Sylvester Mobley is the founder and CEO of Coded by Kids, an educational non-profit which prepares underrepresented youth in Philadelphia to succeed as leaders in technology and innovation fields. 

As software dependence continues to increase throughout our society, the biases of a computer programming industry that has historically excluded women, African Americans, and Latinx communities become more entrenched and detrimental. 

“Because of the role that software plays in our lives,” Mobley points out, “not having diverse technologists that are building the software, not having people on the teams that can look at the impact that software has in people’s lives, to me, it’s a civil rights issue that most people don’t understand.”

Coded by Kids offers software development, digital design, computer science, and tech startup-focused entrepreneurship education programs to help underrepresented youth, between the ages of 8 and 18, achieve leadership positions in technology fields. 

In this episode, Mobely discusses the systemic scale of inequity in technology fields, what steps Coded by Kids is taking to address the issue, and what more the community of Philadelphia can do to nurture its young talent.