PROVIDENCE—January 20, 2015—As announced in the Brown Daily Herald, IntraCity Geeks will run ClassFWD, its innovative 10-week series of after school Jr. bootcamps. The first program will take place at Nathan Bishop Middle School, through partnerships with the Providence Afterschool Alliance and organizations at Brown University. ClassFWD marks the first time that computer-programming classes will be taught in Providence public schools. The STEAM-based program culminates in a four hour Jr. Hackathon on the Brown University campus.
“Our goal in teaching coding and entrepreneurial skills to urban kids is to ignite an unprecedented era of economic growth, enhance diversity in the technology job sector, and reduce income inequality,” said Arnell Milhouse, IntraCity Geeks’ Executive Director.
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At the start of the fifth week, the students begin working on their final project, which they will enter into the Jr. Hackathon in week 10. During the seventh week, the ClassFWD group goes on a field trip to Brown University to visit the Computer Science Department and tour the Robotics Center. They will also visit Brown STEAM, Hack@Brown, and the Brown Entrepreneurship Program.
By partnering with Brown University students, we are building community around the program. The “Heroes,” as we call them, provide a critical mentor role that enables the students to envision what their own technologically engaged futures might look like. Similarly, the college students can learn and benefit from these interactions with the middle school students.
IntraCity Geeks envisions American cities as emerging domestic markets (EDMs). Providence, in particular, is uniquely positioned to gain a sustainable competitive advantage by being the first city to have a diversified technology job sector. Through our partnerships with these Brown University organizations, we can also establish relationships with other elite universities, public school districts and startups in other major urban markets. As our program expands, so too do the opportunities for curious minds to grow.
The majority of the learning is centered on developing video games, robots, social apps, and social websites. Students work with computer programming languages including JavaScript, C, RobotC, Swift, HTML and CSS. In the introductory level Jr. Bootcamp, students write 50 lines of code per day,
—more—
totaling one thousand lines of code per student, and more than 40 hours of code.
To learn more about <IntraCity> Geeks, please visit IntraCityGeeks.org.
IntraCity Geeks is a 501(c)3 organization and with a mission to ignite economic development, diversify the technology job sector, and reduce income inequality by teaching every urban kid to code.
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