The city of Riverside in California—once famous for its orange groves and Hollywood movie test screenings—suffered greatly during the economic downturn. Now it hopes to be reborn as a tech hub, an effort that includes a teen code camp at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), which kicks off today.
The usual way to attract Silicon Valley-style companies is through private-public partnerships, laying down fiber for super-speedy networks, and local accelerators. Riverside is doing that—it's the No. 1 spot for millennials making a move across country, according to the Urban Land Institute. But it's also looking to those already in the city: its 44,000 school students.
The Inland Code Consortium, led by the Riverside Unified School District, launched a year ago, and a major initiative is this summer's UCR CSforALL Code Camp. The week-long immersion program, taught by UCR faculty, will give 80 teens a taste of college and—hopefully—inspire them to pursue big dreams.
Dr. Angelov Farooq, founding director of the UCR Center for Economic Development and Innovation, and a Riverside Unified School District trustee, is the driving force behind UCR's CSforALL Code Camp.
"I grew up here, and have seen firsthand the inequities of society," he told PCMag. "Over 80 percent of the local population does not have a bachelor's degree and 62 percent of school students qualify for free meals. There are currently about 1,400 local vacancies requiring tech skills currently unfilled. I knew we needed to do something, so we started the coding initiatives throughout the county."
What will students be learning this summer? "Using a web-based program called App Inventor 2, from MIT, they'll be learning how to program apps for Android devices," Dr. Farooq explained. "The camp will discuss event-based programming, if/else statements, animation, and game theory among many smaller concepts.
"We are also providing a UCR campus tour, bringing in guest speakers, and a research panel, so the students are introduced to many different disciplines and applications of computer science. At the end of the week, students will have an app portfolio that will contain all the apps created in the lab and a final game project that they will be able to showcase on the last day."
Dr. Farooq put PCMag in touch with two 17-year-old veterans of the program.
"We studied a whole bunch of programming languages including Python, Pygame, C++, and Java, as well as learning CSS and HTML," said Sarah, who participated last year. "We all made our own websites, and did prototyping to build arduino-based robots. During the time we were in the program we met women who worked in the STEM industries, had a networking day with mixers and games. Everything was really exciting, I loved it."
The program inspired Sarah to pursue computer science in college, she said. "I've applied to several colleges already, including University of California, Irvine, and University of California, Berkeley, to do comp-sci."
Another young Riverside resident, Michelle, is active with the Girls Who Code after-school club, which has taken students on visits to the Google and YouTube offices in nearby Los Angeles.
"We've been learning Scratch, and VB.NET, as well as Java," she explained. "As a group, we're working on multiple video games, with a projected release date this December, around the idea of inspiring others. We're calling it the 'What would you tell your fifth-grade self?' game."
It's clear that an important component for the Riverside students is seeing people like themselves represented within STEM industries.
"When we went to Google Venice, we'd just finished the tour and walked into the auditorium to hear from a panel of speakers," Michelle told PCMag. "There was a woman, I think she was Middle Eastern or South Asian, and she was talking about her work as an engineer. She looked a bit like an older version of me, and I thought, 'Maybe I could do this too'."
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Michelle is still in planning mode when it comes to college applications, but confirmed she's interested in applying to MIT, as well as UCR, nearer to home.
Dr. Farooq is pleased with the success of Riverside's code efforts to date, but he wants to go further. "Within Riverside Unified School District, we have embedded computer science into the core curriculum, starting in elementary school, and plans are now underway to build a STEM high school on the UCR campus itself. Everything we do is vital to the future success of our region."
"There's a real 'Renaissance of Riverside' movement here right now," confirmed Michelle. "I feel a part of that."