Computer Science. Tech. IT. We hear these words and phrases spoken almost daily on the news, on the Internet, and all over social media. We see it whenever we go into Seattle as we hear about the latest news from Microsoft, Amazon, or other tech companies that live and work here. They produce jobs and lasting technologies that seek to change how we live and work, everyday for the betterment of us all.

The power of Tech truly is change and change is what we seek for our children. So many young and bright minds searching for purpose go unnoticed in the swathing tide of chaos that it makes us wonder what the world would be like if they had a voice? What would Tech look like today if our children from at-risk homes or from low-income areas could get their hands onto a keyboard? What would happen if we gave them an IDE, some code, and just turned them loose into the cyber world of Programming.

What sort of magic would see? What sparks of creativity would we get to witness burst into flames?

We seek to ignite the minds of our students at Digital Skills For All (DSFA). We provide the tools, the content, and the training to the underserved youth in hopes of providing a better future to those that matter most: our students.

In Software Development, they’ll learn how to build applications that provide real value. We go from the dry erase board directly into the computer where the goal is to actually learn how to build them instead of talking about them. From HTML and all the way to backend languages, we dive right into the programs to give them a chance to really explore what a computer program can do.

Data Analytics is important in any business and it’ll be our job to help the students learn how to translate real numbers into a language any business will understand. Whether it’s a sales figure, logistics, costs of transportation, or percentages in market research, there’s a real need for people who can crunch the numbers and our goal is to expose this to seek out interest.

The world has always been a dangerous place and that includes the cyber world. Cyber security is an important aspect to any company utilizing the Internet and security analysts, engineers, and administrators are highly sought after. The “cat and mouse” game of how to build a better firewall is always a great story to tell and it’s our job to ensure we teach what Cyber Security is all about.

There’s no business in the world that doesn’t need support and in our Customer Support module, we seek to show just how important they can be in support of a business. IT Help desk technicians keep the gears running on printers, networks, and computer systems that are constantly in need of maintenance. Without Customer Support, many of these concerns would grow to be big problems and no successful business runs without them.

With Digital Skills For All, we seek to give our students the skills they need to get what they’re going to need most: a job. With real experience building software applications from front-end to back-end, we’re striving to give our students the best chances possible at being the best that they can be in the fields that they want to be in. In January of 2019, we started with Phase I of our program with the first cohort working at the Delridge Community Center.

The momentum is building and we’re moving forward with Phase II and beyond. Follow us and witness the magic!