Tech Corps and BDPA Partner to Encourage Interest and Engagement in Technology at the Elementary School Level

The organization BDPA (formerly known as Black Data Processing Associates) announced a partnership with Tech Corps to teach hands-on skills to elementary age students. 

“We are realizing that we share the same goal and because of resources being scarce, we are finding ways to work together,” says Wayne Hicks, executive director of BDPA’s Education and Technology Foundation.

Tech Corps was established in 1995 and in recent years launched TechieClub, which targets students in grades three to five. National director Lisa Chambers said they realized the need to engage students well before their teen years.

“If we wait to try to capture kids until high school, we have less of a population to capture because so many of them have already fallen out of interest," she said.

Since 2009, 100 elementary schools have implemented the program and more than 500 students from a variety of backgrounds have participated.

Tech Corps, whose national headquarters are in Central Ohio, also engages ethnic minorities and girls by partnering with the National Society of Black Engineers. 

Currently the Tech Corps and Black Engineers junior chapter provides young girls with technology training their schools don’t offer.

For more on this story, see the report from CNN.