NewTechKids is teaching another cohort of ‘Rising Technologists’, kids from low-income communities in Amsterdam who have the potential to pursue study and career paths related to technology if they are given exposure and access to technology education.
The odds are stacked against them but we have confidence that they will overcome the conditions they face in Amsterdam:
- Highest number of single parent households
- Highest number of households which earn less than welfare-level income
- 10-year old students have the highest chance of behavioural problems of all Amsterdam neighbourhoods
- Highest number of students who are streamed into vocational high school programs after primary school (as opposed to university track high schools)
For six weeks, we’ll be teaching a carefully-selected group of high-potential teens from Amsterdam southeast and giving them a crash course in computer science, coding and robotics. We’ve bundled the lessons under the theme “Tech Innovators to the Rescue” to teach them how technology is transforming several industries and to profile the study and career paths related to this transformation.
We have developed the curriculum with purpose: many of the people in these teens’ lives work in jobs and industries at high risk of automation. Many of the training and study paths recommended for kids in their communities have limited opportunities for advancement.
Knowledge is power and early mentorship and guidance are critical in order to affect the study and career trajectories of these kids.
Role models are also critical so that these teens know that people who look like them can and have achieved great things. Each class, we profile a person of colour in tech related to the industry that we’re profiling. This in itself has been a revelation and shown us how few technologist role models of colour there are in industries eg. farming.
A big ‘thank you’ to Schuberg Philis for financing the bootcamp with a donation and the Amsterdam Public Library for hosting the bootcamp.
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