Hack the Hood
  • About
    • Education Philosophy
    • Our Team
    • Our Board
    • Careers
    • Ctrl+Shift
    • Blog
    • Contact Us
  • Youth Programs
  • Small Business
  • Get Involved
    • Partner
    • Volunteer
  • Donate
    • community2020
    • Give Monthly
    • Give One-Time


​Hack the Hood Blog:
News and Ideas

First Person Perspective- Teresa Flores

7/28/2014

0 Comments

 
by Teresa Flores, Youth Participant
Picture
As soon as you walk into United Roots on a weekday morning you see around 15 to 20 youth surrounding two tables in the middle of the center. They are all working hard on designing websites for their clients. 

“Hey Max can you QA my website?” asks Adrian. 

Max walks over does a Quality Assurance check on Adrian’s website before he’s cleared to show it to his client. Adrian gets two thumbs up from Max, who moves on to the next interns that are patiently waiting to QA their work. 

Is this a group of students a local youth center? 

No, it’s the 2014 cohort of Hack the Hood. While it may sound like I’m part of any ordinary organization, Hack the Hood is much more than that. In just seven short days, I have learned how to build websites, be professional, and work with other youth.

Hack the Hood is a program that helps low-income youth in the Bay Area gain tech skills and professional experience. Youth participants build websites for small local businesses to help them gain online visibility and attain new customers.

The first week we learned the five principles of web design which are know your audience, K.I.S.S (keep it super simple), map out/architecture, form and function, and first impression/user flow. We also started designing our own website to have a better understanding of the platform that we will be using. 

In the second week we went through a website design challenge to demonstrate our skills that we have learned. At the end of the sprint, we all had to share our end product to the cohort and get feedback from the instructors. 

Now we’re in the most important phase: building sites for our clients. Our sites reflect a diverse array of Oakland businesses, including cafes, burger joints, and children’s clothing stores, so we’re getting a lot of experience. 

Hack the Hood also provides mentors from Bay Area tech corporations that guide us through making career goals in tech and building a pipeline to get there. We meet with our mentors once a week and show them what we have done so far. Having mentors supports us because they are people bursting with knowledge. We can ask them anything we want that informs us more about the tech industry, and they teach us some of the skills that they have.  

We also get a chance to visit top tech companies like Facebook, Pandora, Google and other companies in the Bay Area. 

This will help us picture ourselves in tech related jobs because we will have had experience being at the tech companies. In addition, this will help us think about the connections that we should make if we want to be in a tech company. 

By the end of the summer, we will have learned not only how to build websites, but also how to enter the tech industry as tech professionals. ​
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Hack the Hood Blog

    News items and musings on tech inclusion, youth development, buying local and more.

    Archives

    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    August 2013
    July 2013
    May 2013

    Categories

    All
    Youth Spotlight

    RSS Feed

Learn ABOUT

Our Programs
Our Team
Our Board
​Our Partners
​
Our Youth

​Our Supporters
​Media Coverage
​Press Releases
​
Our Blog

GET INVOLVED

Donate
Sponsor
Volunteer
​Careers
​Partner

CONNECT

Hack the Hood 
900 Alice Street, Suite 300,
Oakland, CA 94607
contact us
mailing list
Call Us
Picture

Picture
​© 2020 Center for Media Change, Inc.​ All Rights Reserved.
  • About
    • Education Philosophy
    • Our Team
    • Our Board
    • Careers
    • Ctrl+Shift
    • Blog
    • Contact Us
  • Youth Programs
  • Small Business
  • Get Involved
    • Partner
    • Volunteer
  • Donate
    • community2020
    • Give Monthly
    • Give One-Time