Jobs in technology are in high demand, especially in New Orleans. To help generate interest in technology, New Orleans Tech hosted the second Teen Tech Day on Saturday March 3rd at Delgado Community College. I had the pleasure of participate in Teen Tech Day, which was an amazing experience for everyone involved. Although I missed out on lunch from Theo’s Pizza, I did participate in the closest game of Taboo ever. For those of you who are not familiar with Taboo, the goal is to guess a word without using the word itself or five additional words listed on the card. All the kids had a great deal of passion and tried very hard to win the game. In an incredibly exciting turn of events, the game even went into double over time, but unfortunately my team lost. Kindle Fires were raffled away to members of the winning team.
After the raffle, my group and I watched a great presentation by Jeremy of Jam Creative who fired the kids up about graphic design and producing web sites. Jeremy used Prezi to show off some of his latest work for the New Movement Theater and some of the other web sites he had done for clients in the past. Following that presentation, New Orleans’ chief technology officer Allen Square Jr. spoke inspiringly about his experience in technology and the potential for future growth for prospective technology workers. At a critical point in the talk, Allen told the kids how he had plenty of jobs to give, but not enough people to take them. Much to the surprise of the listeners, he said through immersion in computer skills you can learn what is needed for a job in technology without a formal education.
Even more prizes were given away at the end of Teen Tech Day and the kids got gift bags, which had Teen Tech Day themed goods. I could truly tell that this
event had a positive impact on these kids and definitely encouraged their interest in technology. Technology is growing more important by the year and New Orleans is becoming a technological hot spot; Teen Tech Day surely will inspire kids to seek a career in technology.