Summer of Success: meet the Summer 2017 cohort at The Glass Files!

Apprentices listen to a guest speaker in the conference room.

This Summer marked the 2nd in a row that our Bronx-based tech startup The Glass Files partnered with tech programs around New York City to work with high school students on unlocking their full potential as digital apprentices.

Summer 2017 was all about summer job experience, computer science, arts, teamwork, entrepreneurship, and leadership.

This educational opportunity was given by CTE Summer Scholars, a youth employment program at the NYC Department of Education, sponsored by Bank of America, and managed by the computing education program Code/Interactive. Thanks to them, 17 inters from 7 different New York City high schools in The Bronx and Manhattan converged on the facilities of MetaBronx and scenyc in the South Bronx for a startup life immersion.

Shadman, Syeda and David from BASE are setting up their laptops as web servers.

Here we find ourselves exploring the technology and business fields under the supervision of Sarah Poyet, founder and CEO of The Glass Files. We are organized into multiple teams with the goal of managing our own projects while learning the startup feedback loop which directly drives innovation on The Glass Files software itself.

As a company dealing with History, The Glass Files has a number of ongoing documentary projects, so one team for instance worked on telling the story of the life of Vinny Vella, the Italian actor who started as an extra on the classic film The French Connection, and his experience growing up in the original Little Italy, New York. In order for this to be achieved a group of us interns worked on transcribing footage and matching documentary images to make the story enticing to our audience.

Kenny, Rose and Kyara coordinate the transcription of video interviews.

Another team took charge of social media, working on daily posts on Instagram about historical events for the #OnThisDay campaign. For example Leidy Luciano made a post on August 1st about the very well known Anne Frank and her last diary entry of 1944.

Leidy and Frank partner up to write a sales pitching script.

We also made “behind the scenes” clips to give our audience insight into what the day to day looks like at The Glass Files with questions like “describe The Glass Files in one word”.

Kyara handles the camera while filming the “Making Of” The Glass Files.

There are a number of local stories The Glass Files is documenting as well: one project currently taking place is the FLACS I (Family Life Academy Charter School I) story, where we are labeling media and creating shot lists of recordings captured by Sarah Poyet of the FLACS 5th grade Cooking Club, which was sponsored by Bronx-based community bank Spring Bank. FLACS is going to be a great way for The Glass Files to demonstrate and discuss local finance history within the South Bronx. It also most definitely allows us to understand what project management and film work are like.

Manuel cleans and organizes archival media to prepare for digitizing.

The story of Aldan is another local tale, which is the history behind the Aldan company, a manufacturer of high quality salon garments for 60 years right here in Mott Haven. This project hopes to cover everything from how the family business started up to how the company ended.

Jazlyn and Jessica take charge of social media, including writing this blog post.

A perk of interning with The Glass Files and the MetaBronx ecosystem is that we got to meet a lot of entrepreneurs and rising stars changing the economy of The Bronx.

Cesar Peña is the founder of 24/7 Paps and inspired us with how he created a niche photographing celebrities by building relationships of trust with them.

Amanda Septimo is a MetaBronx director and came to talk to us about growing up in Hunts Point and becoming the youngest ever Senior Staffer in US Congress. As you can see, there’s so much in the making and the best part about it is being able to get perspectives of all different age groups!

The Summer 2017 cohort with MetaBronx mentor Amanda Septimo.

Here we are bringing to you the chance to join our family, and follow us on our journey!

Stay tuned on the blog and on Instagram for the next APPRENTICE TAKEOVER!

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Thank you to all our fabulous interns and their schools for their participation:

BASE (Bronx Academy for Software Engineering) CTESS
MBHS (Manhattan Bridges High School) CTESS
UAMA (The Urban Assembly Maker Academy) CTESS
AFSE (The Academy for Software Engineering) C/I
BECA (Bronx Early College Academy) C/I
UAG (Urban Assembly Gateway for Technology) C/I
ALT (Academy for Language and Technology) C/I

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Memorable quotes:

“I have learned how to deal with people and how starting your own company works and how hard it is. I’m trying to build a network and learn as many skills possible that will be useful for my dream job. I want to finish these 6 weeks successfully and give my all every day”.
– Leidy Luciano (Manhattan Bridges)

“I want to be in the software engineering industry when I’m older and being at a tech startup like The Glass Files is the perfect place to start”.
– David Salcedo (Bronx Academy for Software Engineering)

“I entered as an intern because I wanted to expand my knowledge in technology”.
– Amy Hernandez (Academy for Language and Technology)

Story by Jazlyn Sanchez (Urban Assembly Maker Academy) and Jessica Valera (Manhattan Bridges).
Photos by Angel Escobar (Academy for Software Engineering).