PROVIDENCE – IntraCity Geeks, the computer science education nonprofit founded by tech guru and entrepreneur Arnell Milhouse, has partnered with WaterFire Providence to expand the reach and impact of the organization’s mission with a new headquarters in the WaterFire Arts Center.
At the invitation of WaterFire Founder Barnaby Evans and executive director Peter Mello, the recently completed center on Valley Street will serve as a home for IntraCity Geeks’ after-school programs for K-12 students. Rather than send IntraCity Geeks instructors to individual schools, starting in September students will be bused to the WaterFire Arts Center for classes instead.
Milhouse said in an interview with Providence Business News that putting down roots will allow IntraCity Geeks to offer its programs to more schools and more students in the future.
“Our youth program is thriving at Times² STEM Academy, and we look forward to continued work with executive director Rudolph A. Moseley and his team,” said Milhouse. “This new space will also enable us to continue to work with Providence After School Alliance students.”
IntraCity Geeks runs after-school programs at the elementary, middle and high school levels. Elementary students learn basic computer science concepts and build their own simple games in a class called CS-FUN 101. At the middle school level, IntraCity Geeks has continued to build on the success of the ClassFWD series started in 2015, and Milhouse himself taught the Harvard University CS50x course last year at Times² STEM Academy.
This fall, IntraCity Geeks plans to launch an entirely new program geared towards high school students. The program will function as an apprenticeship, where high school students will have the opportunity to work directly with cutting edge projects in development at CareerDevs Computer Science Academy, a for-profit offshoot of IntraCity Geeks set to launch officially in Providence on June 19.
The WaterFire Arts Center will house the CareerDevs academy as well as IntraCity Geeks’ after-school programming, Milhouse said.
The WaterFire partnership is only the latest for IntraCity Geeks. Through an alliance with the OIC of Rhode Island, Milhouse and his partner Clifton Choiniere secured a grant from the R.I. Department of Labor and Training to launch CareerDevs Computer Science Academy.
Danny Warshay, executive director of the Jonathan M. Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship at Brown University, has also collaborated with Milhouse and his team to offer IntraCity Geeks and CareerDevs software developers an opportunity to assist the Nelson Center’s B-Lab program startups this summer.
“This collaboration is a tremendous and first of its kind opportunity for IntraCity Geeks and CareerDevs students,” said Milhouse. “The wave of interdisciplinary opportunities at the intersection of arts and technology are very exciting and will serve to heat up the creative skills and jobs pipeline in Rhode Island.”
Finally, Milhouse said, IntraCity Geeks has partnered with Johnson & Johnson’s Healthcare Technology Center in Providence to tailor parts of the IntraCity curriculum to meet the needs of health tech organizations.
In March, Johnson & Johnson hosted 15 IntraCity Geeks students and software developers at a weekend Health Tech Hackathon in New York, and this weekend, on June 10, representatives from Johnson & Johnson will participate in the sunset lighting of WaterFire alongside CareerDevs and the OIC of Rhode Island.
Ultimately, Milhouse said, this series of partnerships between IntraCity Geeks and others in the community will allow the nonprofit and its new CareerDevs academy to revolutionize computer science education for both K-12 students and adult learners, opening the door to high-paying career opportunities in technology right here in Rhode Island.
Kaylen Auer is a PBN contributing writer..
