Equity hands will applaud

A QUEENS nonprofit dedicated to helping low-income New Yorkers find good jobs has cracked the code of the tech industry.

Coalition for Queens, or C4Q, started in 2011, has watched its students’ incomes soar after they finish the nonprofit’s 10-month coding course.

Open to low-income and immigrant New Yorkers, Access Code gives them the immediate computer skills they need to compete in the fast-growing tech world.

On average, the students see their income climb from as low as $18,000 to more than $85,000 once they finish the course and start working.

Roughly 60% of Access Code students are black or Hispanic, and 52% don’t have college degrees, said Jukay Hsu, the cofounder of Coalition for Queens, the startup that gives the classes.

For Hsu, the intersection of technology and community service is something he learned at home.

His immigrant father came to the U.S. to study computer science and his mother was a social worker, he said.

“We want to make sure the tech community reflects who lives here, across gender, ethnic and class lines,” Hsu said.

“Tech is booming. We want to increase access, particularly for underserved communities.”

The most recent batch of tech talent graduated Monday — some with contracts to work as software engineers at Uber, Pinterest and Spotify.

The grads are also committed to giving back through C4Q’s new funding model, “18-85 Job Outcomes Bond.”

It allows students to attend Access Code free if they agree to pay a percentage of their postgrad salary to the program. If a student fails to land a gig in the tech industry, no payback is required. Investors who help fund the program also get a modest return on their capital based on the students’ successful job placements.

Recent grad Chanice St. Louis, 25, worked retail jobs before starting Access Code. She and her twin sister were raised in Brooklyn by a single mother and Trinidadian grandmother.

“Because of my family’s situation, there were a lot of things I wasn’t informed about in the educational system. I want to help people like me hear about these cool alternative St. Louis said.

Now she works for the startup Propel, which builds “software for low-income Americans who are often overlooked by traditional tech innovation,” according to its website.

Hsu’s goal is to make the tech world reflective of the city’s population.

“Ultimately, New York is a diverse place,” Hsu said. “We want people to grow along with the city. Unfortunately, tech has increased inequality. For us, the question is, how do we use tech to increase equality of opportunity?”

Applications for next year’s Access Code class are available. For more information, visit www.C4Q.nyc. programs,” ACTORS AND stage managers who work in not-for-profit theaters across the country just got a pay raise.

Under a new contract deal between Actors’ Equity and the League of Resident Theaters — which bargains collectively for 72 theaters nationally — salary increases range from 16% to 81% over the life of the contract.

Actors and stage managers will also get retroactive raises to Feb. 13 as soon as the deal is ratified, the union said.

The 5-year deal also increases the increments for dance captains and fight captains, and gives performers preventive physical therapy for shows longer than eight weeks with significant choreography. The tentative deal will also add $1.7 million in employer contributions to the Equity Health Fund, the union said.

“This was an incredibly difficult negotiation for Equity, but ... we have a contract that will deliver immediate wage increases to Equity Members and create more work opportunities for Equity principal actors, members of the chorus and stage managers over the contract,” said Mary McColl, lead negotiator and executive director of Actors’ Equity.