Back To Blogging

I was browsing the web over the New Year’s holiday looking for some material on computer science in schools (more on that in a bit) and saw a post from my friend Mike Zamansky that referenced a post by Alfred Thompson which itself referenced my last post to this blog. It was fun to see my post being discussed. Some commenting back and forth on both blogs ensued and in one comment Mike encouraged to me to start blogging again. Mike’s kick in the rear for me to blog was welcome.

So, back to blogging.

An update is probably in order about what I’ve been up to the last few months.

In July I left Relay with the intention to start doing my own independent advisory and consulting work, and to also spend more time working on computer science education. As luck would have it, very soon after I was asked by my friends Evan and Pedro to serve as the ED of TeachCS. Since late August I’ve been doing that about three days a week. That has resulted in some really fun things such as…

…getting to open NASDAQ with my friend Fred and a whole bunch of other friends and leaders in the CS is schools movement…

Fun day at Nasdaq. #CSEDWeek @nathanielgranor @fredwilson @nycdede @lsudol @npowerorg

A photo posted by Robert Underwood (@brooklynrob) on

… and, that same week, being invited to the White House to participate in a computer science education meeting. Here I am at the entrance to the West Wing…

An interesting end to an exhausting but satisfying week.

A photo posted by Robert Underwood (@brooklynrob) on

Honorable mention to front row tickets at Hillary Clinton’s birthday party — Bill was sitting behind me! Here’s a picture I took from my seat…

@HillaryClinton speaking this evening

A photo posted by Robert Underwood (@brooklynrob) on


TeachCS has not been all I’ve been doing. Other things I’ve up to:

  • Launching the CodeBrooklyn campaign with Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams to promote computer science in Brooklyn school communities
  • Providing strategy advice to my friend Gordon’s CS education startup, Codesters
  • Helping my friend Nathaniel and TEALS doing class observations
  • Checking in with my friend Chris and his startup, WillSomeone, into which I made a small angel investment last year
  • Keeping tabs on AlumniFire, another company into which I made a small investment
  • Joining the advisory board of Gemr, an amazing startup for collectibles and the people who collect them, based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire
  • Putting together a new startup idea with my friend Seth (nothing to announce yet but stay tuned — very interesting stuff)
  • My continued community work in Brooklyn as an elected member of CEC13 and the new youth chair of Community Board 6
  • Lifting heavy things and running my 10th NYC marathon

Finally, I also have a personal tumblog you can check out if you’d like. Warning: It’s mostly a mix of my writing on Brooklyn school and civic issues (including updates about CEC 13 and CB6 stuff I’m up to) plus more pictures from Instagram of me lifting weights.