Mahad Ibrahim
Founder & Executive Director, Mind Foundry Learning (2016–2022)
Mahad Ibrahim founded Mind Foundry Learning, Inc. in December 2016 with a mission to bring hands-on STEM education to underserved students in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Over the next six years, he built the organization from the ground up—developing curriculum, hiring staff, managing operations, writing grants, and coordinating with school partners. He did this work without compensation.
The email archive documents 7,837 emails sent by Mahad Ibrahim during this period. Analysis of this correspondence, combined with role-based estimation, suggests a conservative total of 6,000–8,000 hours of unpaid labor.
External Recognition
"5 Secrets to Creating an Innovative After-school Program"
Mizuko (Mimi) Ito, MacArthur Fellow and co-founder of the Connected Learning Alliance, wrote about the partnership between Connected Camps, Mind Foundry, and St. Paul City Schools. The article names Mahad Ibrahim as Mind Foundry co-founder and describes his prior work with Ito during the Digital Youth Project at UC Berkeley.
Roles Performed
As founder of a startup nonprofit, Mahad Ibrahim performed multiple roles simultaneously. Each is documented in the email archive.
Executive Director
Strategic planning, partner negotiations, board relations
Operations Manager
Site scheduling, staffing, compliance, attendance tracking
Curriculum Developer
Program design with Connected Camps, Kano Computing, and internal teams
Grant Writer
Applications to DEED, MPS, foundations; fundraising coordination
HR Administrator
Recruiting, hiring, payroll management via Gusto
Finance Officer
Invoice approval, contractor payments, budgeting
Timeline
Compensation Verification
Payroll records from Mind Foundry Learning, Inc. (March 2020 – March 2022) have been preserved. These records show payments to employees including Burhan Ali, Tristan Scammell, Luke Cichoski, and various part-time instructors.
Mahad Ibrahim does not appear anywhere in the payroll records.
No W-2. No 1099. No contractor payments. The founder worked without compensation for the entire duration of the organization's existence.
The Evidence
The work of Mahad Ibrahim is documented across this archive.