In a City Marked By Low Economic Mobility, One University Hopes to Build a ‘Tech Pipeline’

For Terik Tidwell, teaching kids to code is not about algorithms or apps—it’s about economic mobility. Tidwell is director of STEM innovation at Johnson C. Smith University, an historically-black college situated in the heart of Charlotte, NC. The city is marked by contradiction: On one hand, the place is booming, home to the headquarters of Bank of America and an emerging start-up scene. But a recent analysis scored Charlotte worst for economic mobility in a survey of the nation’s 50 largest cities, with pockets of concentrated poverty cut off from the rich opportunities just around the corner. Tidwell sees coding as a key bridge—a way to open kids’ eyes to a way of thinking, and a world of job opportunities. “We see a lot of students are not going into computer science—they don't know about computer science,” says Tidwell. “I had one student a year or so ago who gave me feedback. I said why didn't you think about computer science? She's like, ‘I never thought of it. I didn't have it in high school. I didn't have any tech things.’” The university is working to change that. Just this month it scored $1.8 million in grants—from the U.S. Department of Education and from the Kenan Charitable Trust—for a K-16 initiative to expose kids in nearby schools and at the university to computer science and entrepreneurship. Tidwell talked with EdSurge about the effort during a recent conference at Stanford University for leaders of campus innovation efforts.