Czechitas New Generation

“We teach and inspire kids and youth to discover and change the world with information technologies.“

According European Union statistics, Europe will face a shortage of 900,000 IT specialists within the next few years. During the past decades, few IT training resources were actually designed with the needs of Czech audiences in mind. Many training programs were only provided by companies to their employees, and were largely oriented to workplace-specific contexts. The other option was university-level coursework, which was largely unavailable to students outside of engineering or scientific fields.

Today, the Czech Republic provides a fertile environment for technology startups and an increasing amount of technology innovation to the world. But technology careers are still largely gendered, due to long-standing social barriers and cultural attitudes. In addition to the historical lack of Czech women in technology fields, Czech girls between ages 12-14 lack role models and support systems to sustain their interest in STEM disciplines.

Educators have started to recognize the importance of IT skills for students, but also desire technology skills for their own personal and professional development. Educational opportunities, however, are limited by a rigid system defined by a generalized approach to job training, at the expense of viable career development pathways aligned with an increasingly digital world.
The ability for young people to connect to meaningful digital opportunities with relevance for their interests and lives is limited. Most technology education and training programs for young people are designed to emphasize an existing commercially-available product or service.

Despite its low unemployment rate, solid environment for startups and
entrepreneurs, and increasingly global reputation as a source of technology
innovation, the Czech Republic lacks the capacity to help fill the growing need for skilled IT workers and knowledgeable digital citizens. 

Czechitas New Generation extends our proven IT skills training approach for women and girls, to young people (boys and girls ages 9-18) across the Czech Republic. We provide weekend camps for programming and robotics during the school year, as well as summer IT day camps. We organize targeted serminars for teachers, and a special organizational platform for educators to share knowledge and peer support. We put special emphasis on activization of the school directors who have the real power to influence the way of education in their schools. We also develop supplemental resources for parents, and content to enable online study for young people at-home.
Our aim is to empower youth to become passionate contributors – not just
consumers of technology. As a Czech NGO, we are situated quite literally within the heart of Europe. Our passion for technology as a force for empowerment is fueled by our history as a nation, our experience as a society, and our desire for social change. We are visible and vocal in our efforts for women, girls, and young people as digitally empowered citizens. By amplifying our work in partnership with our efforts, we are confident that a new generation of technology leadership will be prepared to take on the challenges ahead.

Our inclusive approach to skills training is fueled by peer support and knowledge exchange. Our curricula represents flexible framework for identifying and distilling the latest trends and tools for multiple audiences. We cooperate with schools and teachers to infuse technology knowledge in creative ways. We engage companies as partners in the development and delivery of training for young people, including teams of corporate volunteers and youth mentors. Our ability to bridge fast-moving technology with the needs and interests of our society, in way that encourages broad community support is a model we are eager to grow on a larger scale.

We use information and communication technology throughout all our work. We center our instruction and training on technology as a means for personal and professional development. We organize events that utilize hard technical skills (e.g. programming, robotics, microelectronics) in tandem with social and creative skills in ways that are relevant and useful to people‘s lives and livelihoods. In these and other ways, we consider technology an exciting opportunity, a vital medium, and  crucial resource for our success.

During the next 12 months, Czechitas New Generation will

• Establish substantive community presence and program activity in 4-6 additional regions of the Czech Republic

• Develop high quality, targeted educational programs for ages 8-19

• Provide summer program activities within all regions of activity

• Connect with minimum total of 20.000+ children, young people, students, parents and teachers through offline and online education opportunities

• Promote Czechitas / Czechitas New Generation a strong community resource for teachers / educators in all regions of activity

Over the next three to five years, Czechitas will:

• Expand the scope of its New Generation programs and services to reach every region of Czech Republic, while reframing the focus of technology skills training to encompass multi-sector cooperation, service coordination, and resource collaboration.

• Enhance its service offerings to accomodate working and stay-at-home parents, including afterschool programs and parent-child experiential earning opportunities.

• Increase its on-site capacity by establishing at least two „Czechitas Houses“ with dedicated spaces to accomodate teacher/educator demand for longer-term courses, regular coding labs, open class spaces, technology showrooms, and public event spaces.

Czechitas benefits from an active and engaged community of alumni, volunteers, online ambassadors, and offline advocates for our programs and services. This extended community publicizes all of our activities through social media, internally within their companies and organizations, and through word-of-mouth within their communities. The majority of our new and first-time event participants derives from the outreach of this extended community.

Each year, Czechitas New Generation reaches approximately 500 children and young people in learning environments, 150 teachers and educators in their classrooms, and 10.000+ online visitors and social community participants who utilize our materials. During the past three years, a total of 5000+ young people registered for our events, with an addition 51,000 youth users/visitors to our website.

The majority of our participants currently use some form of technology, but have never previously taken any courses in technology skills.

Not long after taking our courses, we hear that students are interested in developing their skills further.

In 12 months, we anticipate 3000 children will participate in our classroom activities; 250 teachers and educators will participate in our workshops and labs; and 15000 people will access our online courses.

Over 24 months, we estimate 4500 child participants in our classroom activities; 350 teacher/educator participants in our workshops and labs; and 18000 users for our online courses.

Within 36 months, we project 6000 young people in our classroom activites; 400+ teacher/educator participants; and 20000+ users for our online courses.

Our team reflects a diverse range of corporate and nonprofit sector talent from human resources, customer service, marketing, sales, and public relations departments. Our leadership, staff, advisors, consultants, and trainers also represent extensive experience in IT services, youth development, gender, vocational education, career counseling, and personal development.

Our current revenue model is built upon a three-tier base of (1) donor support, (2) contract services for corporate/private sector clients, and (3) fee-for-service from participants who attend our courses.

To ensure our sustainability for the long-term, we are actively growing our resource base to include a dedicated strategy for individual donor / major gifts, institutional philanthropic support from grantmaking foundations, and income from online services.

We are passionate about connecting people, technology skills, and education opportunity. We appreciate the opportunity to apply to Solve, as a catalyst for us to expand our thinking on our mission, social purpose, and overall effectiveness. By joining the Solve community, we hope to learn from other perspectives, to improve our service-delivery capacity, and to strengthen our ability to operate on a larger scale.  We also hope our experiences and stakeholder community can help to inform and inspire peers from around the world and their efforts wherever we can.

We balance high quality and efficiency in alignment with our core values and commitment to social good. Our work is a bold challenge to long-held beliefs and practices in the Czech Republic. Our cross-sector operating model pushes conventional wisdom for NGOs in Central / Eastern Europe. Our society, however, does not encourage new approaches to skills development, and does not recognize the value for expanding opportunities for women and youth. We also face an economic reality where traditional funding is limited and risk-tolerance for nonprofit investments is low.