Leonardo Sosa, Executive Director
(415) 572.3947
leo@devmission.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 15, 2019
Our Spring 2019 IT Pre-Apprenticeship Occupational Skills Training Program launched this week in partnership with Mission Housing Development Corporation inside Valencia Gardens in San Francisco, CA. This program is funded by the Office of Economic and Workforce Development to create an apprenticeship pipeline for the tech industry.
The 12 weeks intensive technology program started this Monday, February 11th and currently has 10 young adults ages 16-24 enrolled in the program. Most of the young adults come from low income communities in San Francisco, Bayview, Visitacion Valley and the Mission district and about 80% of the students are Hispanic descendants. The average income level for their families is between $30,000 and $40,000.
This FREE program offers IT essential training in hardware/tech support/CompTIA, Intro to Programming (HTML, CSS and Javascript); Internet of Things (IoT) and Critical Career Skills to underserved young adults. Our schedule is four days a week for 3 hours a day and on Fridays we dedicate that day for corporate site visits. Most of the program participants did not know what to expect in the program; but they were mostly interested in technology skills.
The Dev/Mission program often invites guest speakers from different technology corporations to speak to the students about their experiences and share some advice with them. Many students have found the speaker’s experiences interesting and motivating; another great way to teach them how to network with peers and colleagues.
The next 12 weeks are going to be exciting as these untapped young adults are beginning to identify which career pathway they would like to follow: post secondary education or employment pathways. dev/Mission will be there to support their career pathway for months/years to come!
