We Are the City Spotlight on Mission Bit

By Christina Ortega, Executive Director of Mission Bit

Mission Bit has been providing free project-based computer science (CS) education in San Francisco since 2013. Mission Bit offers a variety of introductory coding workshops and semester-long courses for students to choose from depending on their interests. We teach Web Design, Python, JavaScript, Unity 3D Game Design, and Virtual Reality classes using the Oculus 2 headset. We equip our students with the most up-to-date curriculum and technology to ensure they are learning key 21st-century skills on industry-leading devices.

Our five core values (community, love, accountability, social justice, and smart risks) are incorporated into our curriculum, providing students with the opportunity to use their new skills to create projects that have a social impact. Many times our students create a resource website to help out their peers or a game that brings awareness to local issues, such as food deserts. Being able to instill an entrepreneurial mindset in our youth is instrumental for their futures, as we want them to see themselves as a producer, not just a consumer.

Low enrollment in CS coursework among Black and Latinx students continues to be a problem at the school level. We hope to inspire more Black and Latinx students to explore a career in tech and create a more diverse tech workforce through our after-school program offerings. We believe that our youth deserve the chance to gain the skills needed to compete in the ever-growing industry.

Mission Bit was fortunate enough to utilize the Shelter in Place period — during which we canceled our spring semester in 2020 — to restructure our curriculum for online learning and expand both our workshop and semester course offerings. We have since gone from having just two workshop offerings to sixteen, and three class offerings to six. Since we started offering our workshops and courses remotely, we’ve been able to double our reach.

In response to COVID-19 and ensuring that our students were not facing any outside barriers that would prevent them from being successful in our courses, we added a whole-child approach to our programming. This consists of weekly check-ins by our staff with every student in our program to provide referral services to food, mental health resources, tutoring, etc. This whole-child approach works to ensure that all of our students’ developmental needs are met, and as a way of advancing equity and ensuring that all participants can reach their full potential.

We envision a hybrid model for the future of our programming. We have found that many students felt more comfortable taking our courses online, as they have not had to travel to and from different neighborhoods at night, especially during daylight savings time and the new later end time at school.

As a San Francisco native, I could not agree more that San Francisco is a unique and great place to grow up. Living in a city that many people dream of visiting can at times be taken for granted. We have so many beautiful sights and neighborhoods rich with history and culture. I grew up in the Mission District, and although it is far from what it was 15 years ago, I still feel at home passing by all the longtime shops that have been able to survive the pandemic, fruiterias, and my favorite bakery on the corner of 18th and Mission. The work that we do at Mission Bit is exceptionally important, because I want our youth to be a part of the tech boom so that they can afford to remain in this beautiful city.

San Francisco can support children, youth, and their families and ensure their success by providing them with information about programs they may have not known about. There are still many residents in low-income communities that lack access and information to the vast amount of resources available in the City.

I also believe that we need to encourage youth to take a leap and try something new. I can only imagine how overwhelming it can be for some youth to choose from the large number of resources that exist in the City, and we need to make sure they know that it’s important to take advantage of these opportunities. Sometimes all someone needs is an extra nudge or help filling out an application in order for them to excel.

At Mission Bit, we believe that the future holds more opportunities for our youth to gain exposure to the newest technologies. We hope to see the city open back up again, and to be able to take our students on field trips to local tech companies so that they can envision themselves working there in the future. It has been exceptionally hard on our youth these past two years with virtual learning and the lack of in-person activities. We’re excited to begin securing some field trips for our summer program…stay tuned!

Check out this video from Saray Mendoza, a graduate of Mission Bit’s Intro to Web Design course. Saray shows her professional WFH setup, encourages everyone to expand their horizons, and shares her experience at Mission Bit.