For the past seven years, the Codex Creation Committee (CCC) has been instrumental in strengthening efforts to create a positive future through the development of thoughtful, inclusive, and multicultural coding practices.
It’s mission to empower communities through various educational opportunities spanning a diverse range of fields—from art, culture, entertainment, health, wellness, and technology—recently found further support via a grant from the Cultivating Inland Empire Latino Opportunity (CIELO) Fund at IECF.
Inland Empire Community Foundation distributed the grant, which CCC Executive Director Tizoc DeAztlan said greatly helped support the non-profit organization’s annual Mobius Conference, which ran April 15-16.
“We were able to bring together more than 500 students and six different programs throughout the Coachella Valley over several days,” DeAztlan said. “The grant helped us find resources to facilitate that conference. 
“These are definitely challenging times and there’s just a lot of pressure on our youth, families, and community and these groups deserve opportunities and access to resources,” he added.
The Mobius Conference is yet another draw during Coachella Valley’s active festival season. The annual gathering unites gifted thought leaders, artists, performers, and pacesetters to spark inspiration and opportunity.
DeAztlan noted the broad range of ability and influence in the desert and that something like Mobius is important for people to gather thoughts and connect in a productive way.
“We have really talented and helpful students in the Coachella Valley,” he said. “They have diverse interests. Thanks to the grant, we were able to deliver pertinent and productive programming that was free to the students. It brought them together and allowed them to really imagine and scratch a little bit of that intellectual curiosity.”
The conference took place across several sites throughout the Valley, utilizing varied engagement formats. A select group of talented leaders, educators, students, and activists worked together, holding space for attendees.
A diverse mix of programs were offered.
Mentorship Sessions, for instance, featured top speakers (Dr. Bettina Love/Columbia University, Chi Chi Adenihun/ Youth Mentoring Action Network) while The Thought Collective found change agents like artist/producer Asad Ali Jafri (Kaleidoscope Dreams Foundation) and singer/songwriter/pianist Leila Milki offering valuable insights.
Soul Session, Justice Session, Health Session, and Hospitality Happy Hour also tapped into important topics while focusing on engagement.
“Hopefully, we’ve motivated people in their studies and in their future career paths,” DeAztlan said. “More than anything, we wanted to bring in quality, thoughtful, and community-centered folks. We’re happy when we hear students asking important and powerful questions and watch them interact with different people throughout the country.”
Students from all three local school districts, as well as those from College of the Desert, and beyond, attended.
DeAztlan added that the recent conference only fuels CCC’s efforts to keep growing.
Since its inception, the organization has worked diligently to provide free educational programming for students and the community. Generating inclusive, thoughtful, multicultural, and community-driven coding practices for the future will always be key.
But DeAztlan also wants to make a mark.
“When we have something like the Coachella Music Festival making this area the media center of the world for two weekends, everybody wants to be here,” he said. “But the reality is, there are rural areas that are underserved and don’t have access to cultural institutions or certain programming. We’re able to provide that for students over these couple of days. That’s important.”
To that end, making connections is a major throughline in CCC’s efforts.
“That connection, that engagement with students is critical, especially right now because there’s a lot of heaviness,” he said. “A lot of folks might be feeling a little helpless. They may not know how to channel their passion. Codex committees are composed of individuals that want to channel that energy and focus it on our students here, making sure they have access to opportunities.”
This story will appear in the Desert Sun, May, 2026.
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