BDPA Twin Cities MN

Free HS Student Programs Begin February 1st 2025

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BDPA–Twin Cities is in its 7th year of providing Community Youth Technology Education Programs for minority students in grades 8-12 in the Twin Cities seven-county metro area. We currently have student participants from 20 different metro area schools. IT professionals volunteer and serve as instructors in our programs, connecting youth to role models and mentors providing hands-on education designed to spark student interest in computing, develop technology skills and enhance future educational and career opportunities. In addition to programming and technology skills gained, youth develop skills and abilities in the areas of public speaking, customer service and networking with professionals. BDPA–Twin Cities Foundation annually presents college scholarships to recognize the achievements of graduates and alumni from our programs.

We have four Community Youth Technology Education programs:

Featured Courses:

HSTP – High School Technology Program Level 1

The High School Technology Program (HSTP) provides a range of learning from basic website development to problem solving and building applications with computer programming. This Saturday program is intended to teach motivated students interested in internet application development many core disciplines and application development principles. This multi-week program runs January through April at Metropolitan State University. HSTP is divided into three levels, Level I, Level II and Level III.

Student Internship Program

Through this program, BDPA matches high school and college students with corporations and provides mentoring to those students. This program is designed to enable students to go from the classroom to boardroom. Participating corporations include Medtronic, Minnesota Twins Baseball Club and Keystone Computer Solutions.

HSCC – High School Computer Competition Team (Advanced Programming)

This program selects the top five students and alternates from HSTP. It is intended to teach students who are capable of programming at higher levels, the opportunity to compete in a national programming competition during BDPA’s national technical conference. This multi-week intense program runs June through August. Classes are multiple times per week at Metro State University covering not only web application development but technology and BDPA history.

CYTC – Community Youth Technology Camp and Introduction to IT

This program is intended to provide middle and high school students with limited exposure to technology the opportunity to learn in exciting hands-on topics based series. Topics include hardware/networking, basic HTML, CSS, JavaScript, C+, PHP, SSL, Project management, social media, digital media, scratch programming and team building and discussion time with IT professionals. Field trips included visits to a data center, a music technology workshop, and a Target Field technology tour. CYTC is a six to eight week program is offered in the summer. The Introduction to IT is a 8 week program taught during the school year on Saturdays.