Queens nonprofit helps low-income adults quadruple salary

By Alexandra Zaslow

The Queens skyline continues to evolve as tens of thousands of new apartment complexes and brand new skyscrapers are quickly rising to compliment the once solitary Citicorp building. New businesses moving into the vastly changing Long Island City Area include a large number of technology companies.

Companies like Shapeways, whose factory in LIC produces amazing products using 3D technology. Shapeways has over 8 Million products in their database, and use an online platform where over 40,000 people are selling their products online to customers around the world.

“You can design products in your computer, you can upload them to our site and then we can turn them into real things using 3d printing,” states Peter Weijmarshausen, CEO and Co-Founder of Shapeways.

Just around the block from the Shapeways warehouse lies C4Q, a nonprofit organization that is utilizing technology in the best way possible, education and community building. Founded by Jukay Hsu and David Yang, both from immigrant families who made their home in Queens, C4Q help adults move from poverty to the middle class by running a ten month program that teaches the student how to code.

“On average, our students go from making 18,000 to 85,000 a year, and they work at some of the best tech companies here in New York City and across the United States,” Yang said.

The program embraces diversity, with participants of all genders and color learning skills that may have been hard to find in their immediate surroundings.