Girl Geek X’s new partnership with Oakland Public Education Fund in adopting Coliseum College Prep Academy (CCPA) provides valuable experiences for Girl Geek X community volunteers to engage with the local school community. Join the Girl Geek X email list to be notified of future events.

By Angie Chang

When I was in high school, I didn’t have any industry role models. Most students didn’t go to a four-year college. School projects are valuable learning experiences and invaluable project-management and time-management exercises. Team work is a foundational building block for future success.

CCPA high school students experienced the journey of an entrepreneur building their minimum viable product (ideating, running surveys and customer interviews to validate assumptions, performing competitive analysis, building wireframes, managing features, and launching apps with native app builder Thunkable) as their Senior Capstone Projects.

As high school students, they likely do not know tech jargon. This is where industry mentors from companies across the San Francisco Bay Area come in to share their affirmative experiences and say hey, you’re not too far off from doing what the “professionals” and “techies” do at work.

Today’s presentations of students apps in Portable 2 focused on climate change (student education), shelter needs (items most in need at shelters), and healthcare (providing resources for free or low cost services when possible to low income and/or non-English speaking communities).

Volunteers attended student presentations and reinforced educator feedback by asking questions of the students presentations. Where did the data come from? Have you considered this additional use case? Why did this require building a native mobile app, versus just using Facebook to achieve your stated objectives?

After the presentations, Girl Geek X volunteers introduced themselves to the students. Marilyn works in user experience with a background in computer science, Katie is a Data Analyst at Playstation, James is a project manager, etc.

I talked about the thousands of early-stage startups that are great entry points (versus the big tech brands) for people new to tech. Together, we painted a picture of a diverse slate of roles in tech – filled by people of various education backgrounds.

We are excited to wrap up our first year with our “adopted” school CCPA in East Oakland with the Oakland Education Fund partnership, and excited for the next year!

This guest blog post was written by Girl Geek X community volunteer Annie Chang.

Upon arriving at CCPA’s auditorium for a debriefing for Girl Geek X volunteers to learn about their roles in participating for Senior Capstone Presentation Day, we divided into groups for rounds of presentations, questions, and answers — as well as areas of growth and strength. CCPA instructors guided Girl Geek X volunteers to their classrooms for demos of senior projects.

For their capstone presentations, students were asked to identify a problem within their Oakland and local communities. Breaking out into small groups allowed students to experience teamwork, collaboration and participation. This is the culmination of three separate classes with educators.

Kicking off presentations in Portable 2, students present “Journie” — their response to identifying the mental health issue of having writing therapy and access to counselors. After enthusiastic questions and answers, student and programmer Armando Figueroa was asked what was the greatest lesson learned after a year-long process of group work. He responded enthusiastically: “Time waits for nobody.” Resoundingly, the group agreed their pain points were time management and communication.

Next, M n As Team presented their app “Sobriety Companion” impressively. After presenting statistics about populations suffering from substance abuse disorder, they noted that participants leaving a rehab treatment program have a 40-60% chance of relapse.

The relapse-prevention app comprehensively offered a daily pledge, progress tracker ((counting sobriety time), learn from others page, and a map consisting of the nearest Alcoholics Anonymous / Narcotics Anonymous / Methamphetamine Anonymous self-help 12-step meetings as well as links to rehab treatment centers. When asked about areas of growth, students admitted to being prone to procrastination and hastily finishing tasks last-minute.

P.A.R.T.E. demoed their app “Mental Evolution” containing features such as a mood journal, map, calendar and community space (for sharing content based on mental wellness challenges). This group used Google Forms to create a survey of their communities and decided to focus their target demographic of low-income communities.

Girl Geek X volunteers got to see wireframes of early mockups of the app and after Q&As, students were asked what was the highlight of working on their capstone project. The ladies enthusiastically noted their affinity for group work, team work and collaboration, and cited their strong communication skills as well as alignment of values.

You can still register to volunteer on Thursday, January 25th, 2024 (5:30pm-7:30pm) at CCPA high school in East Oakland with Girl Geek X to attend Senior Expo – give feedback and support to students on their final presentations and action plans for the semester!

Girl Geek X’s partnership with Oakland Public Education Fund in adopting Coliseum College Prep Academy (CCPA) provides valuable experiences for Girl Geek X community volunteers to engage with the local school community. Join the Girl Geek X email list to be notified of future events.