Youth-Led Tech Social Enterprise in South LA

K-12 STEAM education

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

The disparity in access to computer science education and careers by Black, Brown and females is well documented. Engineer Factory that there are national, regional and community-level impacts on our students. National: Computer Scientist demographics by race White, 64.2%; Asian, 18.8%; Hispanic or Latino, 6.9%; Unknown, 5.4%; Black or African American, 4.2%; and American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.5%. Regional: A 2020 report by the California State Universities (CSU) and University of California (UC) indicates that the number of Black college students majoring in Computer Science decreased from 4% in 2017 to 1% in 2020. Moreover a 2018 CSU report stated that 65% of Black, Latinx and female students changed from STEM majors to non-STEM majors before completing their second year of college. Community: Less than 12% of the schools within 10 miles of the Engineer Factory STEM Learning Center offer AP Computer Science courses. These courses are the gateway to CS studies in college.

Engineer Factory leadership found all of these stats unacceptable and in 2022 we launched our Computer Science Equity (CSE) program in response. The goal of CSE is to expose, engage, educate, equip and empower South LA and Inglewood students in a variety of CS learning opportunities and activities. In 2022 we partnered with Cal State LA to coach 24 South LA students to prepare and pass the AP CS Principles exam. Using Code.org, 14 students completed the 7-month class and took the exam, wherein 10 passed! This demonstrated to us that we could fill in CS education gaps at local schools. To date more than 100 students have taken coding, web design, social media and/or cybersecurity classes with us. One of our students asked, "what now, how can we use these skills now?". Thus the idea for our proposed program. Our goal is to help nonprofits and small business with tech needs while generating revenue though our social enterprise.
Services will include: maintenance of social media presence for busy nonprofits; website development and maintenance; creation and maintenance of simple apps to serve nonprofits; and cybersecurity assistance for nonprofit and local small businesses that lack resources for IT staff. Engineer Factory will provide training for students and they will be employed by us to serve clients. We will have a program manager who will support student employees. Most work is done remotely, so this will be a great opportunity for some of our college students!

Our proposed Tech Social Enterprise will benefit both students and nonprofits in Los Angeles County. Students will use the skills gained in our CS courses to work in the tech field, get hands-on experience and earn money. LA County will gain a pool of experienced and qualified computer experts who can help support local nonprofits and small businesses that rarely have acce ss to these skills. Local nonprofits and small business will have access to qualified students who can help launch and maintain successful social media campaigns and websites. Moreover, students can help create simple apps to help their businesses function more efficiently. For instance, the final project for students in our app development class was to build an app to help us to track inventory for our STEM kit business. The app has proven invaluable! Moreover, the LAUSD cybersecurity breach reminds us all that our systems are vulnerable. EF Cybersecurity students can help protect nonprofit computer systems.

Engineer Factory will gage project success and impact in the following ways:
The number of students who enroll and complete our Social Enterprise training
The number of nonprofit and small business clients we recruit
The number of projects that the student employees successfully complete
Hiring a Social Enterprise Manager who will oversee the program and supervise students
The Youth-Led Tech Social Enterprise program will increase students' computer science knowledge, as well as provide them hands-on and client engagement experience that will demonstrate to them that they are capable of doing CS work. It will also allow them to add the experience to their resumes, making them more marketable to colleges and other employers. Furthermore, we hope to create a vibrant CS business in South LA. We hope this translates into more CS majors and careers for our students.