I'm Ulric Todman. From breaking computers in Harlem to building the future in North Carolina.

I grew up in Harlem but went to school on the Upper West Side, where I discovered my superpower: systematically breaking every computer my father bought me until I understood them inside and out. What started as destructive curiosity became the foundation of everything I do today.

My real education happened on the first Friday of every month at the Citicorp building, where my dad would take me to hang out with the hackers at 2600 meetings. While other kids were playing video games, I was learning about phone phreaking, social engineering, and the beautiful art of making technology do things it wasn't supposed to do.

My formal journey took me through PS87, The Computer School (IS44), and The Beacon School. In my senior year at Beacon, I took PHP as an elective—it counted for very few credit hours, but it quickly became my favorite subject. My teacher, Mr. Lehmann, noticed my enthusiasm and assigned me a tutor: Loren Brichter, who would later create Tweetie (which became Twitter's official iOS app). Watching someone I knew achieve that level of success planted a seed: "I want to do that one day." His encouragement made all the difference, creating a spark that would lay dormant for years.

After school, I spent 13 years at 60 Hudson Street—the largest fiber optic interconnection hub on the US East Coast. Picture this: freezing data centers, brutal rotating schedules, and countless nights, weekends, and holidays working on equipment for some of the biggest names in tech—Oracle, Dropbox, Telefonica, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Verizon, and more. It was grueling, but I was literally touching the infrastructure that powers the internet.

The turning point came through repeated encounters with Google engineers during an equipment migration at 111 8th Avenue. I would be lying if I said I wasn't jealous of their perks, but more so, I was jealous of the purpose they had in their work. Then the cherry on top—one day, scrolling through Reddit during a break, I saw an ad for Columbia's coding bootcamp. Sometimes the universe sends you a sign—this was mine. That dormant spark from my time with Loren suddenly reignited.

I decided to bet on myself. I enrolled in a MERN stack bootcamp at Columbia University, then earned a scholarship to a second bootcamp to learn Java. The best part? I landed a job upon graduating and got an automatic interview just for being able to keep up with their rigorous work schedule.

Now I'm based in North Carolina, building software and looking for other like-minded and brave souls to build the future with. If you're someone who believes technology should serve humanity and isn't afraid to break a few things to make them better, let's talk.