DALLAS — Hundreds of students from across the Dallas-Fort Worth area are already busy while leaping into summer break.
Many are hard at work in summer camp.
“We have something big happening! We are so excited,” said Hattie Hill, executive director and CEO of the T.D. Jakes Foundation.
About 325 teens gathered at the Potter’s House of Dallas on Monday to kick-off the start of "Hack-A-Thon." It’s a two-week summer intensive STEAM camp.
“I feel like it’s a good experience, especially for kids my age,” said Kyla Thomas, a student at Duncanville High School.
The "Hack-A-Thon" is exposing students from a variety of communities to science, technology, engineering, arts and math.
"It’s new opportunities to find out new things, new innovations, teamwork, and networking," explained Gregory Williams of Red Oak High School.
The T.D. Jakes Foundation is partnering with Dallas Mavericks and Goldman Sachs to offer the camp in person and virtually to hundreds of students locally and globally.
“Our goal is really to create that spark, that exposure, that says there may be something there that’s interesting to me, and I want to do it,” Hill explained.
The students are guided by mentors. They work in small groups with engineers from Goldman Sachs. The teens also get one-on-one access to professionals helping them navigate questions, experiments and building prototypes.
“We first start by coming up with an idea. Then we brainstorm all of that. We draw out our idea. Then we start, actually, executing our idea,” student Josiah Thorpe explained.
Organizers said the "Hack-A-Thon" camp is about building bridges and exposing the teens to potential career opportunities.
“We want to build a bridge for our young people between opportunity and their exposure to know it actually exists,” Hill added.