in an all-white Ohio school district.When I abandoned pre-med for Women's Studies at Yale, my parents disowned me, so I worked full-time to pay my way through school. I was the first Yale man to graduate in Women's Studies. Later I earned an MBA in Finance and Competitive Marketing Strategy from NYU Stern.

Thinking out loud about the America I believe in.Subscribe to my newsletter at "Start Making Sense."Read my essays on Medium.