Teen groups of teenage boys from South Los Angeles came together at USC on August 2nd to participate in a live pitch competition. South Los Angeles Demo Day 2014 was an event hosted by Teens Exploring Technology (TxT), an organization serving “young men of color between the 7th and 11th grade who are from low income communities.”

The young men pitched their tech products, which they worked on for 15 weeks, to a panel of judges: Kevin Hossman, Director of User Experience at Rosetta; Sam Brotherton, Software Engineer at Google; Brian Stuart, an Angel Investor; Kevin Winston, CEO of Digital LA; and Una Fox, Vice President of Enterprise Data Management at The Walt Disney Company. The top team would win $2,000 in seed money, an opportunity to visit 3 tech firms in Silicon Valley, and a year of mentoring.

Photo courtesy of Teens Exploring Technology

Their job was to create a technology solution to a problem they’ve encountered in their community. The grand prize winner was the group who created Bond – “an online platform and application which allows teens to post, review and rank local locations to go on fun and safe dates and meetups with friends, while keeping parents at ease.” The team members were Diego Arrenquin (15), Kevin Herrera (15) and Layquawn Windley (15), and Jonathan Cassaola (16).

Teams had 5 minutes to pitch, and 2 minutes to answer questions from the panel. The event was recorded and can be viewed below:

TxT’s founder, Oscar Menjivar, grew up in Watts, California, started the program as a solution to the dismal future awaiting many young men of color in the South LA area: unemployment, prison, or death. Menjivar told Los Angeles Times, “Everybody knows if you want to find a good basketball player, a good football player, you look in the inner city. But where do you go to find the next leaders of the tech industry? I want people to say, ‘We go to South L.A.'”

The organization is looking for mentors and speakers with experience in computer programming, business development/strategy, and career guidance.

We love hearing about stories with our youth getting involved in STEM. Congratulations to all the TxT teens!