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| Deena Pierott |
She was inspired to create iUrban Teen when she served in a governor-appointed role on the Commission on African Affairs in Washington State and observed the increasing high school dropout rate. While the target demographic for the program is African American and Latino males, the program is inclusive of all youth who fall within the non-traditional STEM learners category, including young women.
(Read our 2008 interview with Deena Pierott on Mosaic Blueprint)
iUrban Teen offers a variety of learning opportunities, including an all-day summit featuring hands-on workshops, tours of industry leading businesses and courses in leadership development. Since its inception in 2011, the iUrban Teen program has already encouraged more than 5,000 youth in four states to pursue STEM education and, potentially, professional careers.
iUrban is poised to extend its reach throughout the West and East Coasts and Southern United States in the coming years, encouraging youth to pursue further education while also helping to fill a shortage of STEM professionals.
What inspired you to create and develop iUrban Teen?
Well, I always knew that I wanted to share information that was useful and beneficial to the community. When I become a Commissioner here in Washington State for the Commission on African American Affairs, I realized how broad the disparity was in the education system for our youth of color, especially Black and brown males.
Around that same time, I was invited to participate on a Chief Information Officer forum. When I walked in the room, I instantly noticed that there wasn't any diversity. I knew that this was where the career opportunities were.
I thought about our youth falling through the cracks and being disenfranchised and how could I expose them to the Tech/STEM space. That's when I conceptualized iUrban Teen. Six months later, we had our first summit on the campus of Washington State University in Vancouver in October 2011.
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| iUrban Teen is expanding in Houston, Texas |
What are the key offerings of iUrban Teen?
For the first several years we only coordinated our STEM Summits on college campuses and our STEM Industry Tours. Now we have a robust series of programs that include Coding, Technical Writing, GIS Mapping, Data Analytics, Digital Marketing, Civic Engagement and Public Speaking.
We encourage companies to walk their talk in diversifying tech, and look at our results. We have over 5,000 youth who have come through our programs. We are now in four states: Oregon (Portland); Washington (Seattle and southwest Washington); California (Bay Area and Los Angeles); and Texas (Houston). We have the pipeline of future tech workers. We’re creating a pathway for kids to pursue education and careers in science, engineering and technology.
Why is it important for youth of color to be exposed to the experiences that iUrban Teen offers?
We’re a career accelerator. We’re more than a coding program. We offer several opportunities for them to be exposed to different career paths in STEM.
I always say "You can't be it if you don't see it." The more exposure to a wide variety of fields can align youth into careers of their choice. And STEM careers will always be in demand so being exposed to STEM careers and understanding the stability of these careers is a huge benefit for these youth.
We don’t turn away any child. In our programs, we also serve many low-opportunity White youth and families that don’t have exposure to these opportunities. When you come to our events, you may see sign language interpreters for our Deaf youth. We provide accommodations for youth of all abilities to participate in iUrban programs.
More than six years into the project, what successes are you most proud of?
There are so many things that I'm proud of. I'm proud of myself for staying the course and expanding to other cities, I'm super proud that our program has helped so many teens realize that they "can" work in these spaces and thrive and who are now in college pursuing careers in STEM. That's priceless.
I’m proud of the fact that we’ve built a community of caring, a community of sharing information. Many of our youth start with us in middle school, and they stay with us until the end of their high school years. To see these youth graduate from high school, go to college, and come back to work with us as interns in the summer.
I am so proud of the young men that received scholarships from iUrban Teen. We fund these scholarships through the proceeds of our annual breakfast event honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
One of our main drivers is the active engagement of our parents and volunteers. Parents instinctively know that we are taking good care of their kids: that we are authentically trying to create that pathway for their careers in STEM. It’s quite the honor to have so many parents and families stay involved with our programs.
We even have parents who have gone back to school to learn a new trade or a new skill. They said they were inspired by what they learned at iUrban Teen.
What do you enjoy most about leading iUrban Teen?
I’m a social entrepreneur and a bridge-builder. I like being able to create unique opportunities for families and youth. Meeting the youth and their families and seeing that spark when we're shared something that piqued their interest. I call that the magic moment. My mother – whom I lost in 2010 – ingrained something in us. When we were growing up, she always told us that it doesn’t matter what material things you have. At your death bed, what matters the most is what you’ve done to help others. To me, this is my legacy.
What do you find most challenging?
What I find the most challenging is the lack of funding or support from some of these large tech companies who claim they're all for diversity.
Action speaks louder than words. I have their pipeline, so where's the support?
In 2013, I was recognized for my work iUrban Teen as a White House “Champion of Change” for Technology Inclusion. They asked us what our challenges were in advancing the work. I’m a woman of color working on a program that is making an impact in community, delivering results, yet I do not receive funding for running iUrban Teen. But I decided at that point that I will keep going no matter what. I did not want the lack of funding to stop us from doing what we do for our young people.
How do you incorporate your cultural background to leading the organization?
In most ethnic communities, we are a nurturing and collaborative people. Everything we do in iUrban Teen is collaborative. Our learning experiences for youth promote social and group learning: we’re interacting and telling stories, sharing our experiences. One of the programs we have, iSpeak, focuses on public speaking. We use a call and response model; we talk back. In a traditional public speaking program, the audience is quiet, often unresponsive, and provide their critique at the end. But in our program, we give instant feedback by praise or sharing a comment. It’s great to watch the kids light up when they know they’re on the right track, because they’re getting instant affirmation.
How can companies and organizations partner with iUrban Teen?
We always look for partners that gel well with what we're doing or trying to do and companies and help by allowing employees to volunteer with us, offer some desk space or us and finally become a sponsor.
More than tech companies, there are opportunities for companies to support our different tracks in energy, healthcare, environment, and more. There are many ways to become involved: they can support us by joining our Executive Councils in each of the cities that we operate in. They can provide STEM tours of their organization, or offer internships for our youth. Most importantly, they can help underwrite the program.
What exciting developments are coming up for iUrban Teen?
I'm really excited about our iTrades programs which expose youth to careers in the trades. I'm equally excited about our redrafting of our career and college readiness programs.
Besides the programs, we're also looking into expanding to cities in the South and East Coast. We have a lot of interest from other cities that want us to expand into their areas, such as Detroit, Phoenix, Denver, Brooklyn, Orlando, and Atlanta. We’ve been contacted by a small nonprofit in Kenya that wants to bring iUrban Teen there.
I am very excited about what the future holds for our kids, and I’m so proud and grateful for all the people who have been with us since we started.
iUrban Teen