#DFGives: Be Part of the Solution by Closing the Tech Divide with Mission Bit

By: Stevon Cook, CEO at Mission Bit

Mission Bit is an education nonprofit committed to closing the tech divide and expanding coding education to youth most affected by income-inequality. We offer free after-school and summer coding classes to high school students in San Francisco. Even though we live in the epicenter of tech, we have a devastating disparity in access to learning opportunities that lead to jobs in the tech industry.

Mission Bit is committed to being part of the solution. We offer a unique learning experience that is high and transformative for the young people we serve. By the year 2020, we aim to develop a pathway to the tech industry for 10,000 youth and young adults across the San Francisco Bay Area.

Founded in 2013, Mission Bit is the only year-round, project-based coding school for high school students that serves a wide cross section of the community. To date, we’ve taught close to 300 young people how to code. Currently, our courses are 65% students of color and 55% girls.

At Mission Bit, we’re using our program model to build bridges across several stakeholders to achieve our mission. In our project-based courses, we hire college students that are computer science majors and the classes are supported by tech companies with software engineers that volunteer and donate computers. Over the course of a semester or a summer, our students will end up building and launching their own web or mobile product that they ideated, designed, and coded over that time.

If you would like to get involved in Mission Bit we have two main ways:

• We’re always looking for more donations to grow and expand the program to more students across the Bay Area.
• We also can use volunteers—both engineers for assisting in class, as well as other volunteers for helping with running our demo day and other events.

Learn more about Mission Bit at missionbit.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. We hope to see you at Dreamforce!