By: AIF Staff
One of the organizations receiving support from the American Idea Foundation in 2024 is I.C.Stars, formally known as the Inner-City Computer Stars Foundation. The American Idea Foundation is partnering with them because of their commitment to evidence-based approaches and because of their effectiveness in training and launching technology careers for over 700 young adults from underserved communities.
Founded in 1999 in Chicago, IL, I.C.Stars is a national technology workforce training and placement program that prepares young adults for technology careers and community leadership.
They work with young adults from low-income backgrounds and provide a technology-based curriculum which gives participants the education, training, tools, and experience to obtain a job in the information technology sector.
Detailing the approach taken by I.C.Stars, Stand Together described how they select students for their program:
“Rico is a proud alumni and now the full-time recruitment manager for I.C.Stars, a technology-based workforce development and leadership training program for low-income adults. Rico is the talent guy.
Three times a year he pours over 400-500 applications and funnels them through a rigorous selection process that includes a hot-seat panel interview. There are a few standard prerequisites—a minimum age (18), a high school diploma or GED, and six months of cumulative work experience.
Beyond that, Rico is looking for resilience and career aspirations. Proof that a candidate has weathered adversity and desires to build a salaried career in technology, and not just an hourly paycheck. The process ends with a class of 20 interns who will embark on a 16-week experience (called a “cycle”) that will turn their lives right side up.”
True to their motto: “Learn to Code. Launch a Career,” I.C.Stars enrolls students in a free, two-year program which begins with an intensive, 16-week paid internship program. Through the program, students learn how to build web-based applications and become experts on in-demand coding skills—Javascript, Python, and others— while also focusing on client project work, leadership development, career readiness and network building.
Following the internship, students receive a two-year residency position with local employers. As they proceed through the program, I.C.Stars students are also provided with a mentor in the IT field and ongoing professional development opportunities.
The results are impressive: I.C.Stars places approximately 90% of its qualified graduates in jobs and these participants see their annual earnings increase by an average of 300% as a result of the program. This video, featuring testimonials from three I.C.Stars graduates highlights the impact this program has on the lives of students.
While helping underserved youth learn valuable skills upon which life-long careers can be built is a noble goal in and of itself, I.C.Stars believes they must do more to create lasting improvements in communities around America.
It is why a core part of their mission is creating a community of change agents by encouraging their alumni to adopt a pay-it-forward mentality. Over 80% of I.C.Stars graduates continue to engage with the program and volunteer with the program.
As Stand Together noted when profiling Tierra Phillips, an I.C.Stars graduate in Chicago:
“The I.C.Stars end game isn’t just to churn out expert coders, it’s to build community leaders. Civic leaders, business leaders, and service leaders who go back home and create change. In a very real sense, I.C.Stars is a leadership college disguised as a tech bootcamp. And its alumni are poking holes in glass ceilings, bringing new hope to their neighborhoods, and slowly but surely reversing that cycle of opportunity.
Tierra Phillips says that before coming to I.C.Stars her goal was to make it out of her neighborhood, describing it as a “terrible” place to live. But the program’s emphasis on community impact has changed her perspective.
“I can take the skills that I’ve learned here and take that back to my community,” she says, smiling as she talks about the I.C.Stars civics class. “They’re actually teaching us how to reach out to our alderman. I never knew who my alderman was. So now I actually know how to take the steps to being a civic leader. Going into my neighborhood and making changes.”
Because of their success over the last 25 years, I.C.Stars has expanded with chapters in Kansas City, Missouri and Milwaukee, Wisconsin where Mackenzie Scott recently made a $5 million contribution to buttress the organization’s efforts.
To help quantify the effect of the program, I.C.Stars has partnered with Notre Dame’s Lab for Economic Opportunities to measure the program’s impact on earnings and future employment opportunities. This study began before COVID-19 and is still ongoing, as I.C.Stars was able to convert their programming to virtual engagements during the pandemic and the funds provided by the American Idea Foundation will be used to help complete this study.
In explaining I.C.Stars impact on her life, Milwaukee program participant Luz Mercado told TMJ4: “It’s going to shape the future of technology one step at a time, that everything that they do, causes an impact and literally changes the life of the person that goes through the program.”
Transforming young lives in an evidence-based way and creating communities for positive change are exactly why the American Idea Foundation is so excited to work with I.C.Stars in the year ahead.
To learn more about the American Idea Foundation’s 2024 grant recipients, click here.