Help kids from low income communities access careers in tech by hiring them

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9446355

by ScriptEd • 11 years ago

60 15 11 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

ScriptEd (scripted.org) is a New York City based nonprofit that teaches web development to kids from under served high schools and places them in paid summer internships with tech companies.

We're looking for more companies to hire our students as interns this summer in NYC. For more info, please see here: https://scripted.org/give/opportunity/ or contact Manish at manish@scripted.org.

akilism• 11 years ago

ScriptEd is a great program and if I worked for a company that did internships I would definitely try to bring one of their students on for the summer.

braveheart1723• 11 years ago

Really well run, some of the most passionate volunteers i've seen and program's growing year on year !

dopeboy2• 11 years ago

Hey all - Manish here. Happy to answer questions in this thread too.

acbart• 11 years ago

Out of curiosity, what's the rough outline of your curriculum?

ScriptEd• 11 years ago

Here it is! https://github.com/ScriptEdcurriculum/curriculum

Nimi• 11 years ago

Both the pitch here and the site seem a bit light on endorsements from companies which have previously hired your interns, although I'm guessing you have at list a few good endorsements on file? Maybe consider giving visibility to a few good "reviews" from companies. Just my 2 cents.

pen2l• 11 years ago

I don't know about this program as I've never heard of it before, but I just want to commend you for the idea and running with it. This is precisely the thing to do to empower these kids.

Most of us got jobs and internships because of connections from our parents' friends, or parents' professional contacts and such and such. These kids don't have the luxury of having those connections, so they can't even get their foot in the door. Best of luck.

dopeboy2• 11 years ago

Thanks for the kind words pen2l!

cbee17• 11 years ago

Wish my company had room to take on HS interns. ScriptEd sounds like a great program.

kbandes• 11 years ago

I'm a volunteer with ScriptEd. I work with a fantastic group of kids at Washington Irving High School. I've also met a lot of the kids from the other schools in the program. If you met them, you would love them instantly! There are four really sharp kids (all girls) in my group for whom we need to get internships. They're learning html, css, and javascript (including jQuery), and doing some cool stuff. Please help (and upvote)!

leanthonyrn• 11 years ago

It would be nice if they had something similar in NJ. So close yet, so far.

amateurpolymath• 11 years ago

I really like that you aren't simply offering unpaid internships. A lot of people fail to realize that high school kids from low income families often have to take on summer jobs to help support themselves and their family. The stipend will enable many of these students to take this opportunity. I only wish this program existed when I was a poor kid with no connections!

arun057• 11 years ago

Hey all - Arun here. I am one of the volunteer teachers, happy to answer any questions.

mtsmith85• 11 years ago

One of my engineers was a ScriptEd volunteer last year and she has since convinced me to hire a ScriptEd intern this summer, as well as volunteer at the Hackathon in a couple weeks.

Last fall, at my last company (Canvas <http://canvas.is>), we had a "class" of ScriptEd students come visit our agency and learn about how agencies work. A lot of the kids were absolutely amazed at just the basic experience of an interactive agency. They asked questions that you take for granted as being "understood" by engineers and designers and other agency employees. That being said, when we broke them up into brainstorming groups helping us "design an app" for a client's pitch, they were great fun, so smart and so interested in the work. They brought life experience to a pretend pitch that we would never otherwise have been exposed to.

I'm really excited to have an intern from ScriptEd this summer and to continue to support such an amazing organization.

phantom_oracle• 11 years ago

I don't have much to add, but I guess all I want to say is:

Thank you for really making a difference and helping poor kids change their lives and situations through positive influence.

Many of us would love to help out, but poor time-planning, work, etc. come in the way, so on behalf of everyone that would like to help young and talented kids (with not-so-great backgrounds) get an up in life, thank you!

Help kids from low income communities access careers in tech by hiring them

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