How One UC San Diego Student Is Building a Future with SaaS
Asencio’s work has involved a range of UC San Diego supporters, including mentorship with bioengineering and data science associate professor Benjamin Smarr and data science graduate fellow Conan Minihan. Photo by Liz Diaz.
From justice‑impacted to tech builder
Asencio’s journey with Minihan began in San Diego County Jail around 2011 and continued when they reconnected as UC San Diego students, where both pushed past stigma to pursue education and a different future. After Asencio’s release in March 2022, he faced steep barriers in job searches because of his felony record, but he stayed focused on developing technical skills that could translate into meaningful work and community impact.
He also faced barriers from spending years away from technology, but says thanks to large language models (LLMs) he was able to leap frog years of programming and machine learning classes by interacting directly with AIs like Anthropic’s Claude. Asencio said that he turned to AI and data science, learning data and prompt engineering and coding so he could build products like iCipher and Aralan rather than wait for traditional employment opportunities. These projects now anchor his SaaS business model: cloud‑delivered tools designed to tackle real‑world problems in criminal justice, health and international business.
HDSI, Triton Underground Scholars and AI education
Asencio’s trajectory is tightly connected to UC San Diego’s School of Computing, Information and Data Sciences (SCIDS)’ Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute (HDSI), where Minihan worked with Triton Underground Scholars for an Education for Empowerment workshop in the Fall of 2025. Asencio was a panelist at the event’s San Diego Reentry Roundtable and discussed how opportunities at UC San Diego have helped change his trajectory and assisted him in building AI tools — like iCipher — that serve others.
Minihan, himself a first‑generation and formerly incarcerated college graduate and now an HDSI doctoral student, is also working on a curriculum to empower justice‑system‑impacted learners who have historically faced stark barriers to success in technology. Within that broader ecosystem of support, campus partners such as Triton Underground Scholars offer mentorship, scholarships, peer support and a pathway into UC San Diego for incarcerated, formerly incarcerated as well as those impacted by the justice system — helping participants like Asencio translate technical training into long‑term academic and professional opportunity.
