Like many young people, Zach Latta went to a school that didn't teach any computer classes. But that didn’t stop him from learning everything he could about them and becoming a programmer at a young age. After moving to San Francisco, Zach founded Hack Club, a nonprofit network of high school coding clubs around the world, to help other students find the education and community that he wished he had as a teenager. 

This week on our podcast, we talk to Zach about the importance of student access to an open internet, why learning to code can increase equity, and how school's online security and the law often stand in the way. We’ll also discuss how computer education can help create the next generation of makers and builders that we need to solve some of society’s biggest problems. 

In this episode, you’ll learn about:

• Why schools block some harmless educational content and coding resources, from common sites like Github to “view source” functions on school-issued devices
• How locked down digital systems in schools stop young people from learning about coding and computers, and create equity issues for students who are already marginalized
• How coding and “hack” clubs can empower young people, help them learn self-expression, and find community 
• How pervasive school surveillance undermines trust and limits people’s ability to exercise their rights when they are older
• How young people’s curiosity for how things work online has helped bring us some of the technology we love most 

If you have any feedback on this episode, please email [email protected]. Please visit the site page at eff.org/pod202 where you’ll find resources – including links to important legal cases and research discussed in the podcast and a full transcript of the audio. 

This podcast is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

Music for How to Fix the Internet was created for us by Reed Mathis and Nat Keefe of BeatMower. 

This podcast is licensed Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, and includes the following music licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported by their creators: 

Warm Vacuum Tube  by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/59533 Ft: starfrosch

Drops of H2O ( The Filtered Water Treatment ) by J.Lang (c) copyright 2012 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/djlang59/37792 Ft: Airtone

reCreation by airtone (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/59721