Katherine Newman, a writer for the Chicago Citizens Newspaper, talks about a local building transition from St. Agatha Catholic Academy to Church’s Winslow Redmond Technology Center. This community center will now be a place for several community programs to operate in. Several outreach programs have already found their home in the Technology Center and TechGirlz is excited to also be newly welcomed aboard! The full article was originally published May 16, 2018 in the News section of the online Chicago Citizens Newspaper.

TechGirlz TechShopz will be one of the programs hosted at the new Tech Center!

St. Agatha’s Catholic Academy alumnus Rhea Steele, president of Blue Ocean Logic, is using her professional knowledge of the tech industry to help build the Technology Center. She has been helping St. Agatha’s to identify the best programming, purchase new and used computers, obtain grant funding, and create a safe and functional design for the Technology Center.

A new program that is beginning to get it’s footing in the Technology Center is Tech Girlz. The Tech Girlz programming comes from the Philadelphia based organization and provides free technology curriculum to expose middle-school-aged girls to careers in the technology field.

“Only about 25 percent of information technology jobs in the country are held by women which is an appalling statistic when you realize that these are really good paying jobs. You can raise a family on a tech job and you don’t need to really have a college degree to get your foot in the door. We want to prepare girls, get them interested and engaged, and show them that they can do these things and that it is not only for boys,” said Joan Matz, local outreach manager in Chicago for Tech Girlz.

The Tech Girlz program is currently looking for volunteer teachers to lead Saturday morning classes at the technology center. For more information on participating in the program call 1-866-420-0296.