This Woman Is Teaching Youth How To Start And Run Billion-Dollar Tech Startups  – Essence

Research shows that Black youth in the US have the aptitude for STEM professions in their adulthood, but they do not follow that path due to lack of early exposure.

Not on Danae Mobley’s watch.

She runs Coded By Kids, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that prepares teens for careers as tech sectors leaders, either in the c-suite or at the helm of their own startups. What sets them apart from other youth-focused STEM organizations with the same mission is their commitment to sticking by their participants from end-to-end.

Article continues after video.

“For us, we always talk about ourselves as a depth and not a breadth organization,” Danae tells ESSENCE. “A lot of the time, you’ll see people that have exposure activities. It’s like a one-time event where, Oh, it’s a million kids that I’m teaching how to code for one Saturday. That does not make long-term systemic change.”

She explains that Coded By Kids is designed to function as a pipeline program, or a “funnel.”

“We know that if you want to have a student that wants to become, let’s say, a digital citizen that can really participate in a robust digital economy, it would take a number of touch points along a pathway to do that. It would start with high-quality education from K to 12. It would look like constant and consistent mentorship. It would look like professional opportunities. It would look like networking. So, we structure our pathway as such.”

At the top of that funnel is traditional yet immersive education in which participants are taught tech concepts like product development, UI/UX design, and software development. The students help them foster relationships with local tech experts, industry partners and mentors that will walk alongside them long after they complete their studies. 

Founded by Danae’s husband Sylvester Mobley in 2014, this June marked the organization’s 10th anniversary. To commemorate the occasion, Coded By Kids became Coded By to underscore the nonprofit’s commitment to ensuring its participants’ success at any age.

Article continues after video.

As a part of the shift, the organization expanded its reach to larger age range of students, specifically helping young adults ages 16-24 launch into their careers. 

Despite being around for a decade, a tough feat particularly in the nonprofit sector, Danae says her ambition feels as fresh as ever.

“As a former educator myself, I think I remain personal mission aligned with so many things that were core to the purpose of the organization,” she tells ESSENCE. “Educating students, making sure they reach their potential, that’s what keeps me going despite all the challenges I come up against as a Black woman heading up something like this. I’m not a technologist by any stretch of the imagination, but anything that helps me answer the questions of how do I shape someone’s potential and help them grow drive the mission forward.

To date, Coded By has helped hundreds of alums matriculate into viable, top-earning tech careers–but Danae says that’s only a part of the organization’s overall plan.

“Tech is just that conduit,” Danae says. “It’s just the mechanism by which they’re able to figure out how to build wealth. We are very bullish about making sure that the ceiling for our students is not just any job, any employment. So many of the programs that we see are happy enough with just getting Black and Brown children just in the door. Just anything is good enough. We wanted to be different where we said however far you want to go, that’s what we’ll prepare you to do. We’re not going to set your destination for you or limit you in a way just because someone wants to check a box on a workforce development program. We’re going to make sure that if you want to be an entrepreneur, you can build your own thing. You are fully capable of doing so. So, let’s figure out how we get you there. We’ve always set the bar at leadership and entrepreneurship, because if you fail to meet that, you still succeeded if you are a VP or a director of UX or a developer. There’s still a whole bunch of success along that pathway, but we’re not going to tell you that the ceiling is here at employment because we believe our kids can do so much more.”