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Roadmap

Boot Up is structured as five phases. Each phase is gated by operational reality, not calendar dates — moving on requires the previous phase's exit criteria to be honestly met, not just declared met.

Phase 0 — Blueprint & Foundation (current)

Exit criteria:

  • [x] Program blueprint published (this repo)
  • [ ] Makerspace partnership formalized in writing
  • [ ] First donor pipeline (one corporate IT department) committed in writing
  • [ ] One pilot delivery partner committed in writing (recovery center, library, school, or reentry org)
  • [ ] Data-wipe procedure documented and reviewed
  • [ ] Initial inventory tracking spreadsheet or database stood up
  • [ ] First local funder cultivated (Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation or equivalent)

Status: In progress. None of the partnership / donor commitments are formal yet.

Honest note: Phase 0 is documentation and relationships. It can drag on indefinitely if not actively pushed. The exit criteria are the minimum — not the ideal — to move to Phase 1.

Phase 1 — Pilot Cohort

Goal: Run one cohort end-to-end with one partner, with 10–20 devices.

Activities: first batch of donated devices through the full pipeline; deliver curriculum to a single audience at a single partner site; hold the first graduation ceremony; collect cohort engagement and completion data; document an honest after-action review.

Exit criteria: 10+ devices awarded; one full cohort completion documented; feedback from at least 50% of graduates; wipe certificates issued and archived for every device that contained data; partner MOU template validated against actual partner needs; after-action review published, including what didn't work.

[HYPOTHESIS] A 10–20 device pilot is large enough to validate the design and small enough to recover from operational mistakes. A larger pilot risks burning donor credibility if execution fails; a smaller one doesn't generate enough signal.

Phase 2 — Multi-Track Operations

Goal: Parallel cohorts across 2–3 partners, full curriculum delivery, quarterly ceremonies.

Activities: recurring cohorts at multiple partner sites; all 8 curriculum modules in active delivery (not necessarily all at every site); the first Seniors track including the committed in-home setup visit; the first quarterly graduation ceremony; donation pipeline scaled to cohort throughput.

Exit criteria: Year-1 targets in Impact & KPIs measured and reported honestly (met or not); at least 3 active partners with documented MOUs; at least 2 ongoing corporate donor pipelines; annual impact report published.

Phase 3 — Workforce Track

Goal: Paid Hardware Technician Trainees and Peer Instructors as a sustained program component.

Activities: Hardware Trainee cohort active at the makerspace with stipend or paid status documented; Peer Instructor cohort teaching modules in their own community groups; workforce funding secured (likely Second Chance Act, SAMHSA, or AT&T Believes per Grants & Funding); outcome data on workforce participants — placements, retention, wage progression.

Exit criteria: 10+ Hardware Trainees active; 3+ Peer Instructors regularly teaching; at least 1 externally-validated workforce outcome (external job placement, certification earned, etc.); workforce funding model documented and at least partially validated by sustained grant or sponsorship.

Phase 4 — Welcome App + Inventory Software

Goal: The first in-repo software ships. Boot Up becomes a docs-plus-code project, not just a docs project.

Components:

  • Boot Up Welcome App — preinstalled on every device. Onboarding guide, community chat links, help-desk contact, first-launch personalization. Likely Electron, Tauri, or web-app-as-shortcut. Stack decision: Phase 3 deliverable.
  • Inventory database — replaces the Phase 0 spreadsheet. Tracks every device from donation through disposition. Likely small Node + SQLite or Python + SQLite with a simple web UI. Stack decision: Phase 3 deliverable.

Exit criteria: Welcome App shipping on every new device; inventory database running as the source of truth for pipeline metrics; both components have their own CLAUDE.md sections and documentation appropriate for any future maintainer.

Honest framing: Phase 4 is software work, but it should not block the program. If the docs-plus-program in Phases 0–3 are working, the software is an optimization. If they're not, no amount of software will fix that.

Beyond Phase 4

Not committed; possibilities only: a replication kit packaging the design for other cities; an opt-in connected device fleet with light telemetry to support help-desk effectiveness (explicit, revocable consent); integration with MPowerUP (bundle it on devices for recovery-community awardees once it has a desktop/web build); integration with rlivn (refurbished tablets as rlivn client devices for caregiver-paired senior deployments).

[HYPOTHESIS] Each of these is possible given the org structure but none are committed. Decide based on real Phase 3 data, not blueprint enthusiasm.

Known unknowns (program-level)

In addition to the cohort-outcome unknowns in Impact & KPIs:

  • Whether the makerspace partnership scales to Phase 2 throughput, or whether Boot Up needs its own dedicated workshop space
  • Whether the funding mix actually produces sustainable workforce wages, or whether the workforce component requires earned revenue
  • Whether the in-home Seniors setup-visit commitment is operationally sustainable beyond pilot scale
  • Whether 8 curriculum modules is the right count, or whether it should consolidate

These are flagged so they can be tracked honestly through Phases 1 and 2 — not papered over with confidence later.