The Blurgh

As I mentioned in our “About Us” page, my mom works in the software development arena here in the city. Before my family moved back to Pittsburgh, she was a technology consultant in the DC area, and the organization she worked for focused especially on helping non-profits in education. The main push for my family moving back was a job offer from an organization in Pittsburgh that some of her friends had started. It’s called Breaking Down the Digital Divide (B3D), and it’s mission is just that. For a long time, Pittsburgh was a very divided city, the schools were struggling, and as usually happens in those situations, the children who needed the most help were the ones getting left behind. B3D recognized that it was vitally important for the most disadvantaged children to learn the skills needed in the digital world, and the founders were sick of waiting for other people to do something about it.

The foundation was originally built on the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program, which by the end of the first decade of the century was having major success bringing technology to children in other countries. Through a number of grants and seed money, B3D was able to purchase a large number of XO’s, hire a handful of instructors, and secure agreements with community organizations in Pittsburgh’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods. The model of the program was to build apprenticeship programs housed in neighborhood community centers to train the kids over a number of years in all the fundamentals of computing, and then to continue by offering specialized programs in computer repair, software development, or web development. Upon completion, the students would be trained and certified, and could either enter the workforce or go onto advanced studies in universities.

After the success of the program during the first few years, Pittsburgh Public Schools became closely involved, and the local universities started offering scholarships to graduates. The program also grew to include several buildings used solely for training, and just recently a complex of 4 buildings was built right in the heart of the Centre Avenue Technology Corridor in the Hill District. My mom is now in charge of the software development apprenticeship track, and she says it’s the best job she’s ever had.

The impact of the program, although small at first, has been tremendous. As the first students graduated from the program, many of them stayed in the area to go on to college or to start their own small businesses. Year after year, more and more kids have followed the same path, and these kids have really become the core of the growing tech community in Pittsburgh. And, as often happens, creative and talented people tend to congregate in the same place, which has helped the Hill District become Pittsburgh’s Silicon Valley. I’ve even heard some people recently refer to it as “Silicon Hill,” which I think is funny because silicon isn’t used in computers anymore! I guess old habits never die…