Dr. Shakkiah Curtis has spent her first few months as CEO of Maydm getting to know the Madison-based nonprofit and its inspiring work with girls and youth of color in grades 6-12.
Founded in 2015, Maydm provides students with skills, experiences and professional connections designed to help them pursue careers in STEM, with a particular focus on technology and engineering.
“It’s amazing to see the students in their element. They’re geniuses, right?” Curtis tells Madison365. “In their creative labs, I’ve watched students who might normally be outcasts in the popular arenas of high school create website solutions and build bots with an idea in less than six weeks, then present them to organizations that hire people with college degrees. They did this on their own in a group in a summer program. It’s pretty amazing.”
Prior to joining Maydm, Curtis was the director of growth engagement at the Milwaukee Tech Hub, where she oversaw technology ecosystem programming, stakeholder partnerships and community initiatives across Milwaukee’s growing tech sector.
Since joining Maydm in June, Curtis said she has been meeting with multiple leaders, stakeholders and decision-makers every day to talk about the importance of her organization.
“The response has been overwhelmingly positive,” she says. “Once individuals actually understand the work at Maydm, everyone understands how important it is because STEM is a part of everything. AI is a part of everything, and that field is not growing as fast as it needs to around talent.”
Through year-round educational programs, summer immersives and a paid high school internship program, Maydm connects students, schools, businesses and community organizations across the Madison area. The organization has served more than 3,500 students since its founding.
Dr. Curtis succeeds Dr. Christina Outlay, who led Maydm for four years and helped guide significant growth at the organization.
“I knew I was coming in after someone who already had a big footprint and really understood the work, so I’ve been focused on how I can show up as myself while continuing the vision,” Curtis says, adding that she had quite a few great conversations with Outlay during the transition. “She actually stayed with me for about a month, but I knew I needed to understand what I could do because I couldn’t do it the way she did. Having that support during the transition really helped.”
Outlay tells Madison365 that she is excited about Curtis taking over as CEO of Maydm. “I’ve had the pleasure of working with Dr. Curtis at past events, so I know firsthand how passionate she is about representation and access for women and people of color in the STEM fields,” Outlay says. “She is also a bold visionary, planner, and people person with established relationships built throughout Dane County and into Milwaukee.
“Dr. Curtis is exactly the right person to move Maydm into its next era of growth. I can’t wait to see where Maydm goes under her leadership. I will definitely be supporting and rooting for her and the team.”
Curtis has earned a Doctor of Business Administration in Entrepreneurship and Emotional Intelligence from Colorado Technical University, a master’s degree in Educational/Instructional Technology from Alverno College, an MBA from Cardinal Stritch University, and a bachelor’s degree in English from Tennessee State University.
When Curtis learned about the opening at Maydm, she initially didn’t think the position would be a good fit given her many community and entrepreneurial commitments. She provides leadership and support through several organizations and initiatives, including founding the Black Women in Tech Awards Breakfast in Milwaukee, hosting the InnovationHer Tech Summit at the Black Business Hub and organizing the Latinas in Tech Awards Breakfast.
She is also the founder and CEO of Pink Hustle Consulting Firm, a consulting and coaching company that helps female entrepreneurs scale their businesses. Curtis is also part-owner of Tailor Nicole Wine and Cupcake Lounge on the first floor of the Black Business Hub.
“I understood that when you’re running an organization, especially at a level that requires a lot of vision and a lot of funding, it takes capacity, and so I initially said no. But once I learned more about the organization, I couldn’t let it go,” Curtis says. “In the end, I went through the process, and I was chosen. It did take me understanding and learning much more about where it could go and where it could grow, and then once I created that in my mind, I was like, “Okay, that’s for me!”
Jennifer Ilk, the chair of Maydm’s board of directors, said in a press release that they hired Curtis after an extensive search overseen by the board.
“Dr. Shakkiah Curtis not only has a deeply personal connection to our mission, but she also brings a wealth of experience leading and scaling non-profit organizations, a strong business and entrepreneurial acumen, and connections across our Wisconsin tech ecosystem to leverage for partnerships,” Ilk said.
Maydm held its annual Internship Celebration on Aug. 14 at TruStage corporate headquarters in Madison, where Dr. Curtis joined the Maydm community in honoring this year’s interns and the partners who made their experiences possible.
“That was the largest class of interns that Maydm has had, with 26 students, and these are all paid interns, and 92% of those students had a four-year commitment or scholarship to attend a college with a STEM pathway,” Curtis says. “So to know those students have been with Maydm two to three years at least through programming and all the way up is showing the impact that Maydm is having.
“For our summer programming, too, we have extended our camps. We actually added three camps on top of the camps that were originally done, and so it shows that students are interested,” she continues. “It shows that our intern host partners, organizations, and businesses understand the career pathway, and I think we just need to share more of that story. We are expanding our programs, and Maydm is doing the work.”
With summer programming wrapped up, Curtis says Maydm is transitioning to a new focus; she says, “building on our existing STEM work by adding an AI Technical Institute, supported by partner funding from TruStage.”
“We’re focusing on 9th-12th-graders and helping them earn certifications, understand AI, and learn how it can support their talent development and career pathways,” she says. “This fall, we’re creating online learning. We’re creating partnerships right now. We’ll be working more than we have in the past at Maydm outside of the summer programming.”
Madison is part of Wisconsin’s federally designated Biohealth Tech Hub, selected by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration in 2024. The Madison region continues to see strong growth in its technology sector, even as Dane County faces persistent disparities in economic opportunity and advancement for Black and Brown residents. Those disparities underscore the importance of Maydm’s work to prepare young people of color for careers in STEM and technology.
“The students at Maydm just blow me away with their creativity and ingenuity. We often don’t recognize that a lot of our talent and solutions really sit in our teams and in our interns. I think we have something here,” Curtis says. “I think that a lot of adults, because we’re educated with a degree, don’t recognize that this is pure genius, and it blew me away. Some of these students are labeled as [being on the] spectrum and different things like that. But when they’re in their space, they are amazing.”
Just three months in, Curtis has already laid out some long-term goals for Maydm.
“For the AI Technical Institute, we want to create that as a tech hub expanding AI literacy among high school students and helping them earn certifications,” she says. “Our goal is to have 500 students certified in AI over the next three years through the software, programming and curriculum we’re developing.
“We also want to grow our brand and the program beyond our backyard, including into Milwaukee,” she adds. “Maydm will be Maydm Wisconsin and not just Maydm Madison.”
Outside of its summer programming, Curtis has been exploring how Maydm can build a talent-development career pathway for students.
“I think Maydm has been viewed for a very long time as a summer program, rather than for the work it is actually doing with smaller developers. We’re really building out memberships and partnerships, so our revenue model has changed,” she says. “Grants are important, but we’re also pursuing mentorship-based partnerships with organizations that can help us develop the talent that will be needed over the next 1-3 years as things continue to develop.
“Those are some of the biggest areas where Maydm is challenging itself — and challenging our supporters and partners — to join us in expanding our capacity and changing the perception of Maydm from summer programming to a talent-development organization.”
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