My Story – Alicia V Carr

All about Alicia

At the age of 18 in high school, I had the opportunity to put my hands on an IBM punch card. After that experience, I knew I wanted program computers. Fate and money made it an impossible task to pursue my dream. My destiny had me getting married, having kids and following my husband though his military career.

When we moved to Virginia, I worked in retail and got real tired of the weekends and no challenges.

I made the decision to take courses in MSDos and Dbase and added these skills to my resume.

I began applying for jobs at every bank in town and finally got a job as an database programmer. Thats when my career officially began in tech.

Getting that taste of tech, I continued to teach myself everything about computers, from building desktops, to learning different desktop software, and teaching my self how to code (HTML, Java, C++).

The moment my life change

In 2011, while on line at the Apple store waiting to buy my second generation iPad. I met a 16 year old young man. Waiting in line working on his iPhone. I asked him what are you doing here by yourself and how did he get the money to buy an iPad.

He told me he made a lot of money creating apps. A light went on in me and I asked him how did he learn how to create an app. He said from youtube. I was like “what the?” That’s when I turned to my husband and told him “I want to do that.”

I started learning how to code in May 2012 but on November 2, 2012 (will never forget the day) my husband told me to quit my job to follow my dream to become a iOS developer.

It took me 1½ years to learn Objective C by reading books, online courses, and IOS mentors. But now the real work began. I started working on the Purple Pocketbook in January 2014 and finished the first version in March 2014. After a month of submitting the app to Apple, it finally got approved on May 2, 2014.

Living my dream

I am 53 years old, been married for 35 years, have 3 children and 8 grandchildren. I love life, and I make sure I achieve my dreams as often and as soon as I can.

My passion in life has been to be an entrepreneur and helping others to see life differently with strength and passion.

My mission

One of my life’s goal and mission is to EMPOWER women. I have learned that we are all the same with our struggle and I don’t see color, I don’t want to see color. I see women all over the world that are going through problems they shouldn’t have to. I also see, as people, as women, we are one. When a women struggle we all do.