“When you look at the statistics on African-American males and Hispanics combined in the tech industry since the last seven years it has been 2 percent,” Jared Arms, founder and CEO of Kylar.io, said. “We haven’t really had an economical revolution for African Americans, especially on the global standpoint. So to get children prepared and suited for the future, we are getting them prepared today with the skills.”
On May 17 St. Louis police officers were joined with tech companies such as Pixel Press and Kylar.io to visit the Boys & Girls Clubs of St. Louis. They used video gaming as a vehicle to provide information, create exposure, and interest toward high tech careers in video game design, code programming, web development, mobile app development, and cyber security
“In today’s society technology kind of rules, and I think STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math, are things that will lead to help you to get a better job as you move forward,” said Josh Stevens, developer at Pixel Press.
“I think there are so many cool products and so many things out there for teaching STEM. Bloxels is a platform that allows kids of any age to create their own video games, tell their own stories. Something that is near and dear to our heart is allowing kids of all ages to have an outlet to tell their own stories. That’s what Bloxels is all about.”
Lieutenant Latricia Allen is commander of the Community Engagement/Organizational Development Division and a 27-year veteran of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. She and her officers were present at the Boys & Girls Club event to help.
“We do a lot of work here with the community engagement division, and we want to do more. They contacted us and asked if we would be interested, and of course I jumped on the opportunity. I gathered all these officers, and these are the officers that want to be here. They volunteered to help with this program.”
She said that involving police officers taught the youth something in addition to tech skills.
“The kids are learning the human side of officers. I think it’s great that they understand that we are humans, we have families, and we want to understand them as well,” she said.
“Even in building games, there is a conversation that happens. Naturally a lot of kids say, ‘Have you ever pulled your gun before?’ But to explain that, ‘Yes, I have, but I have not hurt anyone,’ they just have a sigh of relief.”
If students want to continue their game developing experience and learn more about software engineering, Kylar.io has a tech camp coming up this July. It will be held at St. Louis Community College – Florissant Valley from noon to 2 p.m. every Saturday for four weeks. They also have a workforce program and offer paid internships.
“Students can learn how to make apps, websites, cryptocurrency, search engines, and video games,” said Arms. “We partner with 60 companies across the nation. The paid internship has a certification at the end. So they come through the tech camp, go through the internship, get some money, get the certification, and then we can help them get hired in a more high-paid tech job in the future.”
For more information, visit https://www.kylar.io.
