MIAMI—June 26, 2014—Code Fever, a Miami-based nonprofit that helps high school students to code, learn and build technology within their communities, today announced a plan to increase coding and entrepreneurial training for local students and parents from low-income neighborhoods. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is supporting the Code Fever expansion with a grant of $75,000.

The program will provide several learning opportunities for high school students, including summer camps, weekend boot camps and courses during the school year.  Most of the Code Fever workshops will take place over the summer with four weekend boot camps and five normal workshops, ranging from two to eight weeks in duration. Code Fever will also create school courses for the 2014-15 academic year at five high schools in South Florida.

Code Fever is primarily geared toward students between the ages of 13-21 from underserved neighborhoods. Monthly training is also offered to parents to provide them with new skills and help them actively engage on technology topics at home.  Through the program, students are given the opportunity to learn about software development, Web and mobile app development, user experience and testing, interface design, project management and social media strategies. They are also given pitch training in investment or marketing and attend a demo day with community leaders and potential investors.

Code Fever aims to close the technology education gap among low-income neighborhoods across Miami. The nonprofit also hopes to diversify the community of active entrepreneurs in Miami and introduce students to technology career paths.

“Building a community of entrepreneurs that reflects the diversity of our city is essential to making Miami more of a place where ideas are built,” said Matt Haggman, Knight Foundation program director for Miami. “Code Fever is advancing this goal through programs that engage people to build their own futures and the future of their city.”

“At Code Fever we’ve merged technology and entrepreneurship in our programs to shift the mindset of young African-American and Caribbean adults from technology consumers to technology innovators and community change agents,” said Felicia Hatcher, Code Fever co-founder. “Our sole objective is for the students to have something tangible to walk away with at the end of our programs, be prepared to fill tech positions or create tech jobs, see tech in every industry, and influence conversations at home and in organizations.”

Hatcher and Derick Pearson founded Code Fever in April 2013. In 2011 both were named to the Empact100 list of Top 100 Entrepreneurs under 30 and honored at the White House. Hatcher was recently honored as an African-American STEM Champion of Change. Pearson and Hatcher also founded Black Tech Miami Meetup Group and Feverish Ice Cream.

The expansion of Code Fever programs forms one part of Knight Foundation’s efforts to invest in Miami’s emerging innovators and entrepreneurs as a tool to build community, while fostering talent and opportunity. Over the past 18 months Knight has made more than 50 investments in entrepreneurship in South Florida. 

For more information on Code Fever and to apply to the program please visit: codefevermiami.com

About Code Fever

Code Fever is a nonprofit committed to getting our communities up to code.  The mission of Code Fever is to inspire more underserved minority students between the ages of 13 to 21 to code, build and create technology enterprises within their communities, close the gap in technology education, and become leaders in STEM fields by increasing the number of young startup founders. For more, visit www.CodeFeverMiami.com

About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. The foundation believes that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For more, visit www.KnightFoundation.org.

CONTACTS:

Derick Pearson, Co-Founder, Code Fever, 305-482-1832 [email protected]

Anusha Alikhan, Director of Communications, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, 305-908, 2677, [email protected]