Franco Pastor

Context: Housing Gate’s product direction needed early market-facing messaging and stakeholder discovery before deeper validation.

Tools and methods: LinkedIn, founder marketing, campaign messaging, stakeholder outreach, positioning tests, Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship support.

Ownership: Authored positioning, deployed the campaign as Housing Gate’s founder, ran outreach, and connected the campaign to LIHTC and document-intelligence framing.

Impact: Built early market visibility for Housing Gate, surfaced housing stakeholder conversations, and advanced the housing wedge through founder-led marketing.

Context: Fire-extinguisher training is rarely practiced before it is needed.

Stack: Unity, C#, VR interaction design, scene hierarchy, timed challenge logic, score and rank feedback, user feedback flow.

Ownership: Built the interactive VR training logic, fire-extinguisher practice flow, timed challenge mode, scoring, retry, and feedback behavior.

Impact: A practice-oriented safety simulation that lets learners attempt the PASS method repeatedly.

Context: The earliest weeks on campus shape who students meet and how they build their support network.

Stack: JavaScript, app interaction design, matching-flow logic, student profile concepts, shared interests, schedules, and campus-routine matching.

Ownership: Explored how students could be matched through shared interests, schedules, and campus routines.

Impact: A connection-first product concept aimed at reducing friction around early social interactions.

Context: Classic word-game mechanics make good practice for game-logic and validation work in a UW-Madison software engineering class.

Stack: Java, game logic, word validation, board generation, local and online game flow.

Ownership: Built game mechanics and Java implementation for a playable Boggle experience.

Impact: Built a playable Java Boggle game with board generation, word validation, local and online game flow, and was recognized as one of the strongest projects in the class.

Context: Academic data project comparing United States employment counts and employment-population ratios across race and gender groups.

Stack: R, RStudio, data visualization, statistical analysis, data wrangling, GitHub.

Ownership: Cleaned the dataset, modeled employment counts and ratios, and produced comparison plots across demographic groups.

Next-step value: Creates a foundation for deeper statistical testing, time-series comparison, economic-context analysis, and policy-focused questions.

Context: Academic database project organizing Latin American food options by ingredient, category, and demographic preferences.

Stack: MySQL, SQL, relational schema design, query logic, search filters.

Ownership: Designed the schema, built relational tables, wrote queries, and structured search logic across dishes and preferences.

Impact: Made Latin American food options easier to search, compare, and organize for preference-based decisions.

Context: Users often abandon mental health tools when it is unclear which feature is appropriate in the moment.

Stack: Figma, React, React Native, JavaScript, tooltip logic, frontend UI functionality, UX collaboration, backend integration support.

Ownership: Helped define user guidance behavior, tooltip logic, and feature usability around choosing the right support tool.

Impact: A smoother first-use experience for stress-aware productivity features.

Context: The 2020 pandemic created an urgent need for organized food relief in underserved areas of Lima, Peru.

Tools and methods: Instagram, Facebook, social media flyers, fundraising campaign design, donation collection, partner coordination, food distributor partnership, delivery coordination, community outreach, campaign operations.

Ownership: Designed and launched Instagram and Facebook flyers, led the fundraising campaign, collected donations, coordinated with a food service distributor, and helped organize delivery logistics.

Impact: Helped distribute 500+ free meals to people in need in underserved areas of Lima.

Context: Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Coon Valley, Wisconsin · Sep. 2022 to Dec. 2022.

Ownership: Spoke with Coon Valley residents, organized concerns and safety gaps into a 10-page flood-safety plan, and delivered a mayor briefing that informed local awareness guidance.

Impact: Helped communicate flood concerns and safety guidance to local leaders and residents, supporting a more resilient and empathetic approach to future disasters.