Tech Year NYC
Tech:NYC’s new public-private partnership with the City
Over the past two years, more than 100 Tech:NYC member companies and partners have worked with 3,000+ students through Summer Bridge, a first-of-its-kind project-based learning experience to expose NYC youth to job opportunities in technology. In 5-week long workplace challenge projects that set out to expose students to principles in design, engineering, product, or marketing jobs. Student participants have acquired important job readiness skills, explored new possibilities for their career paths, and even secured full-time internships at tech companies.
Tech Year NYC builds upon the success of our past programming to roll up all citywide workforce development programming into one unified access point that benefits both NYC youth and tech employers. It helps young adults contextualize the unique aspects of the tech industry & their career journey by incorporating:
Industry exposure (open houses, CS fair, hackathons, attending tech events)
Job readiness (hiring panels, job shadowing, workplace challenge)
Storytelling & professional skill-building (resume workshops, interview prep)
REGISTER HERE TO PARTICIPATE IN TECH YEAR NYC!
OUR AUDIENCE
Tech Year NYC works with high school juniors & seniors and college freshmen & sophomores (~16 - 26 years old) with a potential interest in working in tech (not exclusive to coding jobs) but with little prior exposure to the industry, targeting groups typically under-represented in tech industry jobs. Our goal is to support 1,000 students this summer through our pilot program, with 500 students continuing through the fall and spring programming.
The summer workplace challenge initiative will prioritize low-income, justice-involved, foster care, runaway and homeless, NYCHA residents and young adults from communities hit hardest by the pandemic throughout New York City. In past years, demographics of youths participating in the Summer Youth Employment Program included a gender breakdown of 43% male and 57% female, a racial makeup of 44% Black; 25% Latino/a; 15% White; 12% Asian; and 4% Other. Young people ages 14 to 24 may participate, but more than two-thirds are ages 16 to 19. Therefore, employers should prepare for rising juniors, seniors and college aged youth who may or may not have had any prior exposure to technical concepts.
EMPLOYER ENGAGEMENT OPPORTUNITIES
Throughout the year, we invite employers to participate in a variety of opportunities to engage with youth in the NYC tech industry. Many of these programs draw upon successful partnerships with city organizations and nonprofits: Tech Year NYC acts as a bridge between the tech industry and the myriad of programming opportunities available to engage NYC’s youth.
Current opportunities for employer partners and individual volunteers to engage include:
Summer: Host a 5-week long employer-led workplace challenge for students
Fall: Host an open house at your company to invite students to visit your office
Winter/Spring: Host a cohort of students for a one-day job shadowing program
Ongoing: Host or participate in a workshop or tech event for students, including:
Hosting a meetup at your company
Hiring panels
Mock interviews (technical and non-technical)
Resume workshops