Code class helps inject tech into community
A pilot program at Jackson Community Center in Orlando’s Parramore district is trying to boost the number of underprivileged students who pursue technology careers.
E-CODE program instructor Tonjia DeLavallade says it’s important instructors represent examples of successful professionals from the group they teach.
“They are not quite as exposed to it,” said DeLavallade, a tech entrepreneur who grew up in New York. “They don’t have the role models to say, ‘I want to be a technologist because my aunt or uncle or cousin are doing it.’”
The city of Orlando launched E-CODE last year, with DeLavallade’s group being the third to go through the pilot program. For now, the classes are concentrated in neighborhood community centers that serve primarily minority groups. The long-term goal is to reach all community centers in Orlando that serve underprivileged communities.
“When they get exposed to this early, it makes them say, ‘I can do this,’” DeLavallade said.
The classes have made some students rethink where they want to take their careers. Zariyah Johnson, 10, says she hopes to build her own video game someday.
Meanwhile, Shi’daviyah Rushing, also 10, said she has rethought her plans to be a cake designer and instead hopes to teach programming.
“I thought it was going to be hard to make a game,” she said. But now, it “teaches me
not to give up on myself and to keep working harder.”
At times, parents can be the biggest obstacles to teaching kids how to code, said DeLavallade and Mike Felix, a member of National Society of Black Engineers and a partner at SFG Digital Consulting in Orlando.
Felix once walked neighborhoods seeking parents who wanted their kids to learn about the technology.
He said often, parents would turn him away, telling him that “none of my kids is ever going to be an engineer.”
“You are disrupting their world,” Felix said.
The high-flying aircraft at an air show in Miami helped
stoke Felix’s interest in the tech behind flight, he said, which helped him land a job at Lockheed Martin. He praised E-CODE, which stands for Empowerment through Computing Opportunities, Diversity, and Education
Felix said another key will be finding tech professionals who can stay involved. DeLavallade has reached out to minority tech professionals in Orlando to help with the classes.
At the John H. Jackson Community Center on a recent Monday evening, she led a class of fourth graders as they built video games. They learned how to manipulate code and icons so that a website would react in a way the student wanted it to.
That video-game technology serves as a bridge to concepts the students will learn and can use when designing websites.
Each session costs $5,000, with the money used for programming and coursework. The money comes from the city’s families, parks and recreation budget.
DeLavallade admits the six-week program, which meets three times a week, isn’t a new concept. However, she says what sets it apart is that the program comes to the community, rather than expecting students and parents to come to the program.
This is important, she said, because many students in these neighborhoods don’t have access to reliable transportation. That has led to a new kind of “digital divide.”
“The digital divide used to be about who has access to a computer,” she said. “Now it’s about who has the transportation available.”
The tech sector has been criticized recently for a lack of diversity. Studies say about 60 percent of the workforce is white, 23 percent Asian and 15 percent either Black or Hispanic.
City Commissioner Regina Hill introduced the ECODE program to the city, hoping to build programs that could help some of her District 5 constituents keep up, she said.
“It’s an economic barrier,” she said. “With us moving forward into the new age of technology, there are kids in my district that have no access to computers or the internet. In this new age, they will be left behind.
“… When we start talking about economic advancement, it’s not a race-based program. It’s a program that our community centers will have that gives kids the exposure to this.”