Transform the city with technology education

By Kelly Davenport

and William C. Wade

A recent boom in tech start-ups in the city has made Philadelphia the eighth-largest region in the country for STEM jobs - that is, work based in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics - and its IT sector is still growing fast.

This year, Philadelphia is participating in US2020, a White House initiative to connect minority, low-income, and female students to high-impact STEM skills and careers. On Saturday, the University of Pennsylvania will host a White House Summit on Educational Excellence for African Americans, focused on developing support structures for students.

It's no coincidence that these initiatives come as Philadelphia searches for ways to protect and nurture its growing business tech community. The presence of a strong local talent base is a major factor in a company's choice of location, and if Philadelphia isn't home to tomorrow's skilled STEM employees, tech companies are likely to leave for cities where they are more likely to find the programmers, designers, and developers they need.

Eighty-five percent of Philadelphia students are people of color, and close to 40 percent live in poverty. US2020 raises a key question: Why not connect our kids to tech skills and experiences that could help them create lifelong financial stability for themselves and for the city as a whole?

Low-income students and students of color are vastly underrepresented in tech-centered education programs and careers. According to Coded by Kids, an organization that provides free computer programming and Web design training to inner-city students and teachers, just 4 percent of employed software developers in the United States are African American, and 5 percent are Latino. Until now, there has been no expectation that Philadelphia's next generation of tech professionals will come from today's Philadelphia students - but we hope that is about to change.

Minority and low-income students across Philadelphia are already excelling in technology and business courses that merge core STEM concepts with their hands-on applications. Freire Charter School's robotics team, the RoboDragons, went all the way to super-regionals in last year's national competition and also hosted a workshop in which team members taught students from across Southeastern Pennsylvania how to build better robots. At Promise Academy at Martin Luther King High School, career technology education courses teach students to conceive, design, and program their own apps and even design their own business plans to sell them. These courses consistently have the highest attendance rates of any classes in the school.

Hands-on technology education is transforming lives in Philadelphia. Teaching students to write code, build robots, and write business plans gives them the tools to shape their world in a meaningful way. Technology helps students gain a sense of agency in their own education - and clearly underscores the connection between what they're learning now and the future they can build for themselves.

When we provide strong, hands-on technology education to our students, they win and the city wins. IT and STEM jobs, it seems clear, are the jobs of the future - and Philadelphia has a unique opportunity to connect our youths to skills and careers in these fields.

By increasing the level of hands-on technology education and mentoring available to students in Philadelphia, we can transform our city.