Autonomous AI agents. Real community impact.
DJMP Institute builds autonomous AI systems that connect marginalized communities to the resources, training, and opportunity they've always deserved. The same agentic architecture that powers PathwayAI powers the intelligence feed running across this site — that ticker is not a demo. It is the proof of concept in live production.
I began my career watching students who worked the late shift still show up to my mathematics classroom — students who had every intellectual capacity to build the AI systems that now make decisions about their lives, but who were systematically taught to consume technology, not create it.
In 2017, Martin Pieters — then STEM Director at Rainbow PUSH Coalition — challenged his Saturday Academy students to build something real. Not a classroom exercise. Something that mattered to them.
They chose survival. They mapped every shooting in Chicago from May through June 2017, overlaid it on Google Maps, and built a heat map that gave students a safer route home from school. They called it the Stay Safe App. It was unveiled at Rainbow PUSH's 46th Annual Convention — covered by ABC7 and the Chicago Sun-Times — and recognized by the Cook County Board of Commissioners.
"We know it's not a talent deficiency. It's a resource deficiency."
That conviction — that Black and Brown students have always had the talent, and only ever lacked the resources — became the foundation of everything DJMP Institute is today.
PathwayAI is the direct continuation of the Stay Safe App's logic — applied at scale. Where kids used city data to navigate gun violence, PathwayAI uses ten federal databases to navigate the systems that keep communities from economic opportunity.
Anyone can search online for grant opportunities. What you can't search for is what the funder actually wants — the framing, the eligibility traps, the application strategies that separate funded organizations from qualified ones.
DJMP Grant Intelligence doesn't surface listings. It surfaces winning intelligence — curated, contextualized, deadline-flagged, and framing-advised, every week.
DJMP Institute has delivered free AI and STEM programs to 200+ students for four years — entirely without grant revenue. The infrastructure is built. The track record is real. We are now positioned to scale.
"DJMP Institute is not the most well-funded organization applying for this grant. It is the most qualified one."
Two grants submitted totaling $1.7M+. Summer STEM program ready to launch. PathwayAI ready to deploy. The only thing standing between this work and the communities that need it is funding.
DJMP Institute has spent four years proving that Black and Brown students will show up, compete, and excel — when given the tools to do so. Now we're ready to build the summer program those students deserve.
The DJMP Institute Summer STEM Program launches Summer 2026 — hands-on, high-intensity, Grades 4–12, based in Bronzeville. The curriculum is built. The partner is credentialed. We need a funding partner to make it run.
The Trustworthy Civic AI Framework — the first empirically grounded, integrated design science framework for agentic AI in civic service environments. Developed by Martin Pieters as doctoral research at a leading U.S. research university. Every DJMP program, tool, and product is evidence of TCAF operating in the real world.
⬆ Trustworthy by Construction — the integrated outcome
Application submitted March 15, 2026. Results expected 60–90 days. Funds AI literacy, workforce access, and system-level innovation for youth facing barriers to economic opportunity.
Read More →2026 is the year autonomous AI agents move from proof-of-concept to production in civic environments. DJMP's PathwayAI is already deployed. TCAF is already the framework for doing it right.
Read More →As AI reshapes every sector of the economy, communities excluded from AI education face a new and compounding disadvantage. Nonprofits that lead on AI equity now will define the field for a decade.
Read More →Free AI feed available now. $9.99 one-time weekly report. $14.99/mo for full deadline alerts, eligibility analysis, and application framing — the intelligence that turns qualified into funded.
Access Grant Intelligence →20-year tenured faculty at City Colleges of Chicago. Chemical engineer by training, asked by Rev. Jesse Jackson to solve the technology pipeline problem for Black and Brown communities. Built a Saturday STEM program from scratch, designed the Stay Safe App with teenagers navigating gun violence, placed students at Yale, Northwestern, NIH, and CBS News. Now a PhD candidate building the first empirically grounded framework for trustworthy agentic AI — and running DJMP Institute full-time while doing it.
PhD in Electrical Engineering from Howard University. 16 years at MITRE Corporation as Principal Information Systems Engineer. Now Principal AI/ML Specialist at Amazon Web Services — 8 years applying machine learning and generative AI at enterprise scale. His AWS institutional connection mirrors DJMP's own MLU partnership. His Howard University doctoral roots connect directly to DJMP's mission. He is the technical credibility signal funders need to see.
Two HBCU-connected AI practitioners — one who spent 20 years watching Black and Brown students prepared to consume technology but never build it, now building the framework to fix that architecturally; one with a Howard Ph.D., 16 years at MITRE, and 8 years at AWS — sitting at the same governance table, building AI infrastructure for the communities those institutions were founded to serve.
Howard University · Tuskegee University · Rainbow PUSH Coalition · The intellectual lineage of this workThe communities are ready. The technology is proven. The framework is published. The track record is four years deep. The only thing missing is the resources to scale what already works.