WebSlam Finale

by: Kate Bladow
Last night Web Slam!, a website hackathon for high school students, wrapped up. Five teams showed off the WordPress websites they created for local Baltimore nonprofits.

1st Place:

Team 4Point0 received paid summer internships for the work they did with Arena Players. They also won the Best Teamwork award.
Team Members: David Dupuis, Amit Kharel, Blake Brusio, Brahema Molubah
Team Mentors: Kennith Isom, Christian Bell, Wesley Stuckey

2nd Place:

Five Alive won a year of free web hosting and worked with Liberty Elementary School. http://fivealive.webslam.org/
Team Members: Eric Jenson, Adam Howard, Anthony Carter, Harrison Larkins, Quantez Johnson, DaRon Howard
Team Mentors: Mike Brenner, Quintin Brown

3rd Place:

Neuyouth won a tour of local web companies with Andrew Coy for the site they designed for Baltimore Racial Justice Action. http://neuyouth.webslam.org/ They also won the Hardest Workers award.
Team Members: Geremy Faulkner, Malik Wilson, Carlyto Johnson, Welsley Perry, Jasmine Johnson
Team Mentors: La Tasha Vanzie, Ben Kutil,

4th Place:

The Pro-rammers will be attended Baltimore WordCamp for free and worked with the Baltimore Free Store. http://pro-rammers.webslam.org/
Team Members: Shannon Dotson, Heman Rai, Taiven Rumph
Team Mentors: Jonathan Julian

5th Place:

irev-olution, a team of middle school students from Patterson Park Public Charter School, will have supper at PF Changs courtesy of the website they created for the Baltimore County Historical Trust. http://irev-olution.webslam.org/ They were also recognized with the Most Improved team.
Team Members: Jason James, Kevin Amaya, Monae Curbeam, Tracy Barnes, Yasmine Clayton
Team Mentors: Jenna Shaw, Anthony Mattox

A huge thank you to the technology community for helping to make this happen. Jonathan Julian, Ben Kutil, Mike Brenner, Anthony Mattox, Kyle Fritz, Kenneth Isom, Quention Kramer, and Wesley Stuckey mentored the teams. Heather Bradbury, Jed Weeks, Shervonne Cherry, and Kim Trueheart served as judges. Andy Stratton and Tracy Gold trained the nonprofits, students, and mentors on how to maintain WordPress sites and how to write engaging content, respectively. Gayle Carney and Scott Paley helped prepare the nonprofits for the hackathon and their new websites. The Baltimore Burger Bar provided delicious food, and Kristian Bjørnard donated the computer the trophies were made out of. (You can see the trophies here: http://bit.ly/KZcMdm ) Ed Mullins, Randy Hayes, and Rodney Foxworth, thank you for stopping by to check the students’ progress. And lastly, but definitely not least, thank you to @Andrew Coy for dreaming up this event, and to Sean Carton, Hunter Barrington, and Jean Cedrec for helping to see that this event happened.

If your tech company has room for a high school intern this summer, get in touch with Andrew. Even a part-time paid internship in a tech position could inspire these students to take the next step and could start to create some of the programming talent this community needs.