SYEP Internship
Choicest Fruit® was honored to partner with the City of Austin and Travis County to serve as a job-site for the Work-Based Learning/Summer Youth Employment Program , 2024. We provided a successful 7-week internship opportunity to 20 amazing youth ages 14-17 years old, aimed at building career awareness, exposure and readiness by offering the most relevant training and industry-based work experience. The internship program included a diverse array of enthusiastic young people from various disciplines who explored the field of Responsible/Ethical Technology Development and Use while completing various stages of their educational journeys.
During their internship period, the youth participated in technology courses, ethical tech design thinking and learned how to responsibly design and develop web apps. The interns studied ethical tech materials, reflected on their progress, consulted during the practical design thinking process, and actively applied ethical thinking to the practical concerns of the technological innovations they developed. They were engaged in collaborative environments both remote and on-site, to design EdTech apps and ethical tools for engineering and design workflows, using in-demand software technologies.
The interns were empowered to meaningfully participate in the advancement of technology to not only have access to technology but also build their capacity to contribute to its development. Choicest Fruit® organizes it's program around the concept of capability, conceived as “developed capacity to think and act within a particular sphere of activity and according to an explicit purpose”. The program aims to build capacity in young people to employ their intellectual capabilities, creative thinking and moral qualities to read the reality of their community, identify its tech-related needs, and through collective efforts and spirit of service take action. The interns reflected and analyzed the tech development process as well as the impacts of the technologies they use on their lives and communities, and acquired skills to read their reality, identified needs when designing and developing apps.
At Choicest Fruit, we believe that conversations and discussions about technology dimensions of use, development, ethics, and appropriateness should begin at an early stage of a child’s development. This approach helps young people to yearn to learn more and share their knowledge and skills with others. Choicest Fruit caters the approach to each person and allows the framework to evolve as the youngster grows. Every person is unique in their developmental abilities and aspirations. For some, interest in technology is natural and emerges early while for others, it arises through systematic exposure and use. One of the unique characteristics of Choicest Fruit’s approach is to infuse human values into the process of technology development and teach participants to weigh the impacts of technology thoroughly in every step of technology use and/or development. Most often, the young people learn about technology fixes through observation and emulate patterns and behaviors based on how a market-driven society, in the aggregate, is using technology. It is important to make children aware of their agency in developing grassroots tech solutions tailored to the needs of themselves, their families, and micro-communities.