Giving Back to the Education System That Gave Me A Career
Yesterday, my high school Facebook group blew up with chatter about a group of middle school kids from my home town, Green Forest, Arkansas who had published an iOS app. Apparently, these kids got together in their school computer lab and developed this app collaboratively. They even scored some coverage from a local television station.
Having grown up and graduated high school in this economically depressed area, I was blown away with what these kids accomplished. I cannot imagine myself having achieved as much with the meager computer resources we had back in 1993. I want to help encourage their curiosity, reward their determination and assist anyway I can with their technical education.
The kids have expressed an interest in porting their app to Windows Phone and Android, So I am attempting to put together a programming knowledge and tools care package to send to their computer lab that will give them a leg up on modern programming techniques, languages and tooling. A grab bag of things to explore if you will.
I have reached out to a few contacts at Microsoft and O'Reilly. But would love to cast as huge a net as possible. Think you can help? I would love to hear from authors who would like to contribute copies of their books, screencast authors who want to donate their videos and companies who would like to donate their software. Shoot me a message and let's blow the minds of some awesome kids together. We can encourage five kids to pursue their dreams when it means the most.