Ayana Cotton
Founder & Director at Gray Area
Bowie, Maryland, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolAyana Zaire Cotton is a Washington, D.C.–based founder, facilitator and self-described "erotic engineer" who blends technology, storytelling and Black feminist theory to design values-centered futures for organizations and communities. With eight years of experience spanning software engineering instruction, creative residencies in biotech, and building the world’s first Black feminist business school, she helps science and tech teams reimagine work, wealth and well-being in the age of AI. She publishes speculative fiction—authoring the novella Cykofa: The Seeda Origin Story—and translates narrative practice into practical curricula and consulting through Seeda Studio and Seeda School. A seasoned educator and coach, she previously led immersive software engineering programs and taught decentralized web practices, bringing both technical fluency and cultural governance expertise to emerging tech. Notably, her practice integrates permaculture design and poetic computation, reflecting a multidisciplinary approach that surfaces nonobvious connections between ecology, code and care. Organizations hire her because she turns growth edges into irresistible opportunities for transformation.
8 years of coding experience
4 years of employment as a software developer
Software Engineering Intensive, Software Engineering Intensive at Flatiron SchoolBachelor of Arts, Innovation, Bachelor of Arts, Innovation at University of MarylandTeaching & Learning as Primitive Hypertext, Teaching & Learning as Primitive Hypertext at School For Poetic ComputationPermaculture Design Certificate, Permaculture Design Certificate at Forested
Github Skills (19)
seed7
heroku6
flatiron6
flask5
backend5
nodejs5
heroku-deployment5
bit4
react4
frame4
idris3
version-control3
react-native2
libgit22
javascript2
Programming languages (4)
Github contributions (5)
AyanaZaire/seeda_syllabus_backend
Apr 2020 - Jul 2020
Contributions:22 commits, 8 PRs, 15 pushes in 2 months
AyanaZaire/black-feminist-world
May 2021 - Sep 2021
The Seed Data Project is a meditation on Black women's care work throughout history.
Contributions:46 commits, 2 PRs, 38 pushes in 4 months
seedcarewomenmeditation
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