Senior Organizer Joe Conte and Data Organizer Ari Trujillo-Robnett teamed up with Urban TxT last weekend for hack-a-thon. URBAN Teens eXploring Technology (URBAN TxT) is an organization that encourages inner city teens to become catalysts of change. They have hosted several hack days in the past and have an annual summer program to turn teens into tech pioneers.

On April 13th, URBAN TxT hosted the South LA Hack-A-Thon, geared towards teaching youth about programming, coding, web design, web development, social media and data management. Ari and Joe spent the day working with the teenage participants.

Ari Trujillo-Robnett was excited to help the students understand how data collection works and why it's important for building community. She explained, "someone put me in front of a spreadsheet when I was 17 and that's how I got here. I want to help you have the same opportunity." 

Ari worked with Mario Navarro - a high school junior who really enjoys being involved in URBAN TxT. He thinks of the program as a "pathway to opportunities" and was empowered knowing that "people believe that we can do this."

Joe said it was really impressive to see how passionate URBAN TxT was about making their website a hub for community. They want it to be a community resource that can easily grow and evolve. To that end, Joe helped them transfer their content over to NationBuilder. The new site is still under construction. 

In the photo to the right, a teen shows Joe Conte the video game he developed using Scratch. 

We're looking forward to continuing to work with URBAN TxT to help them fulfill their mission.