Every kid can be a builder.
Every kid can be a builder. We teach them to see a real problem people have — and build something that actually helps — so they walk away with a problem-solving operating system, and the empathy to aim it at the right things.
Coach Lamont Kirton & Coach Kareem
Spark Builders
The ground is shifting.
Three forces are reshaping how kids learn — and they all point to the same fix.
Attention is fracturing.
Phones and feeds train kids to react to whatever grabs them — not to choose what they pay attention to.
AI can do the assignment.
When a machine answers any question, school quietly becomes “optimize for the grade” instead of “learn to think.”
So kids risk becoming consumers, not creators.
SPARK does the opposite. We train the one thing a model can’t do for them: notice a real problem in their own world, and decide what to build.
Two coaches, one room.
A steady anchor and a builder’s method — so every kid is met where they are and walks out with something real.
Coach Lamont Kirton
The anchor in the room
Runs BeyondChess across the NYC school system. He holds the steady rhythm every session runs on, and meets each kid exactly where they are.
Coach Kareem
The method & the build
Computer science + AI, and a lifelong builder. Designed the seven-move method and helps each kid turn a noticed problem into a real tool that helps someone.
Who backs this.
SPARK isn’t a pitch deck. It’s a program run by working coaches, inside real NYC schools, with kids who make real tools.
- Its own home
SPARK is becoming its own nonprofit. It works in close partnership with Working Wonders Starting Home — Coach Lamont’s nonprofit, home of BeyondChess — but it’s its own program, not a sub-brand of anyone.
- Already in schools
Coach Lamont runs BeyondChess live across the NYC school system. SPARK builds on that footing — the rooms, the relationships, and the trust are already there.
- Real, not theoretical
The method’s first builder is real: Emeka, age 7, who made Star Math — a live app that measures her own growth. Small, but real — and growing one expedition at a time.
We keep this honest on purpose. Spark Builders is a focused, hands-on program — not a national franchise, and we don’t pretend to be one. We’d rather show you one kid’s real tool than a stack of promises.
Small, real, already happening.
first builder — made a live app
the founding star, live & measuring real growth
every kid makes something people use
SPARK is its own program, becoming its own nonprofit — built by Coach Kareem with Coach Lamont, whose nonprofit, Working Wonders Starting Home, runs BeyondChess in NYC schools. The two work hand in hand. It grew from a simple conviction: the most durable thing we can give a kid isn’t an answer, it’s a way of finding their own. Chess taught it through a board; SPARK teaches it through building.
Real kids, real builds.
Photos from our cohorts are on the way — here's where they’ll live.
Seven moves a kid keeps for life.
Not steps to memorize — a way of thinking that holds up on homework, a friendship, a free throw, anything.
See every move →Let's start a cohort.
Eight weeks. One session a week. Every kid makes a real, working tool — and your staff lifts nothing.
Coach Lamont Kirton & Coach Kareem
Spark Builders