National Volunteer Month
April is National Volunteer Month, but We’re Thankful Every Month!
By Jill Van Oostenburg, Director of Student Experiences and Sarah DeLong, Program Manager, Nextech
Jon Moore, product design principal at Innovatemap, shows companies how to solve problems with tech solutions. More importantly (to us, anyway), he gives young people firsthand insight into the opportunities a career in tech can provide.
He’s a Nextech volunteer. We call people like Jon, who are so generous with their time and talent, experience makers. They jolt students out of apathy or uncertainty about their future by sharing real stories from their own lives and careers. They put a face on a tech future that no amount of lecturing could do.
We’ve learned over the years that most students hear about the range of careers in tech through Nextech programs. One of the students we feature on our website is Christian H., a Nextech Catapult program participant, and he told us this: “Nextech gives us an opportunity to learn in ways schools can’t offer and connects us to Indy’s tech community in ways that can help set up our future.”
We strive to elevate technical, critical-thinking and problem-solving skills of K-12 students and ultimately inspire young people from all backgrounds to pursue careers in technology. We aren’t exaggerating when we say we couldn’t do this without our experience makers.
The evolving tech world is constantly generating new jobs and changing existing ones. It’s also yielding new information that students and teachers should be exposed to. As a small nonprofit, we couldn’t possibly supply (and keep up with) the depth and range of tech expertise our students need and, frankly, crave. Neither could already-overworked K-12 teachers. Too many kids are missing out on fundamental technology skills they’ll need in the future (or need already). We simply refuse to be another institution that lets them down.
The only way to meet their needs is with people outside of Nextech who have firsthand knowledge in the tech industry. We are extremely grateful for the data scientists, web developers, game designers, software engineers and so many others who willingly share their time and talent to create experiences for our students.
These experience makers are everywhere you see Nextech. They participate in professional development sessions for teachers. They speak to students during our programs and conferences that are tailored directly to Hoosier high school students, such as Catapult and Navigate. They judge competitions like CSforGood, which asks K-12 students to create apps and websites to solve a problem in their community, and we need tech professionals who can tell us if what’s submitted might work.
Professionals also teach resume writing, career readiness and job literacy skills. Many oversee internships at their places of business; after one mentorship with StudioScience, a student who had thought he wanted to be a software developer took a new path and is now a designer at a large company—at age 22!
We have some highly involved experience makers who just really heighten engagement among youth. We also have passionate education partners—adults and students—who help us recruit students and teachers from inside schools. In the tech community, our partners lead students on company tours, then talk about the industry landscape, their competitors, etc.
And these interactions leave a huge impact on students, thanks to experience makers within those companies. At a volunteer-led tour of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the kids met drivers and held an IndyCar steering wheel and tire. Eskenazi Health gave us a biomedicine engineering tour. At Republic Airways, the kids sat in training airplanes and got to work in the simulator. These kinds of opportunities generate excitement (and plenty of selfies) in students’ minds about a possible future in tech.
Bottom Line: We Can’t Live Without You
We could list so many other examples of how vital experience makers are to our vision to unleash student potential to thrive in the digital economy. We hope it’s apparent that we cannot be Nextech without volunteers … and we’ll never be able to thank you enough.
Join the Nextech Family – Become an Experience Maker! See the opportunities and sign up now.
Jon Moore, product design principal at Innovatemap, shows companies how to solve problems with tech solutions. More importantly (to us, anyway), he gives young people firsthand insight into the opportunities a career in tech can provide.
He’s a Nextech volunteer. We call people like Jon, who are so generous with their time and talent, experience makers. They jolt students out of apathy or uncertainty about their future by sharing real stories from their own lives and careers. They put a face on a tech future that no amount of lecturing could do.
We’ve learned over the years that most students hear about the range of careers in tech through Nextech programs. One of the students we feature on our website is Christian H., a Nextech Catapult program participant, and he told us this: “Nextech gives us an opportunity to learn in ways schools can’t offer and connects us to Indy’s tech community in ways that can help set up our future.”
We strive to elevate technical, critical-thinking and problem-solving skills of K-12 students and ultimately inspire young people from all backgrounds to pursue careers in technology. We aren’t exaggerating when we say we couldn’t do this without our experience makers.
The evolving tech world is constantly generating new jobs and changing existing ones. It’s also yielding new information that students and teachers should be exposed to. As a small nonprofit, we couldn’t possibly supply (and keep up with) the depth and range of tech expertise our students need and, frankly, crave. Neither could already-overworked K-12 teachers. Too many kids are missing out on fundamental technology skills they’ll need in the future (or need already). We simply refuse to be another institution that lets them down.
The only way to meet their needs is with people outside of Nextech who have firsthand knowledge in the tech industry. We are extremely grateful for the data scientists, web developers, game designers, software engineers and so many others who willingly share their time and talent to create experiences for our students.
These experience makers are everywhere you see Nextech. They participate in professional development sessions for teachers. They speak to students during our programs and conferences that are tailored directly to Hoosier high school students, such as Catapult and Navigate. They judge competitions like CSforGood, which asks K-12 students to create apps and websites to solve a problem in their community, and we need tech professionals who can tell us if what’s submitted might work.
Professionals also teach resume writing, career readiness and job literacy skills. Many oversee internships at their places of business; after one mentorship with StudioScience, a student who had thought he wanted to be a software developer took a new path and is now a designer at a large company—at age 22!
We have some highly involved experience makers who just really heighten engagement among youth. We also have passionate education partners—adults and students—who help us recruit students and teachers from inside schools. In the tech community, our partners lead students on company tours, then talk about the industry landscape, their competitors, etc.
And these interactions leave a huge impact on students, thanks to experience makers within those companies. At a volunteer-led tour of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the kids met drivers and held an IndyCar steering wheel and tire. Eskenazi Health gave us a biomedicine engineering tour. At Republic Airways, the kids sat in training airplanes and got to work in the simulator. These kinds of opportunities generate excitement (and plenty of selfies) in students’ minds about a possible future in tech.
Bottom Line: We Can’t Live Without You
We could list so many other examples of how vital experience makers are to our vision to unleash student potential to thrive in the digital economy. We hope it’s apparent that we cannot be Nextech without volunteers … and we’ll never be able to thank you enough.
Join the Nextech Family – Become an Experience Maker! See the opportunities and sign up now.
