For Terik Tidwell, teaching kids to code is not about algorithms or apps—it’s about economic mobility.

Tidwell is director of STEM innovation at Johnson C. Smith University, an historically-black college situated in the heart of Charlotte, NC. The city is marked by contradiction: On one hand, the place is booming, home to the headquarters of Bank of America and an emerging start-up scene. But a recent analysis scored Charlotte worst for economic mobility in a survey of the nation’s 50 largest cities, with pockets of concentrated poverty cut off from the rich opportunities just around the corner.

Tidwell sees coding as a key bridge—a way to open kids’ eyes to a way of thinking, and a world of job opportunities.

“We see a lot of students are not going into computer science—they don't know about computer science,” says Tidwell. “I had one student a year or so ago who gave me feedback. I said why didn't you think about computer science? She's like, ‘I never thought of it. I didn't have it in high school. I didn't have any tech things.’”

The university is working to change that. Just this month it scored $1.8 million in grants—from the U.S. Department of Education and from the Kenan Charitable Trust—for a K-16 initiative to expose kids in nearby schools and at the university to computer science and entrepreneurship.

Tidwell talked with EdSurge about the effort during a recent conference at Stanford University for leaders of campus innovation efforts.