My son has been a crewmember at nonPareil for 6 years, and I have been a volunteer for nonPareil for the same period of time. This organization is life-changing. It gives my son purpose; it gives my son friendships; it gives my son a community of his very own. Luv ya, nonPareil!

My son, Ethan, and my wife’s son, Trey, are on the autism spectrum. We just found out eight months ago that our son, three-year old Luke, also has autism. One out of every 50 children today has some form of autism.

Because of Ethan and Trey’s autism affliction, four years ago I co-founded nonPareil Institute -- for training young adults with autism to work in the technology industry, specifically in developing gaming applications and gaming software -- at that time on a "campus" that consisted of one of the co-founder's breakfast nooks in his home serving three students.

Since then, we have grown to 125 students and have opened offices and classroom space on Southern Methodist University's Plano Campus. The students have developed numerous apps for the iPhone and similar devices, and have also developed several computer games – from start to finish.

We literally have received emails from all over the world asking about the work we're doing and if we can help children all over the country and around the globe.

nonPareil has just signed an agreement with Sony to produce games for their Playstation game console (so exciting) and we're about to release "Lightwire" -- a visually stunning gaming app for the iPhone and iPad. We also just released a fun gaming app called "Dots & Boxes."

We were also featured recently on NBC Nightly News: http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nightly-news/52162262/#52162262

For more on nonPareil:

http://www.npitx.org
KERA Radio in Dallas, part of the NPR digital networks, profiled nonPareil Institute on air and on its Website in the story "Young Adults With Autism Find Work In Tech":

http://keranews.org/post/young-adults-autism-find-work-tech

A job training and autism briefing at Dallas City Hall early last month featured my fellow co-founders at nonPareil Institute:

http://cityhallblog.dallasnews.com/2013/02/job-training-and-autism-briefing-at-dallas-city-hall.html/?goback=%2Egde_3268263_member_214205878

nonPareil was highlighted in the November 30th print and online issue of the Dallas Business Journal:
nonPareil's tech training gives solid future to adults with autism Premium content from Dallas Business Journal by Bill Hethcock, Staff Writer
Date: Friday, November 30, 2012, 5:00am CST - Last Modified: Thursday, November 29, 2012, 3:24pm CST Aaron Winston and Cheryl O’Brien spend much of their day in a darkened room, staring at a computer screen, developing gaming apps for iPhones, iPads, Androids and other smartphone and tablet devices.

In one of Winston’s apps, called Spaceape, a Cosmonaut ape named Dmitri flies around outer space, scooping up bananas and dodging asteroids, comets and aliens. One of O’Brien’s apps, called npiSoroban, is an abacus for the iPad and other devices. The apps are available for 99 cents at app stores.

Winston and O’Brien are former students and current staff programmers at nonPareil Institute, a nonprofit technology company housed on Southern Methodist University’s campus in Plano. Like all of nonPareil’s students and more than half of its 23 staffers, Winston and O’Brien have autism.

The three-year-old institute provides technical training for adults on the autism spectrum, teaching teamwork and skills that enable students and staff to create products, like Spaceape and npiSoroban, for market release.

The institute is growing fast, said Gary Moore, president and co-founder. It had eight students when it opened on the SMU-Plano campus two years ago. Today, it has 93 students and a waiting list of more than 50.

The institute is looking to add a campus in Fort Worth in the next year and ultimately expand nationwide and around the world, Moore said. Word of the institute and its work has spread fast in the autism community, he said.

“There is a tidal wave coming,” Moore said. “From all over the world, we are getting phone calls. There’s nothing else for these adults.”

‘People understand how I’m made up’
Soaring autism rates are driving much of the growth of nonPareil (which means “no equal”), Moore said. The condition is now believed to affect one in 88 children — up from one in 150 just 10 years ago, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the next 10 years, more than 500,000 people with autism will turn 18, according to the nonprofit Autism Speaks.

Because people with autism may think and act differently, many don’t fit into a typical corporate workplace, so they end up unemployed or in part-time, minimum-wage jobs, Moore said.

“Many of the high-functioning guys are brilliant, but they can’t get a job because they’re different,” Moore said. “We’re trying to build a future for them.”

Winston, who wasn’t working or in school when his mother took him to interview for a student slot at nonPareil, said the institute is a perfect fit for him. After graduating from a North Dallas high school in 2010, Winston signed up for a composition class at Richland College, but never went because he had “too much anxiety,” he said.

“(nonPareil) gave me the skills I needed,” he said. “There is less pressure here and great camaraderie. People understand how I’m made up.”

The institute has proven transformational for O’Brien as well. O’Brien, who has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Houston, was throwing papers, working as a crossing guard and doing part-time clerical work when she heard about nonPareil. She traded those jobs to be a student at nonPareil, and has worked her way into a position as a staff programmer and instructor.

“I like programming and I like making apps,” O’Brien said. “It’s fun.”
Building corporate partnerships
Students at nonPareil pay $600 a month to take classes. The money is used to help keep the nonprofit business running. Revenue from apps goes back to the institute, although so far the apps haven’t racked up big sales, in part because the institute doesn’t have much of a marketing budget, its founders say. App sales totaled about $500 last year.

The goal is for mobile app revenue to sustain nonPareil’s operating budget, CEO Dan Selec said. Selec and Moore co-founded nonPareil along with John Eix in July 2009, and the organization’s first classes were held in Selec’s kitchen. Selec, Moore and Eix, a nonPareil board member who works in business development for Dallas law firm Hunton & Williams LLP, all have sons with autism.

“The thing that the three of us were so passionate about when we began was, once school systems were done with the kids at 18 years old, it’s very difficult for them to move into a corporate environment,” Eix said. “They don’t process information that way and they don’t process emotion that way. But if you put them in an environment where they’re working together, where they appreciate one another because they know what the other one is going through, they just absolutely thrive.”

The institute is building corporate partnerships with companies such as Google, Selec said. That company has a “Google Spectrum Team” which engages people with autism nationwide to work on projects, he said. Google provides licensing to nonPareil for some of its software products, Selec said. The company also uses donated software from Microsoft, Valve and other corporations, he said.

Texas Instruments, Vision2 Systems, Accent Networks and Cinemark Theaters are among the corporate supporters of nonPareil as well, Eix said.

The institute has four apps in the Apple iTunes store, three apps in the Google Play store and another 10 in the pipeline, Selec said. While sales of nonPareil products haven’t taken off yet, it only takes one breakout app — an Angry Birds, for example — to dramatically change a company’s revenue picture, he said.

The institute tries to take a market-driven approach to the employment challenges faced by people with autism, Selec said.

“If we can consistently get product on the market, instead of having this tidal wave of individuals look for a welfare answer or a governmental answer, what we’re focused on is getting them resources they need to learn and earn their own way in their lives,” he said. “Let’s help them live fulfilled lives through the work that they can do.

“We’re committed to giving them the skills that they need to build great products and compete in the marketplace.”
APPS AND AUTISM
NAME: nonPareil Institute
BUSINESS: App and game development
HEADQUARTERS: 5240 Tennyson Pkwy., Ste. 105, Plano 75024
OWNERSHIP: Nonprofit
TOP EXECUTIVE: Dan Selec, CEO
EMPLOYEES: 23
PHONE: 972-473-3593
WEB: npitx.org

The Huffington Post profiled nonPareil Institute in its online issue recently:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/27/autism-employment-white-collar-jobs_n_1916611.html

nonPareil was featured in a recent ComputerWorld article:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9225562/Institute_s_mobile_apps_are_built_by_hands_of_those_with_autism?taxonomyId=77

We were also just highlighted as part of a story that ran a few months ago on Channel 8 (the ABC affiliate in Dallas):
http://www.wfaa.com/community/autism/Parents-of-children-with-autism-greatest-fear--What-happens-when-the-school-bus-stops-coming-151788515.html

Also, the documentary filmmaker has been filming a documentary profiling nonPareil. He provided us this trailer in advance of the film’s release later this year:
www.creektreefilms.com/programminghopevideo.html

And also, I made The Dallas Morning News' op-ed section over a year ago:
http://letterstotheeditorblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2012/04/what-can-we-do.html