Sponsor a Student and Help (Jump)Start a Career

Hello! If you’re reading this, you’re probably as concerned as we are about the inequities in our society and the lack of opportunities that youth of color have to succeed. As the protests in the summer of 2020 illustrated the extent of this problem, many companies started to reexamine their own efforts at Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) and realized that more work was needed to start to undo centuries of systemic racism. We’re beginning to see more companies tackle this problem from many different angles; starting from the top with representation in executive promotions and Board membership down to retention, hiring, recruiting and even D&I in high-school and younger-aged children. If children aren’t exposed to careers in STEM fields, they can’t picture themselves being successful in those careers later in life.

At MYPI we have started a program to teach youth (as well as adults) of color how to become programmers. These programs are very low cost, and if a student cannot afford even the low cost, we would like to be able to offer them scholarships so that they can join for free. We believe that a program like this cannot succeed if it presents more obstacles that the students should overcome. We believe that students given real opportunities to succeed will take advantage of these opportunities and help the next generations succeed just like they did; perpetuating a cycle of virtue.

This is especially important for Black youth who are severely underrepresented in STEM fields, with 12.5% of them graduating with STEM degrees, despite being 30% of the population. Furthermore, of those Black youth employed in STEM fields, 20% report that their race makes it more difficult for them to succeed in their workplace. It is because of these grim statistics that MYPI is committed to finding sponsors to fund this program for Black youth.

For the youth, this program exposes them to these career opportunities as mentioned above, and for the adults it gives them the skill sets they need to start a new career. Programs like this need funding to stay viable and to continue to provide multiple cohorts of students opportunities to learn. This is where your company comes in. For as little as $250 per student per month, we can teach them programming, and also give them the opportunity to keep learning; at the end of the class they get to keep their computer.

Like the metaphorical three-legged stool that’s so popular in business presentations, there are three components that are critical to the success of this program:

The Sponsors

These are companies that sponsor one or more students for the duration of the 16 week program. Rather than just writing checks and fading into the woodwork, we expect our sponsors to be active partners with us as we teach and help our students grow. Our students will learn to present their projects to a Sponsor representative when they complete the program, and in turn, the Sponsors will be able to identify that they may wish to recruit.

The Facilitators

The staff at MYPI are the ones who keep the program running. These Facilitators help bring awareness of the program to youth of color, and make sure the process runs smoothly—from registration to scheduling to pairing students with Sponsors and so on.

The Instructors

The Instructors are people who have each excelled in their individual fields and are eager and able to share their knowledge with the Students. While we have a group of core instructors who will be responsible for the training programs, we also periodically invite guest instructors to teach. Particular care is taken to make sure that these guest instructors reflect the demographics of the students. This is especially important for younger students who need to see themselves represented in the population of successful professionals.

An Executive Summary of the Training Programs

  • Each training program will be 16 weeks long.

  • There will be one 4-hour long in-person session every week.

    • While we’re practicing social distancing for COVID-19 this will be replaced by either:

      • a Zoom Video session, OR

      • a series of videos made available via YouTube or Vimeo

  • There will be ‘office hours’ once or twice a week, during the evenings.

  • The students will be charged a nominal amount, much less than the actual cost of the program.

  • The program will provide the students with a laptop computer that they can use for the duration of the program, and then keep for themselves after the program has completed.

  • There cost of the program will be $1,000, or $1,640, depending on whether the course requires a Windows computer or a MacBook Air.

  • We will actively try to get guest instructors to volunteer an hour or so of their time every so often. We will look for guest speakers of the same demographics as the students, to inspire them and give them a sense of representation.

  • The appropriate staff will have to pass background checks.

  • The privacy of the students’ data will be protected.

  • All staff and students will be required to adhere to our code of conduct

  • While the program is designed with Black youth in mind, the program is open to all youth.

Risks

These are the risks that we have identified that could cause some details of the program to change:

Social Distancing due to COVID-19

Ideally, each class would be held in a room large enough to hold the instructor and all students. However, with social distancing being the norm for the foreseeable future, the classes will have to be conducted online. Given that requirement, the best option would be to use Zoom.

Lack of Reliable Internet Access for the Students

This type of program depends on the students having reliable internet access for the weekly “in-person” sessions. If a student doesn’t have access to Internet Service, we would have to look for local establishments like libraries or businesses that can sponsor the student’s access by giving them a place from where they can attend the class. This is not a scalable solution, because there are many variables, such as where the student lives, whether they have access to transportation, etc.

Inadequate Sponsorship

This is by far the biggest hurdle we have to overcome—getting our messaging out to sponsors and communicating the importance of this Program for youth of color.

Student Safety

There will be only two or three people who will have physical or online access to the students:

  1. The MYPI Executive Director

  2. The Training Coordinator (Aijaz Ansari)

  3. The Instructors

Any person who takes one any of these roles will have to have passed a background check within the last 12 months and should be able to provide proof of this background check on demand. Background checks will be performed by CIA Research.

All staff will be expected to adhere to the Code of Conduct when interacting with students, whether in class, or outside of class hours, and even after the program has completed and the student is no-longer enrolled in the program.

Data Privacy

The following data will be collected for each student:

  • Name

  • Year of birth. We don’t need to know their birth date, but we would have to teach 15-year-olds very differently than 30-year-olds, for example.

  • Phone number (for communication via WhatsApp). If the student is less than 18 years old, the phone number must be that of a parent or guardian, and not the student.

  • Shipping address: For shipping the laptop to the student

  • Sponsor

  • All information will be stored encrypted at rest.

The storage of student data may be outsourced to a third party such as Remind.

The definition of Success

How do we measure success? If a student completes the program and leaves with an app that they made by themselves, that’s clearly a successful outcome. But what about the student who comes to us in week three saying, “You know, I thought I would love coding. But I absolutely hate how dull this is, and I never want to do this again in my life.” What about them?

We would call that a successful outcome as well. Better they learn that now, than after spending two years of misery in a CS program in college. Essentially, any outcome where the student attends regularly and is engaged with earnest is a successful outcome.

Our Instructors

Aijaz Ansari

Aijaz started teaching and tutoring other children when he was 12 years old, and has been a professional software developer since 1991. As a mentor with MobileMakers he mentored and taught seven cohorts of students. He has previously conducted three of these 16-week courses before joining our team at MYPI. He’s worked in the Telecom, Finance, Security, and Sports Technology industries and now works at Gogo Business Aviation where he writes iPhone and iPad apps for pilots, flight staff, and passengers of private jets. You can find more information about him on his blog.

Where to go from here?

If you share our vision, if you believe, like us, that youth of color need opportunities to succeed, I urge you to join us as a Sponsor. Please have your company’s representative contact the MYPI Executive Director at contact@mypi.org or Aijaz Ansari, the MYPI Training Coordinator at aijaz@mypi.org, and you can start making an impact right away.