By Kimetha Hill
Contributing Writer
Internal drive. Something that is within all of us, but for the future of tomorrow – our youth today – is something that needs to be nurtured, cultivated and groomed. The youth of today are bright, eager and ready to learn, but may sometimes need that extra push in pursuing their dreams. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) careers are growing at twice the national average. However, only one in ten high schools offer computer science courses, so students aren’t getting prepared. This means that over one million STEM positions will be unfilled by the year 2020. Enter iD Tech.
Short for internalDrive, iD began in a studio garage overlooking Silicon Valley sixteen years ago and ran with a simple goal: to provide students with high-energy, hands-on technology education in a summer camp setting. In a world with ever-changing technology, iD Tech Camps work to innovate students and give them the tools they need to be successful.
Over the past few years the push to drive students of color, particularly African American students into STEM studies has been urgent. And with the job market in these fields wide open, coupled with unlimited potential, bringing African American students into iD Tech Camp settings is imperative.
iD Tech holds youth programs at some of the top university campuses to encourage students to pursue post-secondary education, putting them above the fray in an increasingly competitive job market. Fusing traditional summer camp with visionary technology programs to create a unique and effective educational experience, students who attend iD Tech Camps gain a STEM-based learning experience unlike any other.
Students between ages 7 – 17 engage in weeklong day and overnight technology camps, and 2-week Tech Academies for teens ages 13-18. Traditionally, iD Tech Camps have been held at universities including Stanford, UCLA, Princeton, and MIT. But this year, iD has expanded into the San Diego region and welcomes students to the UC San Marcos and UC San Diego camp sites.
Innovative, challenging and most of all fun describe the classes and experiences students are exposed to at iD Tech Camps. And running on five pillars – Passion, Trust, Innovation, Fun and Inclusion – iD is chock full of tech-savvy instructors, social interaction and peer-to-peer collaboration, allowing students to take on new projects in a creative, out-of-the-box way.
Each iD location boasts hand-selected staff, a unique campus experience, and stimulating course curriculum delivered in small clusters of 8 students per instructor. Each summer camp season is loaded with brand new, real-world curriculum and professional software from Adobe®, Apple®, Microsoft®, and other industry leaders.
Today, iD Tech Camps hold the highest enrollment of all tech camps across the nation and globally. And it is their mission to continue to “spark the internalDrive” of youth everywhere.
For more information, please visit www.idtech.com.
