The campaign is over but it's not too late to contribute at missionbit.com/donate!

Mission Bit is a non-profit that offers free programming classes taught by experienced engineers to San Francisco public school students — and we need your help!

Our Story (The Very Short Version)

We know your time is precious, so here's the extremely abbreviation version of what Mission Bit is all about.

1. Companies in the San Francisco Bay Area are clamoring to hire computer programmers.
2. Public school students are clamoring to learn how to code.
3. Only 30% of public high schools in San Francisco offer any kind of computer science classes.
4. Mission Bit can find a scalable model to address this imbalance at the high-school level and has already run a successful, cost-effective pilot semester to prove it — you should see the student feedback!
5. We now need your help to scale our model, meet student demand, and connect students with the opportunities they desire and deserve.

Our Spring 2014 semester is off to a promising start, but we need your help to sustain it. Contributing to this campaign is the easiest way to make that happen. If you want the full story, though, please continue reading!

Our Story (The Full Version)

The San Francisco Bay Area is home to dozens of amazing companies like Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Dropbox which, collectively, have thousands of unfulfilled programming and engineering jobs, but only 30% of the public high schools in San Francisco — 5 of the 17 — offer any kind of computer science classes. On top of that, students at these schools are eager to learn how to code. We started Mission Bit in the summer of 2013 because we believe that no public school student who has the desire to learn how to code should be denied the opportunity to learn how to code.

Our Fall 2013 pilot semester was a startling success: the class was oversubscribed, every student stuck with it from start to finish, 17 of our 19 students had never programmed before taking our class, and some described it as a “life-changing experience.” We're running this campaign because we want your help with...

1. Bringing these experiences to as many public school students as we can
2. Expanding our class offerings
3. Connecting public school students with the opportunities they deserve

Mission Bit in 2014

“My Mission Bit class was a life changing experience.” 

— Isaac (age 17), attends Lowell High School

The success of our Fall 2013 pilot semester convinced us that we had to run more classes. Our Spring 2014 semester starts the week of February 3rd, 2014, and we're offering 4 classes: 3 high-school-level classes in partnership with Out of Site and 1 middle-school-level pilot class in partnership with the Jamestown Community Center, teaching a total of 70-80 students.

For high-school students we're offering two Introductory Web Programming classes that teach core programming principles with HTML, CSS, and Javascript and an Intermediate Web Programming class that teaches more advanced concepts using Ruby, SQL, and JavaScript. The intermediate class is targeted at students who have already taken Mission Bit's Fall class or having some kind of programming class at elsewhere. Students get 2.5 SFUSD elective credits for taking our classes. For middle-school students, we're adapting our high school Introductory Web Programming curriculum and classes begin the week of January 20th, 2014.

Our Spring 2014 semester is off to a very promising start and contributing to this campaign is the surest way for you to help us sustain that throughout 2014.

You can find more details about our Spring 2014 semester on our website.

Who's Involved?

The feedback and support from the technology community has been inspiring. You can see all of the amazing individuals, engineers, and entrepreneurs who have volunteered their time to help Mission Bit create new opportunities for SF public school kids on our about page. Those people include:

• Brian Clark, CEO of Silith.IO, Mission Bit Lead Instructor
• Bob Ippolito, co-founder and former CTO of Mochi Media, Mission Bit Board Director and Lead Instructor
• Jesse Farmer, co-founder of Dev Bootcamp, Mission Bit Board Director and Lead Instructor
• Clive Downie, COO of Zynga, Mission Bit Board Director
• Tyson Daugherty, Mission Bit founder and Board Director

The core team is committed to keep growing and perfecting Mission Bit’s classes, curriculum and operations. However, you can help maximize the value and opportunities the Mission Bit model and approach can create for public school kids with a donation. 

Mission Bit's Pilot Semester (Fall 2013)

“Mission Bit got me to enjoy math instead of hating it, because this way it has a purpose. It was a great experience for me, and now I know programming is something I want to do.” 

— Nathan (age 16), attends the Academy of Arts and Sciences

For the Fall 2013 semester, we ran a single Introduction to Web Programming class out of Lick-Wilmerding High School in San Francisco. You can read see details on our website, but here are the highlights.

• We taught 19 students from 6 different San Francisco public high schools.
• 100% of our students completed the course — incredibly rare for an elective after-school program.
• 89% of the students had never written a line of code before attending Mission Bit.
• 43% of our students were female, compared to 22% of professional computer programmers in the US.
• The students' final projects included an HTML5-based game, a basic chat application, a web-based animation tool, and a light that changed colors in time with music.

You can read more about our pilot semester on our website.

Thanks, 

The Mission Bit team