"I don't wait for the right tool to exist. I build it — from scratch, across every layer of the stack."
I'm Mychal Shaw — a serial founder, self-taught AI engineer, and culture-driven marketing strategist rooted in Kansas City, MO. I taught myself to code during the pandemic and never stopped.
Every product I ship follows the same pattern: I find a community underserved by existing systems — voters, city governments, Black founders, companies, parishes — and I build the infrastructure they were never given. I design it, brand it, and code it myself, end to end.
My flagship, UWAZI.AI, runs on Raia G1.0 — a proprietary civic AI model I built. Raia also powers Jamii, my B2B platform for cities. These aren't wrappers. They're purpose-built civic intelligence systems.
Outside of AI, I've spent 9+ years driving results for brands from startups to Fortune 1000s — 30M+ impressions and $1.8M in client revenue through culture-driven strategy, creative direction, and community activation.
I sit at the intersection of inclusive collaboration, community building, systems change, and cultural innovation — building a modern renaissance where code, culture, community, and innovation are not just accessible, but invested in.
Self-taught. Full-stack. Raia G1.0 — a proprietary civic AI model built from scratch. 5 production applications shipped solo. Engineering isn't a credential I was handed. It's a discipline I chose, in the dark, during a pandemic, because communities needed what didn't yet exist.
Nine years of culture-driven work before a single line of code. Creative direction, brand strategy, events, photography, video. Culture isn't context for my technical work — it's the foundation. Every product I build is shaped by the communities I came from, not the ones I was trying to enter.
Black Innovators Network. Power, Policy & Progress. 85+ events nationwide. The first act of every BIN member is to declare what they give — not what they need. Community isn't an audience strategy. It's the architecture. "Give First. Build Together. Own What You Create."
UWAZI.AI. Jamii. Uwazi.gov. Democracy made legible. Policy made actionable. Systems changed from the inside. AI built not to replace community judgment — but to amplify it. Because the most dangerous technology isn't the kind that fails. It's the kind that works perfectly for the wrong people.
"The best technology in the world fails when it doesn't understand the people it's built for."
When the tech industry says "culture fit," they usually mean the opposite of what I mean. I mean: do you understand how people actually live? Do you know how information travels in a neighborhood that doesn't trust institutions? Do you know how a family makes a decision when the system has lied to them before? You can't build for communities you haven't listened to. I came from culture. That's not a backstory — it's a methodology.
"Opening the door isn't enough. Someone has to care what happens after people walk through it."
We talk a lot about making things accessible — accessible tech, accessible information, accessible civic systems. But access is the floor, not the ceiling. The real question is: are you investing? Investing time, resources, and genuine commitment into the communities your product claims to serve? That's the difference between a press release and a movement. Every product I build starts with that question, not ends with it.
"I taught myself to code during a pandemic. Nobody invited me into this space. I built the door."
The pipeline problem in tech is real, but it's not what people think it is. The problem isn't that people like me don't exist — it's that the industry built its talent infrastructure around institutions that historically excluded us. I am proof that the best builders aren't always produced by the best schools. They're produced by the most urgent problems. Give someone a reason to build and they'll teach themselves everything they need to know.
"If your civic system is confusing on purpose, that's a feature — not a bug — for the people who benefit from low participation."
Ballot language, policy documents, legislative records — they're written to be misunderstood by the people most affected by them. That's not an accident. UWAZI.AI and Jamii exist because I believe that if you make the information clear, people will participate. They always have. The barrier isn't apathy. It's complexity engineered as a gatekeeping mechanism. I'm building the tools to dismantle that — one plain-language policy summary at a time.
"The Harlem Renaissance wasn't an event. It was an ecosystem. We're building the next one."
What happened in Harlem in the 1920s wasn't a trend. It was a deliberate, collective act of creation — writers, artists, musicians, thinkers, and builders choosing to invest in each other and produce something the world had never seen before. That's what I'm building in Kansas City in 2026. Not a startup ecosystem. A renaissance. Where code is art, community is infrastructure, and innovation is an act of liberation. The geography is different. The urgency is the same.
"I build the infrastructure people deserve — but were never given."
How AI can close the gap between policy complexity and community participation — and why the technology only works when it's built by people who live with the consequences of the policies it explains. The non-partisan AI future of democratic engagement.
Why the best builders in the next decade won't come from the CS pipeline — and what happens when someone who came from culture, not code, designs the infrastructure that communities actually need. A case for radical inclusion in technical spaces.
What 9 years of community organizing, event production, and brand strategy taught me about product design — and why cultural fluency is the most undervalued skill in the tech industry. The methodology behind building for communities, not at them.
The philosophy behind the Black Innovators Network — and why inverting the typical transactional model of professional communities produces stronger networks, better companies, and more equitable outcomes. Inspired by Black Wall Street. Built for 2026.
The workers who will thrive in the AI era aren't the ones who fear the technology — they're the ones who learn to direct it. Why conscious investment in AI literacy, especially in communities historically excluded from technical spaces, is the most important workforce policy of the decade.
Why the next wave of American civic and cultural innovation isn't coming from Silicon Valley or New York — and how one city is quietly building the blueprint for what happens when code, culture, community, and innovation converge in service of the people who live there.
Founded at 18. First clients. First campaigns. Culture, community, and brand strategy from day one.
Taught himself to code during COVID-19 lockdown. Realized culture fluency + engineering = the gap nobody was filling. Everything changed.
Founded UWAZI.AI on March 25, 2025. Built Raia G1.0 — a proprietary civic AI model from scratch. Shipped KOVA enterprise OS the same year. First self-taught engineer to architect a purpose-built civic intelligence LLM. 1,000+ beta users.
Co-founded Culture Club Creative Agency. Built 1Flock parish CRM. LaunchKC Social Venture Studio cohort. Jamii B2B civic platform in production. Featured in Startland News + The Beacon KC. $1.8M in client revenue across portfolio.
Designed OnRamp Discovery AI Innovation Lab — Google wordmark approved. Co-founded Black Innovators Network with 8 co-founders. Launched monthly civic event series with Mayor Pro Tem Ryana Parks-Shaw. 5 live products. The Modern Renaissance is underway. Age 29.
AI-powered civic intelligence platform — breaks down ballot language, verifies political data, and connects 168M+ underserved voters to personalized civic action. Non-partisan by design. Powered by Raia G1.0.
B2B civic intelligence platform for cities, public health orgs, and civic institutions. Connects community sentiment, policy data, and city budgets — so governments see impact before policies pass. Includes Uwazi.gov government intelligence layer.
All-in-one company operating system. Gmail, Calendar, task management, CRM, team channels, digital business cards — all unified. Topped by Vision: an AI Chief of Staff for every employee, powered by Claude + your company knowledge base.
Digital home of BIN — professional community for Black & Brown founders, creatives, investors, operators. "Give First. Build Together. Own What You Create." PWA installable on iOS & Android. First act of every member: declare what you give.
Parish relationship management for Catholic churches. 1,057 members, 438 families at St. Agnes Parish. Discipleship Pathway (6-stage), Household View, Outreach Workflows, AI Message Composer (Claude). "Turns a parish directory into a living relationship system — so a church of 1,000 can be pastored like 100."
Twelve brands, four ecosystems, and one argument underneath all of them. Drag to orbit, click a planet.
Intelligence belongs to everyone.
Everything in this system runs on one conviction: the data, the tools, and the context that institutions keep for themselves should belong to the people those institutions are supposed to serve. Four ecosystems, one argument.
Civic technology · Founder & CEO · 2024—Present
Uwazi is Swahili for transparency.
A nonpartisan civic education platform that puts real-time political transparency at the center of every community, and gives every American a trusted space to learn, engage, and act on what is happening in politics right now. The five sub-brands each do one job and none of them overlap: the App is the product, Engage collects the signal, Jamii serves the government side, Civic Studios teaches in person, and All In Favor tells the story.
AXIS Extra Bold · Garet · TT Commons Pro
Consumer-facing civic education. Ballot language in plain English, verified political data, personalized voting plans.
SMS and RCS civic polling. Residents answer three questions from their phone at an event or after a council vote, and the answers become longitudinal intelligence.
The same civic data spine, aimed at city departments instead of residents.
The in-person program arm. Creator residencies, civic data walks, community dialogue sessions, and a youth civic lab. KC flagship in the Crossroads, then anchor cities, then a mobile studio, then a studio-in-a-box kit that scales without building a room in every city.
The media arm: a podcast cut into short-form vertical for social. Long-form for people who want the whole argument, clips for the ones who need ninety seconds and a reason to care. Navy #0D1B3E, lime #C2D936, white. Civic Studios teaches the room in front of you; All In Favor reaches the ones who will never walk in.
Designed the full brand identity for an AI Innovation Lab — logo system, visual language, typography, color palette, all brand assets. Required Google brand team review and approval to carry the official "Powered by Google" wordmark. Built from zero.
Full creative production — 2,300+ short-form videos, photography, UGC, livestream, influencer campaigns, scripting. Built the entire content engine for a CPG brand from zero to viral.
Creative direction, channel strategy, scripting, talent casting, end-to-end production. Hit 10M+ monthly organic impressions by month 4. Drove $1.8M in e-commerce client revenue.
A monthly civic listening session hosted by UWAZI.AI at Keystone Innovation District — bringing residents, city leadership, policy experts, and community voices into the same room to break down the issues shaping Kansas City.
"Democracy doesn't happen on Election Day. It happens in rooms like this — every month, before anything is decided."
Every session ends with a UWAZI-powered micro-survey feeding community sentiment data directly into Jamii — turning each event into a real-time civic intelligence engine.
Former union member, small business owner, 30-year healthcare executive. Provides direct city council updates on public safety, health, housing, and infrastructure — giving KC residents a direct line to city leadership each month.
Keynotes, panels, and fireside chats on civic AI, equity in innovation, and the Modern Renaissance.
A growing collection of interactive lessons and tools for founders, creators, and civic innovators who want to move faster with AI.
Write prompts that think like you do.
A guided brief builder, prompt scorer, and reusable template library designed to turn vague ideas into executable AI instructions.
Open toolGenerate a 30-day content plan in minutes.
Answer 12 questions about your business and get a complete editorial calendar, platform mix, and production checklist.
Open toolAutomate the repetitive. Amplify the creative.
Step-by-step workflow maps for research, writing, outreach, reporting, and decision-making with AI agents.
Coming soon
Mental models for building at speed.
Reusable frameworks for product strategy, community growth, civic innovation, and brand positioning.
Open toolThe right tools for every stage.
Curated no-code, low-code, and full-stack recommendations for founders, operators, and civic teams.
Coming soon
Marketing strategist. AI engineer. Civic tech partner. Keynote speaker. I operate at the intersection of all four.
Contact
Speaking, consulting, partnerships, or press — send the details and it lands straight in my inbox. Every message gets read.
myke@uwazi.ai
+1 816-780-1316
Kansas City, MO