Why Josie Started TechKnow

Josie didn’t grow up knowing tech was even an option.She is a first-generation daughter of immigrants, born in Boston and raised between Mattapan and Haiti, where she spent nearly half of her life. With her parents still living in Haiti, Josie often had to navigate life on her own, learning how to survive without guidance, direction, or a clear path forward.She became a teenage mother, and soon after, a single momdoing everything she could to provide for her son. She worked wherever she could find opportunity: hotels, housekeeping, elderly care, restaurants, and security. At one point, she was making $8.50 an hour as a security guard, simply trying to stay afloat and keep going.When Josie first tried to break into tech, she felt completely lost. The language didn’t make sense. The job titles didn’t make sense. Nothing about the industry felt familiar or accessible. For a moment, she believed what many people believe—that maybe she just didn’t belong there.But the truth was simple.She wasn’t behind. She just hadn’t been shown.Everything began to shift when someone finally helped her see what was possible. Angele from the Duet Program at Southern New Hampshire University played a pivotal role in that transformation, helping Josie recognize that her real-life experience had value—even if it didn’t look like “tech” on paper.From that moment on, Josie committed fully to changing her life.She began researching, learning, and teaching herself how the industry worked. She studied the language of tech, learned how to translate her experience into skills companies understood, and built a bridge between where she came from and where she wanted to go—because she had lived that gap herself.Through determination, adaptability, and continuous learning, Josie successfully transitioned into the tech industry, growing into roles such as Customer Success Manager, Customer Success Engineer, and Quality Engineer. With each step forward, she not only increased her income, but gained something even more meaningful—stability, confidence, and the ability to create a better life for herself and her son.For the first time, she had time. She had peace. She had options.And that changed everything.As she grew, Josie began helping others do the same—people who felt overlooked, underestimated, or completely lost. People with non-traditional backgrounds. People with children. People working multiple jobs. People who simply needed someone to break things down in a way that made sense.And it worked.She saw real transformations—not because people changed who they were, but because they finally understood how to position what they already had.That is why she created TechKnow.TechKnow was built to remove the confusion, the gatekeeping, and the unnecessary struggle that keeps so many people out of the tech industry. It was built to provide the structure, strategy, and support that Josie never had. Most importantly, it was built to serve as the bridge between real life and technology—because Josie knows that bridge better than anyone. She lived it.Today, she continues to give back by helping others transition into higher-paying careers with clarity and confidence—using the very system she created from her own journey.Because if she did it from nothing…So can you.You’re not behind.You were just never shown how.