While there are many organizations and initiatives working to help people from historically underserved communities learn today’s information industry technologies, we are the world’s only team of Black technologists who have been actually conceiving, creating and standing up technologies built by and for communities of color for over 20 years, and we have decided to come out of the shadows and share our knowledge with the world by teaching others to build technologies towards the goal of ‘Uplifting the Race.’
We call this initiative the Wakanda Online Code Camp.
At Wakanda Code Camp, a select group of future tech gurus will have opportunities to learn, improve or achieve mastery (our sweet spot!) in a variety of front or back end technology skills that power our current and future Black technology ventures and products, including Blackfacts.com, UrbanCommunities.com and Blackpeople.com.
We have projects for both front end and back end skills, including:
- HTML / JavaScript / CSS front-end work
- Graphic Design
- Advanced CSS Architecture
- Mobile App Development
- Single-Sign-On OAuth2 / JWT Middleware Development
- Third-Party Hosted JavaScript Widget Development
- Web Api Development
- WordPress Plugin Development
- Database Programming and Optimization
- Data Warehouse Design / Setup
- Browser Extension Development
- Devops Pipeline Setup
- Outreach / Marketing Program Tools (Our Own MailChimp / FormStack)
- Online Content Parsers
- Social Media Sharing Widgets
- WordPress Theme Creation
- AI Systems Integration
- Alexa Skill Development
- Ad Server Setup / Configuration
- ...and more!
Unlike other code camps, where virtually all completed projects will never see the light of day, Wakanda Code Camp projects will become integral parts of the world’s first and only continuously running database-driven Black History web site, which is the #1 search result for ‘black facts’ on (at least) Google, Bing and Yahoo.
Students who successfully complete Wakanda Code Camp projects will be featured prominently on Blackfacts.com and future online properties, and will be given preference when we get to the point of building out our paid development team.
As Wakanda Code Camp is virtual, all projects are worked on virtually. You will connect to our source code repositories on GitHub or our private Git repos, which are all configured to use the GitFlow workflow. You will be responsible for setup and support of your development environment and tools, and may be given credentials on an as-needed basis to our online environments.
Participation in Wakanda Code Camp is limited to a select group of new or experienced students, as we currently have a single mentor – Ken Granderson, who is the visionary, architect and developer who has built all of our current applications and tools.
On an as-needed basis, individual or group Google Hangout meetings will be scheduled, and if you are in the New York City area, face-to-face meetings at the weekly ‘Code and Mix’ meetup hosted by the ‘Black Software Engineers of NYC’ Meetup group are also possible.
Participation is open to people of all backgrounds and skill levels who are SERIOUS about developing world-class tech skills that help build a platform of technology tools and services that will raise awareness of the achievements of people of African descent on a global basis, and eventually power thousands of organizations and businesses that benefit communities of color. Participants will receive limited one-on-one mentoring, and are required to be self-directed and proficient in looking up solutions for technology problem that others have encountered and solved already. Time commitments will vary based on the project, your learning speed, and the curveballs that Life often throws at us, but you should be able to invest at least 8 hours per week on Wakanda Code Camp projects.
