theCO, a West Tennessee-based community of entrepreneurs, creatives and web developers, is pleased to announce that 16 area high school students have each been awarded an all-expenses-paid trip to tour tech companies across Tennessee. This prize is a result of earning the highest honors in the Dev Catalyst program.
This year’s program included 10 schools throughout Tennessee, with over 300 students participating in Novice Web Development, Data Development, and Hardware Dev Project categories.
Chester County High School brought home many awards under the instruction of CCHS coding teacher, Adele Ellington. CCHS had a total of eight Dev Catalyst Finalists and two Dev Catalyst Code Champions.
Chester County “Dev Catalyst Finalists” students who have completed the Dev Catalyst Program and placed among the top 50 include: Corey Williams, Ian Calloway, James Richards, Josiah Cook, Nathaniel Anderson, Tristin Smith and Vernon Tucker.
The “Dev Catalyst Code Champions” are the students who won an all-expenses-paid trip to tour Tennessee’s largest tech companies this summer. In addition to the trip, they have also been invited to participate in theCO:Camp. These students are Ethan Mullins and Nathan Britt.
On top of that, The “Rhodes Barnette Educator award,” the outstanding teacher award, was awarded to Ellington.
In its ninth year, the Dev Catalyst program provides students access to high quality, industry-relevant tech education. Students access various online learning platforms, code editors and more. Dev Catalyst teachers are supported through Educator Workshops, classroom resources, and tech video content to use throughout the program.
Recognizing the importance for designers and developers in our ever changing workforce, Dev Catalyst was created to spark students’ interest in technology-related fields and provide the high demand, high wage career skills to students throughout the region. The Dev Catalyst program began in 2013 after CO:Founders Ben Ferguson and William Donnell brought the idea to the Jackson-Madison County School District and the Jackson Chamber.
About theCO
theCO is a community of entrepreneurs, tinkerers, engineers, creatives, students and developers encouraging economic growth, business development and coding education in West Tennessee. theCO is funded through a combination of private support and LaunchTN, a public initiative created by the State of Tennessee to encourage entrepreneurship and small business ownership. To learn more about theCO, visit www.attheco.com.
