Jessica Hicklin

Co-Founder & Co-Executive Director

Unlocked Labs

Good leaders build other leaders.

About Jessica

I was sentenced to life without parole at age 16 and walked into prison knowing I was expected to die there.
Three years in, a moment of clarity hit me on my 21st birthday—I knew I didn’t want prison to be the end of my story.
When Missouri pulled education programs from max prisons, I stepped up and became a volunteer GED instructor.
I taught myself to code from textbooks and began building education tools inside a prison TV station I helped create.
I co-founded a nonprofit and became CTO while still incarcerated, designing technology to bring education into prisons.
Just six months before coming home, we officially launched Unlocked Labs, setting up our first systems with Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
Since my release, I’ve grown Unlocked Labs to serve prisons in five states, leading a team where half have lived incarceration experience.