At California’s San Quentin Prison, inmates are intensely concentrating on the project at hand: learning the vast world of computer coding and programming.
That’s right, prison inmates now have the opportunity to learn computer skills and develop a business model that can be used upon their release. According to Fast Co. Exist, inmates are enrolled in Code 7370 for six months, a class brought to San Quentin by the nonprofit The Last Mile that teaches inmates about the world of business and entrepreneurship. The class is very selective, with only 18 of 100 applicants accepted.
Class meets four days a week, for eight hours each day, and during that time, inmates learn the ins-and-outs of Javascript, CSS and HTML. Their three instructors are from the San Francisco boot camp Hack Reactor and teach in-person or virtual lessons twice a week. For the other two days each week, the inmates practice their skills under the watch of Jonathon Gripshover of the California Prison Industry Authority.
The computer lab at the prison is stocked with refurbished computers, which used to belong to state employees and are now being used by the student inmates. However, none of the inmates have Internet access, so all of their work is completed in a custom off-line coding environment.
The most startling aspect of the program, perhaps, is that none of the participants have coding experience and many have never even used a computer before.
Jason Jones is one such example. Even though he has never used a smartphone and only used the internet for browsing, he has the plans for an app called In Touch that would instantly upload a student’s test scores and other information for parents to review in order to be more invested in their child’s education.
Once released, job opportunities for former inmates are very limited, but the hope is that through this training, employers will be open to hiring them.
For Aly Tamboura, Code 7370 gives him something he never had before: a marketable skill that makes him attractive to employers.
“I get these a-ha moments where a concept or certain element of what we’re learning makes sense,” Tamboura tells Fast Co. Exist. “When I get out, I’ll have a marketable skill.”
And that’s the greatest benefit of the program — a chance for a better life.
MORE: How A New York Program is Reframing Prison Education
Category: Bridging the Opportunity Divide
This Company Wants to Bring Back American Bike Manufacturing
Americans are fast embracing cycling as a means of commuting.
But as more and more cities make room for bike lanes, the price tag that comes with the pedaling lifestyle is a hefty one. In fact, a conventional bike costs upwards of $1,000, while more specialized bikes can retail for more than $10,000.
Despite the popularity of cycling in the United States, 99 percent of the 16 million bikes sold across the country in 2013 were made abroad — mostly in China or Taiwan — according to the National Bicycle Dealers Association. But a Portland-based startup is looking to change that statistic by bringing back jobs to Oregon and creating affordable custom bikes all at once.
Circa Cycles uses a manufacturing process that can produce a 21.5-pound custom bike in just 10 hours or less, compared to the typical 50 to 100 hours of hand labor that other companies require to make an average bike.
Founder Rich Fox broke down the process of manufacturing a bike and then found ways to reduce the time required. “It goes together almost like a Lego set. It’s kind of like a combination of Ikea, and Lego, and Swatch, in a way,” Fox tells Fast Company.
The one-of-a-kind bikes are put together with a specialized glue used to construct race cars and airplanes. And rather than using a hand-painting process, Circa bikes are anodized at a Portland shop, allowing a customer to personalize the color. Fox uses all local milling and piping suppliers to ensure a fast turnaround.
Customers can also decide on size, handlebars, drivetrains and tires using computer-controlled milling (CNC) machines to produce customized designs in a short period of time. Frames cost $1,100 with the completed bicycle starting at $1,500.
“Typically, making a custom bike takes anywhere from three months, up to as much as five years,” Fox tells Fast Company. “So the idea that you can turn a bike around in less than 10 days — it’s pretty innovative to go from zero to bike that quick.”
While the price tag is still high, Fox hopes the more affordable option will encourage more cyclists to opt for an American-made bike. Ultimately, he hopes to bring more jobs back to Oregon.
“I moved to Oregon about 15 years ago and I really love it here, and I really wanted to contribute to the local community by creating something here to boost the economy,” he says. “I just wanted to make where I live a better place.”
MORE: What Has Two Wheels, Two Pedals and Can Boost the Economy?
Can Wikipedia Really Reduce the Spread of Disease?
Scouring the internet in an attempt to self-diagnose an oncoming illness might not be so ridiculous after all.
That’s because researchers have developed an algorithm using Wikipedia page visits to predict future disease outbreaks 28 days in advance by drawing similarities between outbreak fluctuations and the number of visits to that disease’s Wikipedia page.
To do this, the study (which was conducted by Nicholas Generous and Sara Del Valle et al.) looked at 14 different disease-country pairs (influenza in the U.S., dengue in Brazil, and tuberculosis in Thailand, for example) and matched their trends to every Wikipedia page in the relevant language. The result showed similar patterns in the visits of 10 pages related to the disease.
“The general disease page was generally the one that correlated most strongly,” says Generous to Vox. “Also drugs and treatments, and, for the flu, different strains.”
This relationship was especially strong for dengue outbreaks in Brazil and the flu in the U.S. However, the correlation was insignificant in disease like HIV/AIDS (likely due to the smaller percentage of the population that suffers from it and the lack of dramatic fluctuation over time).
Google Flu Trends attempts to make these same predictions, but often overestimates CDC flu data due to problems in their private search algorithm.
What researches hope to accomplish with this is not only an accurate forecast for first-world countries like the U.S., but also to apply this system to countries with little public health knowledge.
“A global disease-forecasting system will change the way we respond to epidemics,” says Del Valle to Live Science. There are, however, issues in this proposed system.
One is Wikipedia’s method of grouping data by language, not by country. This isn’t overly problematic for countries like Poland or Thailand, where the majority of the language’s speakers are within borders. But it’s definitely confounding for English and Spanish speaking countries.
The other issue? The possibility of ignoring the data’s context. “With modeling, you sometimes see people over-trust the numbers,” Generous says. “It’s very important to understand the nature of the data you’re working with.”
For example, with the recent terror surrounding Ebola, traffic to Wikipedia’s page for the disease has skyrocketed, but this spike needs to be understood as fear of the disease rather than actual occurrences of it.
Generous believes that preliminary questions must be asked when reading and interpreting the data. “What are the biases in the data?” he asks. “What types of people are searching for their disease? What do these searches really mean?”
MORE: You Won’t Believe the Data Behind This Health Care Innovation
In Boston’s Poorest Neighborhood, The Seeds of a Food Economy Are Being Sown
Boston can boast about many things – top colleges, rich history and vibrant business. And now, it can add one more item to that list: an emerging local food economy.
That’s right, ever since the 1980s, the areas of Roxbury and Dorchester have been slowly developing their communities into burgeoning food hubs. With community land trusts, local kitchens and retailers, a waste-management co-op and others, Boston is achieving an integrated food economy.
Back in the eighties, residents banned together and formed the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, acquiring 60 acres of land in the middle of the Dudley neighborhood. Since then, the land has been used to build homes and start a community land trust consisting of parks, gardens, a town common, community center, charter school and a community greenhouse.
That greenhouse is leased to the Food Project, a nonprofit focused on youth development and urban agriculture. Half of the greenhouse is used for produce that is sold to cover the majority of the operating costs, while the other 50 percent is utilized by local residents and organizations.
Food Project works with more than 150 teens and thousands of volunteers to produce food that is sold at famers’ markets and community agriculture programs in order to raise money for hunger relief programs.
Additionally, since 2001, the Grow or Die campaign run by Boston’s youth has been turning vacant lots into raised-bed community gardens servicing more than 100 families.
And in 2009, City Growers entered the scene. Started by Glynn Lloyd (who also runs Roxbury catering company City Fresh Foods) because he wanted access to fresh, local food, the for-profit farming venture is one of the area’s firsts.
Lloyd hasn’t stopped there, as he recently founded the Urban Farming Institute and facilitated in the passing of Article 89, a commercial urban agriculture zoning ordinance. As a result, a groundbreaking was held last July for the Garrison –Trotter Farm, which sits on two lots that had been vacant since the 1980s.
Along with the programs, gardens and more processing business, retailers and restaurants are emerging that want to utilize the local food. Linking all of these organizations is that community’s first step toward a successful local food network.
And for Lloyd, coordination and cooperation is the key for the future.
“Many of us don’t come from conventional business backgrounds,” Lloyd tells YES! Magazine. “Innovation won’t just come from private sector, nonprofits, or government, but from all of them working together.”
MORE: This Startup Uses Urban Relics to Serve Up Local Food
The Standout Efforts That Are Getting Americans Back to Work
After four years as an assistant branch manager at Hudson Valley Bank in Bridgeport, Conn., Dora Coriano was laid off in August 2013, when the bank left the state.
Coriano, who’s 58, soon discovered that finding a new job wasn’t as easy as it had been the last time she’d been unemployed, 15 years prior. “In 1998, you could literally grab a stack of resumes and pound the pavement,” she says. “You went from door to door … you left your resume, you got called, and you got the job.”
A year after losing her position at the bank, and submitting more than 75 job applications, Coriano still hasn’t found full-time work. Instead, she has joined the ranks of the long-term unemployed.
“It’s been really disheartening,” Coriano says. “That’s how I feel — like I’m stuck.”
Despite a dropping unemployment rate, which hit 5.8 percent in October, 9 million people nationwide are like Coriano — stuck without a job.
Across the country, people are working to determine the best way to help those jobseekers find employment. Economists, analysts, policy-makers and not-for-profits are all seeking the antidote to unemployment, so they’re trying out different programs that train or retrain the jobless, help them achieve certifications or land internships.
Several approaches are showing promise. From paid apprenticeships to beefed-up community college programs and public-private partnerships, here’s a look at some of the ways people are getting back to work — including Coriano.
Placing Workers in Apprenticeships
Organizations looking to bridge the gap between job training and job placement are increasingly turning to the apprenticeship model. One of the most successful of these is Apprenticeship Carolina, an initiative of the South Carolina technical college system.
While Apprenticeship Carolina’s main focus is to help businesses that want to expand, says Brad Neese, program director, “a really positive byproduct is that these companies are going to hire South Carolinians.”
Funded by the state, Neese and his crew of consultants help companies to establish apprenticeship programs by connecting them with technical colleges around the state. “We meet with them and discuss the needs of the company,” says Neese. “We personalize the process, and it’s all free.”
So far, it’s working. Apprenticeship Carolina started with 90 companies in 2007. Today, it’s working with more than 700 businesses and over the past seven years has placed almost 11,000 apprentices (in fields ranging from manufacturing to health care).
Seeking Out Trained Talent
While training programs are reaching out to potential employers, some successful programs start the other way around.
In St. Louis, the aircraft company Boeing approached the local community college to set up a 10-week program for would-be assembly mechanics. The class is free for students (paid for by Boeing), and the company hires 87 percent of those who complete it, says Becky Epps, program director.
In Newark, N.J., the Ford Motor Co. sponsored an automotive technical program at the New Community Workforce Development Center. In nine months, students are trained and certified and then placed in jobs through established relationships with Ford, Nissan and Toyota, says the program’s director, Rodney Brutton.
“The placement rate is 60 percent, which is great in this line of work,” he says.
The Ford program helped a mechanic named Tom after he was laid off. Although he had 20 years’ experience, he found he couldn’t get another job without new certifications. All he heard was, “Leave your number and we’ll give you a call.” No one called.
After completing the program, Tom ended up getting 10 certifications, updated his resume and “started hearing from the dealerships,” he says.
Now, he says, he’s making over $25 per hour, and he’s no longer one of the country’s 9 million unemployed workers.
Linking Companies and Community Colleges
Community colleges can play a key role in workforce development. Recognizing that fact, the White House in September announced $450 million in grants to the schools, aimed at improving job training programs.
One popular movement in job training programs, according to Lauren Eyster, a researcher at the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank, is to build strong connections with hiring companies, so that trainees can be channeled right into waiting jobs that need their new skills.
Both of these trends are converging at Cape Cod Community College, in West Barnstable, Mass., which won one of the recent federal grants. The school is creating two 12-month programs to train workers to inspect and repair airplanes and airplane engines, in response to the needs of area employers.
“There’s enormous support for this,” says Michael Gross, director of communication. He says the school has letters of support from JetBlue, Delta and Cape Air, which will be looking to hire the first graduates of the program.
Supporting Struggling Students
While community colleges can set people up for new careers, some students have significant obstacles to overcome first, like lack of transportation, child care or money for books.
“The other piece of this is, once you get them into these programs, how do you get them to complete?” says Eyster. “The latest number I saw was only 40 percent of community college students graduate in six years.”
Eyster says some colleges are starting to employ “navigators” to help guide students through school. At the Accelerating Opportunity: Kansas (AO-K) program at Washburn Tech, in Topeka, Kan., students learn technical skills while earning GEDs, with assistance from a navigator provided along the way.
“These students are under-resourced in every way you can imagine,” says Gillian Gabelman, associate dean at Washburn Tech. The navigator helps connect students to social services like child care and veterans benefits.
“The transformation of the students is extraordinary,” Gabelman says. For example, a woman who dropped out of high school to have a baby has been able to go into medicine, and a reformed drug addict went through technical training and is working for a local manufacturer, she says.
Reversing the Snowball of Unemployment
Now Coriano, the unemployed bank worker, may be on a new path to employment, too.
After a year without work, her savings dwindling, Coriano enrolled in a program in Bridgeport called Platform to Employment, aimed specifically at the long-term unemployed, who often face snowballing challenges.
The longer people are out of work, the less attractive they can be to employers and the more discouraged they get. Platform to Employment tries to address both of those challenges with a two-pronged approach.
The first is a full-time five-week course of job preparation classes. “It’s not a job training program,” says Tom Long, vice president of communications and development. “It’s more about taking someone who’s ready to be back at work and helping them improve their confidence and readiness.”
During the course, Coriano and other participants learn how to present their best selves to employers, to develop their “personal brand” and to “conquer their fear about their own limitations,” Long says. They also meet with a behavioral health specialist and learn how to deal with the stress and psychological struggles that come from long-term unemployment.
The second part of the Platform to Employment approach is to place participants in jobs with local employers for a two-month “tryout,” paid for by the program. The try-before-you-buy system allows employers to take a chance on a new employee with no financial risk, since private foundation funding pays for wages.
After a successful pilot program in Bridgeport in 2011, Platform to Employment recently completed a 10-city nationwide expansion. And, with $3.5 million in funding from the Connecticut Legislature, the program is spreading across that state.
These Frat Brothers Are Using Tiny Houses to Change the Lives of the Homeless
When the idea of frat brothers comes to mind, most of us probably conjure up images of crazy college parties. However, one fraternity is defying the stereotype and extending the notion of brotherhood to an unlikely group: the homeless.
Huntsville, Ala. has a substantial homeless population and a large portion of it is comprised of veterans. Fortunately, the Phi Kappa Phi fraternity at the University of Alabama – Huntsville has a solution in mind. In operation for less than a year, the members of frat have been working toward creating a tiny homes village for those without shelter in their community.
The idea began to develop after members of the group encountered a homeless man at a local Sonic restaurant. Moved by the experience, the frat brothers started having regular meals with various members of the homeless community, which inspired them to become more involved.
“Me and my brothers were like, ‘we want to do something about this,’” Phi Kappa Phi president Taylor Reed tells WHNT News.
With the help of Foundation for Tomorrow and the Help Our Veterans and Civilians organization, Phi Kappa Phi began plans for a tiny homes village, which will consist of multiple residences that are less than 500 square feet, are mobile and are fully equipped. To create an inclusive feeling, the village will also include a community garden that will be maintained by the residents as well as a space where a group meal will be consumed at least once a week.
Each unit costs about $5,000 to build, and about 30 homes can fit on one acre of land, which is the amount that the Foundation for Tomorrow is hoping to receive from the city of Huntsville. Alabama Center for Sustainable Energy has already volunteered to supply solar panels for the homes. Further, the frat brothers plan to build all of the homes themselves with the assistance of their fellow community members.
In order to raise the funds, Phi Kappa Phi is currently operating a website fundraiser. Their goal? To raise $10,000 and, as of November 19, they have raised $6,493.
For Help Our Homeless Veterans and Civilians CEO Rusty Loiselle, these homes are a rare and needed opportunity.
“Get them out of cardboard boxes and into these tiny homes while they go through re-training and get the assistance they need,” Loiselle tells WHNT News. “These tiny homes are a step towards nice solid housing, it’s a step up.”
MORE: Portland is About to Get Tons of Tiny Homes That Can Shelter the Homeless
Why American Transit Systems Need to Adopt This Donation Platform
No matter where you go, using public transportation often results in a pocketful of transit cards loaded with small amounts of leftover money. There’s simply nothing you can do, except pass along the extra fare to a friend or save for the next time you’re in town.
But a 22-year-old Oxford University graduate has a bright idea for that big problem.
Determined to find a recipient for the extra fare other than transportation authorities, Zander Whitehurst designed Common Pence, a system that allows commuters to tap their cards against a radio-frequency identification (RFID) reader to donate the remaining cash to charity. Though it’s designed for London’s Oyster Card, Whitehurst is hoping to bring the idea elsewhere — an idea that transit companies in the U.S. should latch onto immediately.
In Europe, holding the Oyster Card against the panel automatically transmits 50 pence and commuters can drain the remaining balance completely by continuing to press it against the system. The system also allows users to track the funding online, see the progress and measure their impact, according to the site.
While not all transit cards come equipped with RFID technology, Whitehurst is also aiming to expand the concept to bus passes and contactless credit cards, which are now available for use in London’s transit system. Whitehurst tells Fast Company he’s been talking to London’s transit authority, Transport for London (TfL), regarding the idea.
Whitehurst has also designed a hand-held version of the device for fundraisers to use while trying to raise money on the street. Instead of hassling people with writing down emails, the hand-held panel eases the process.
“Face to face, people try to get you to send an email just to donate £3, and it’s such a hassle for most people,” he says. “The other free-hanging panels can exist almost anywhere in the urban environment. I’m trying to encourage local charities to be displayed on the panels so people can give back and invest in their own communities.”
The idea is to one day help charities simplify fundraising and help commuters do something with leftover fare cards by being able to use a smartphone app, credit card or fare card at one of any of Common Pence’s panels throughout the world.
“It’s trying to innovate donation to the point where we’re not using physical spare change,” he says.
Our guess is that this is an idea that the Salvation Army would love.
MORE: Public Transportation Is Getting a Major Makeover
When Families Can’t Make It to a Food Pantry, This Nonprofit Brings Food to Them
Food pantries run by nonprofits, churches, schools and other groups are often all that stands between a poor family and going hungry. But what if a family is struggling so much that they can’t find transportation needed to reach a food pantry?
To alleviate this problem, the Salvation Army in High Point, N.C., started operating a mobile food pantry this month.
High Point Salvation Army social services director Tashina Oladunjoye explains the need for the service to Sarah Krueger of Fox 8: “We have individuals in low income apartments that are in dry, food desert areas. These are individuals who cannot get out to pantries. Who cannot get out to their local grocery stores because of transportation, money in general.”
Each week, the mobile food pantry visits two different apartment complexes, reaching eight different locations in total before returning the first so that the needy in each building receives food once a month. Oladunjoye aims to add a refrigerated truck to the program within six months so that she can provide fresh produce to the families.
Darlene Graves, a single mother who received food from the truck, tells Krueger, “I thank God for the program and I thank God for the Salvation Army. It’s going to help me feed my family another day.”
MORE: This Innovative Idea Brings Produce Directly to Low-Income Communities
One Day, One Man, and a Six-Figure Fundraiser Run
Plenty of people go for daily runs. Considerably fewer people go for day-long runs.
But that’s just what Dan O’Keefe, principal of Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx, N.Y., did recently to raise money for the school’s 25 sports teams and 50 activity clubs, and the effect has been more than he or anybody else could’ve hoped for.
O’Keefe is an ultra-marathon runner, and the NY Daily News reports that he competes in 100-mile races twice a year. So it wasn’t too much of a stretch for him to converge a passion for his students and for running into one.
“I constantly challenge the students at Spellman to achieve their limits and beyond… to give 100 percent, to achieve 100 percent and to be present 100 percent in everything they do,” says O’Keefe in a press release. “I was pondering different ways of making that message real for them as I was on a long run one day… I would challenge myself mentally and physically but I would also challenge the students to participate in the spirit of the event.”
He called the effort Achieve 100 and challenged each of his 1,400 students to each raise 100 dollars, reminding them that, “whether it’s a hundred on a test or a hundred on a report card or run a hundred miles, if you put your mind to it you can do it.” NY1 reports that the students raised over $10,000.
O’Keefe began running at 6 a.m. on a Friday and didn’t stop until 5:49 a.m. the next morning when he finished the last of 403.25 laps around the high school’s 400m track — 100 miles total. Stopping only for short bathroom breaks, according to the school’s website, “students, faculty, alumni, parents, coaches, and even neighbors from the community” ran laps with O’Keefe and “brought food, made donations, and cheered [him] on.”
The biggest surprise of all came a few minutes after he finished the run when the Achieve 100 donation webpage received an anonymous gift of $100,000, which Cardinal Spellman’s Vice-President of Alumni & Advancement, Jennifer Rivera, says “will be make so much possible for our great school.”
We can’t help but agree with student Samantha Grant: “I just want to do what he’s doing.”
MORE: One Man’s Inspiring Rise from Sweeping the Hallways to Calling the Shots
How Washington, D.C. Plans to Up Its Tech Game
Ms. Smith has gone to Washington. And now she’s calling all techies to join her.
The male-dominated tech industry has deep roots in Silicon Valley and therefore, a reluctance to join the stereotypical staunchness of government. But Megan Smith, America’s new Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in the White House, wants to change this.
“Working in the federal government, or state or local, is one of the most significant things that a technical person can do,” Smith says to the New York Times. While Teach for America has garnered a significant amount of post-grad attention, Smith states that far more people could be affected by tech experts being involved in government.
Smith graduated with a masters in mechanical engineering from MIT in the 1980s and has been hired to guide administrative information-tech policies and initiatives, which she states is staggeringly ineffective in comparison to the technical efficiency of corporate America. Hence the major call to the tech world to come apply their talents to government: “If you come, you can bring your own methods. The American government will be whatever we all make of it,” she says.
She heavily emphasizes the importance of making information (ranging from the goings-on at NASA to water data) accessible to the public and believes that substantial strides could be made by innovative citizens who could then utilize this information and revolutionize fields at local levels, or even through state-wide planning.
The position of U.S. CTO was conceived by President Obama, though, as stated by the Washington Post, “its mission has been fuzzy at times.” Smith is expected to refocus the administration’s tech goals.
Despite the absence of the tech world in Washington, Megan Smith remains optimistic, believing the change will come — even if it’s a step-by-step process.
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