Meet Nolan Adams: Reentry Innovator, Educator, and Relentless Advocate for Second Chances
At 18, Nolan Adams left a courtroom and walked into a Waffle House looking for work. A decade later, he’s now the Chief Academic Officer of CMTech, a prison education nonprofit built by and for incarcerated people. In this Q&A, Nolan shares his vision for reentry transformation, building digital tools inside prison walls, and how he’s helping redefine what’s possible after incarceration.
In three sentences, tell me what the world should know about Nolan Adams.
At the age of 18, I walked out of a courthouse and into a waffle house. I needed a job, but they didn’t have any to offer people like me. Ten years of denied opportunities later, I have over a decade of experience as reentry innovator and the same burning desire to the reverse cycles of incarceration that I found in the courtroom at 18. I have a beautiful daughter named Arcadia who has most certainly inherited my passion for justice, and a lovely wife named Megan who has supported me throughout this journey.
Tell me more about what you’re working on and about the reentry simulation. How does this experience shape your approach as newly appointed Chief Academic Officer?
Before I dive into your questions, I’d like to thank you for sharing some space on your platform to uplift our project. I serve as the Chief Academic Officer for a startup nonprofit prison learning program called The Cade Moore Polytechnic Institute, or CMTech for short. CMTech was founded by a team of currently incarcerated leaders who wanted more out of the prison education system. Thanks to the support of the Cade Moore Foundation, we have been able to bring their vision into reality.
Unlike traditional correctional education programs, our curriculum is designed by incarcerated persons, for incarcerated persons. The result of this process is a suite of learning materials that are relatable, authentic, and engaging, while offering fruitful and inspiring learning experiences. Our motto is simple: “Empowering incarcerated minds, hands, and lives”.
Without the support of our all-star team — Albert, Derek, Imran, Lucas, Mason, and Jonathan Liano, our program manager — CMTech would not have been possible. As a small, ragtag, team, we’ve learned to leverage technology in some pretty innovative ways.
During a meeting with our incarcerated director, Albert Spears, he made a comment about how many of his peers end up coming back, and that he’s learned a lot about the pitfalls of reentry through their stories. I asked him if hearing those stories made him feel more confident in his ability to find success in the reentry. He told me that he is confident in his ability to overcome barriers, but only because of the education he’s received.
He said that, “Every story is different. It seems like every step is another landmine. You can’t practice reentry — you can only learn to adapt.”
Lightbulb. Practice reentry. I hopped onto Claude, an AI tool created by Anthropic. For those unfamiliar with Anthropic, they are an awesome company that should definitely consider sponsoring our program. I spent all night testing prompts, and the next few days bug testing. Once we had a usable reentry simulator capable of simulating a realistic reentry experience, we did some QA testing with some of our students over prison email. They loved it. We’re launching two pilots in late August of 2025.
What gaps in reentry education are you most focused on closing through The Cade Moore Foundation’s programming?
We really want to build professional confidence and competence. A lot of reentry programs really fail to prepare incarcerated folks for how stigmatizing the reentry experience is, and how the experience will impact your psyche. Stigmatization is dangerous — it can really alter one’s perspective on society. For someone without justice involvement to understand why confidence and competence are major focuses for CMTech, they really have to reflect on how profoundly damaging the effects of stigmatization are.
You have to imagine what it feels like to be expected to uphold your end of the social contract — under threat of reincarceration — while being told “No, you can’t work here” at every interview you thought you aced; “no, you can’t live here” at every apartment complex you fall in love with; “no, you can’t volunteer here” every time you want to contribute to your community; or in many states, “no, you can’t learn here” every time you apply for a university program that inspires you. When society shows you that you aren’t worthy of its most basic amenities, your sense of self begins to reflect that. It hurts, man. It really does.
We want our curriculum to act as a counterweight to this crushing social stigma. When our students hear no, we want them to go make their own job; we want them understand how to buy some land and build their own house; we want them to start their own nonprofit built around second chances. We want them to learn from the examples set by our team and start a school with near limitless capacity when they are told that good ole’ Prison U is full.
How do you envision digital learning platforms like Edovo complementing in-person support services for incarcerated learners?
Partnering with Edovo opened new doors for CMTech. Before Edovo, our courses were distributed at a snail’s pace through the postal system. Without any viable options to market our program to incarcerated learners, new students trickled in. Our marketing strategy was a prison rumor mill.
Edovo rocketed our learning materials to 1200+ facilities across the US. Hosting content on Edovo allows us to cease our reliance on word-of-mouth marketing and implement some pretty creative and novel outreach methods. The expanded outreach options will allow us to quickly scale our peer-to-peer learning program from one program in a single facility to multiple volunteer-led charters scattered across the US.
As a Chief Academic Officer, the one gripe I have about Edovo is a general lack of meaningful data about learners. I would like to see Edovo update their platform in a way that allows more data-driven insights into the community we serve. While Edovo tracks how many users engage with content and where they engage from, I wish it offered greater insight into demographic and programmatic data themes. If Edovo expanded access to this kind of data, it would be very helpful to nonprofits interested in pursuing philanthropic and corporate funding; nonprofits like us.
What inspired the expansion of crisis-driven scenarios in your reentry simulator, and how do they reflect real-world reentry barriers?
The narrative foundation of our reentry simulator was created through some intense AI prompting, a la Claude. It seems outrageous to say out loud, but Claude has a pretty well-developed and authentic understanding of the reentry experience. Early on, we had some issues prompting the appropriate tone — to the degree that our first itineration read like a Hollywood crime drama. We had to reign it in quite a bit.
To “win” reentry, users must abstain from crime, have housing (shelter or otherwise), and be employed or in school for a prolonged period of time. The reentry simulator takes place immediately after release and follows the user over a five-year span. Upon winning the game, users are presented with a narrative depiction of their retirement in a way that (of course) imparts some valuable lessons. Here is an example:
“You’ve built your electronics repair shop into a thriving local institution with multiple locations and a team of skilled technicians you’ve trained and mentored. Your early investments in index funds, real estate, and your business have compounded over decades, providing you with genuine financial security and independence.
You own your home outright and have a comfortable retirement nest egg that allows you to travel, pursue hobbies, and spend quality time with family without financial stress. Your shop has become a training ground for other reentering individuals, creating a pipeline of skilled workers while giving back to your community.
People know you as a successful business owner and community leader, not defined by your past but respected for the person you became. You serve on local workforce development boards, maybe even partner with correctional facilities to teach electronics repair to current inmates.
Your days are filled with choice rather than obligation – working on classic car electronics as a hobby, mentoring young entrepreneurs, enjoying time with grandchildren, or simply reading in your workshop surrounded by the tools of a trade that gave you a second chance.
Most importantly, you’ve achieved something money can’t buy: genuine self-respect and the knowledge that you transformed your life through discipline, skill, and determination. You sleep well knowing you’ve created value, employed others, and proven that people deserve second chances to build meaningful lives.”
The bulk of the work was creating enough content to fully immerse users. The reentry simulator begins with a narrative depiction of the user’s perspective immediately following release. From there, each narrative scenario has its own set of branching paths for users to choose from. You can probably imagine that we spent a great deal of time collecting very personal depictions of lived reentry experiences. We relied a lot on our student community, our justice-impacted team, and the justice-impacted community at large. If you have a reentry story that you would like to see implemented in the reentry simulator, send me a message on LinkedIn! Sharing your story can better equip people facing reentry for the journey’s many challenges.
Why is it important to build a national coalition of carceral workforce development programs right now?
Carceral education is at a critical crossroads. In many states, participation in prison university programs is down. At the same time, recent research shows that these programs are becoming less effective at reducing recidivism and even less effective at generating an increase in reentry employment outcomes. Social narratives around the value of a college degree are being reformed and reshaped. The proliferation of AI is expected to drastically impact the number of available employment opportunities available to the free world. Meanwhile, prison universities continue to operate as normal.
As it stands, there is no replacement for prison education. If the University system decides to respond to declining enrollment by shuttering prison universities, there is no alternative available to satiate curious incarcerated minds. If the national university system fails, the prison education industry will cease to exist.
We want to create a united front of nonprofit prison workforce development programs interested in revolutionizing the prison education sector through innovative and productive programs that address the failures of traditional correctional education systems.
We believe that together, we can provide low-cost alternatives to Prison U that front-load career training and reentry support. We’re doing our best to sound the alarm before it’s too late: we must demand future-proof alternatives to traditional prison education programs — before prison education disappears forever.
Final question: if your simulator ever becomes self-aware, should we start calling you Skynet or are you still Team Humanity? 😉
*Scans the room for robots* Between you and me, I’m with Team Humanity. If you can’t already tell by my slightly alarmist tone, I have a somewhat technophobic take on the progression of AI. That being true, we would not hesitate to shut down Skynet. Don’t tell Claude, though. Love you Claude (and get at me on Linkedin, Anthropic!)
Be sure to say hello to Nolan on Linkedin.
