WeHack Southeast Cities Inspires Young Future Coders

Mentorship makes an impact.

At AT&T, we know the impact a mentor can make. In less than 4 years, our employees completed 1 million hours of mentoring through the Aspire Mentoring Academy. We worked with organizations through the year to provide exposure to tech careers in their communities.

We also hosted the WeHack/Southeast Cities Civic Hackathon with the Southern California Latino Policy Center and Sabio. More than 250 people participated. Both professional and non-professional teams won about $7,000 in prizes.

“Experiences like this will bring more young people in our communities into tech,” says Adriana Martinez, director of External Affairs for AT&T in California. “These opportunities expose not just students, but all people to careers and opportunities in STEM.”

WeHack challenges programmers to work on software solutions that address everyday challenges of Southeast residents: long workday commutes, affordable child care, healthy eating choices and parking.

Co-founders, and husband and wife, Gregorio Rojas and Liliana Aide Monge say it was critical to come to Southeast Los Angeles.

“I’m from South Gate. I care about this community. [It’s] primarily Latino, and we want to make sure that more Latinos are involved in tech,” said Monge.

16-year old Adamaris Maldonado was one of the students at the 3-day hack-a-thon.

“I love playing video games. I want to create my own video game someday and inspire other girls to do the same,” Maldonado said.

Learn more about WeHack at http://www.wehack.us/.