A couple weeks ago I had the privilege to visit the Chicago Technology Academy, just a couple miles from Obtiva's office. (Thanks to Webitects for inviting me to come with them.) ChicagoTech is a Chicago Public High School with an emphasis on technology and entrepreneurship. Students do not get "selected" into the school, instead it's based on a lottery, so the school has a full spectrum of academic achievement. I was totally inspired by my afternoon there with Matt Hancock and his crew. I had the pleasure of observing freshmen working on HTML, and sophomores developing a mobile app for the Windows phone. It definitely got me thinking about what their juniors and seniors should focus on in the years ahead. (Since they just started in the fall of 2009, they only have freshmen and sophomores at this point.) Being in that school made me feel like a square peg in a square hole. Before I was a software developer, I was a child and family therapist, and I'm definitely interested in continuing to work with young people in the future. One of my goals for 2011 is to find a way to stretch Obtiva's apprenticeship program toward less experienced software developers, and after a few conversations with Matt Hancock, it feels like ChicagoTech could be the right place to start. Currently, we're discussing some limited job shadowing, having practitioners from Obtiva speak periodically at the school, and participating in a monthly mentoring program. The icing on the cake is that ChicagoTech is so nearby. Obtiva has always been about local people working in their local communities, and it's clear to me that ChicagoTech will become Obtiva's hometown high school.
