At Break Through Tech, “innovation” and “scale” are words that comes up a lot because when trying to bend the curve in the tech industry towards gender equity we know that anything less than constant innovation and large scale will not get the job done. That is why we’ve been busy at work since our launch announcement in April, making changes and improvements to the program based on learnings from our pilot year and rolling out the program in three cities: New York City, Boston, and Los Angeles.
Published
08/30/2022
- AI Program
A year of innovations
At Break Through Tech, “innovation” and “scale” are words that comes up a lot because when trying to bend the curve in the tech industry towards gender equity we know that anything less than constant innovation and large scale will not get the job done. That is why we’ve been busy at work since our launch announcement in April, making changes and improvements to the program based on learnings from our pilot year and rolling out the program in three cities: New York City, Boston, and Los Angeles.
The program is now hosted at 3 universities — Cornell Tech, the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering — each in support of students that come from across their respective metro regions. In fact, this year our students are from 55 different universities. Students have said they’re enjoying the opportunity to network both with students across the country at our sites, as well as meeting with others who may be having a similar experience but who attend a different university in their own city. We are pleased that 68% of this years’ cohort are either Black, Latina, First-Gen and/or Pell-grant eligible; a 28% increase in the inclusion of these communities among our students as compared to last years’ pilot cohort.
Break Through Tech AI students work together at an in-person event.
Technical curriculum
Break Through Tech AI students have just finished the second iteration of our AI/ML Foundations Course, a paid, summer-long experience with asynchronous and on-campus components to teach the basics of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The course was developed by a curriculum committee of experts from academia and from industry. Thanks to the insights and recommendations of the committee, of the 113 students enrolled in New York City, 31 in Los Angeles, and 33 in Boston, the course saw 84% retention in New York and Los Angeles and 97% in Boston — strong numbers reflecting students’ enthusiasm and commitment to the program. The end-of-course survey results gave the ML Foundations curriculum a 71% Net Promoter Score.
For these students, the next phase of the Break Through Tech AI Program is AI Studio. Students will be working in teams on 17 projects in New York City, 6 in Boston, and 7 in LA — each team engaged in a 4 month-long hands-on deep dive where students can apply their new skills solving real-world challenges from our industry partners. This experiential learning opportunity will result in artifacts that students can add to their professional portfolio for job interviews. The projects recently kicked off with an initial meeting between students and their company advisors.
Beyond hard skills
An important element of the AI Program experience are the skills students learn beyond the classroom or even AI Studio: getting prepared for their internships and careers. The AI Program’s third pillar is mentorship, an entirely custom-designed program offering regular structured meetings with an industry professional who knows what our students are up against trying to break into tech. Students are mentored in teams, which allows them to develop relationships with peers in the program as well. However, the mentor-to-student ratio is still relatively low (1:3 or 1:4) — 29 mentors are joining us this year in New York, 10 in Boston, and 7 in LA — all career professionals who are volunteering their time for nine months, to make a difference. The majority are women, the majority are in technical roles in data science or engineering, and they will be running eight workshops for the students that cover topics such as polishing resumes, building workplace relationships, and adapting to tech culture.
A TA helps a Break Through Tech AI student with a problem.
The early results
Our AI Program’s unique combination of curriculum, portfolio development, and mentorship is already showing early results. Of students in our New York pilot cohort last year, 92% had a technical summer internship the following summer, ranging from big tech companies to financial services, but all working in the field. Some students have been able to parlay that into their next opportunity, and some have already received full-time offers for next year.
Next year, the Break Through Tech AI program will expand to a virtual site open to students from across the country. In total, the program will support over 500 students: 60 students will be enrolled in the virtual site, and Boston and Los Angeles cohorts will aim for 100 new students each. Our New York site will grow to 250 students. In 2023, students from our pilot cohort in New York will begin to graduate and make changes in the tech industry.
Two Break Through Tech AI students hold up t-shirts.
Interested in learning more about the AI Program? Read about the program.