July was a busy month for Ruben Digital’s’s Founder, Nate Ruben. He dedicated a large portion of his time to sharing his knowledge and skills with young people in our community eager to pursue a career in Tech. Not only did RDM have the opportunity to mentor five summer interns (three of which are in high school), Nate also had the chance to teach a group of Forest View High School students in the D214 DiscoverIT program about the exciting world of tech.
Our Account Executive, Angela, had the opportunity to spend a day learning about what these students were up to during this 3 week tech internship experience.
Her experience: When I first entered the classroom, I noticed that the students were very engaged in their work and seemed excited to learn. They seemed genuinely passionate about what they were working on! I was extremely impressed with all of the things these students were able to accomplish in such a short amount of time: Students built their own portfolio websites, designed various logos, built a website, created and edited a video and even designed an app!
David (pictured below) built an app called Biz List. This app was created for members of the District 214 Career Life Skills Program, a program that provides students with significant cognitive abilities the opportunity to further develop their social, vocational and academic skills. The purpose of the app is to match students up with businesses in the area that would potentially hire them for internships or jobs. David said he would not have been able to do it without Nate’s help. “Nate helped me a lot in making the home page go from bad to aesthetically pleasing, his suggestions were very useful when creating a design. I was amazed at how two minor changes made such a difference!” One of David’s long term goals is to release an app into the app store by the time that he finishes college. Very cool!
Check out the awesome work these students created here.
The Forest View High School students were not the only ones that benefited greatly from this experience, Nate also learned a lot about himself and further confirmed the fact that he wants to be involved in educating young people about technology and entrepreneurship. “I enjoy working with students and teaching people what I know. It allows me to perfect my craft and I also enjoy the wonderful way I feel when I give back.”
As a Wheeling High School alum, Nate was especially interested in working with the D214 community. “Although I excelled in my academics and co-curricular activities, I was often a challenge for the administration. In this role, I saw things from another perspective. I learned to ignore my initial judgements about working with some of the kids. There were students I made predictions about during our first meeting, and most of my preconceptions turned out to be way off. I also learned how to evaluate students’ motivations and develop a strategy for working with them that maximizes their working behavior. It was a very fun and rewarding three weeks.”
The fun doesn’t stop there, we are barely into August and Ruben Digital is excited to continue working with the community! Take a look at the upcoming events:
- Saturday, August 12th our team is volunteering at Blue Studio’s STEM Make-a-thon & Hack-a-thon.
- Thursday, August 24th we will be participating in the Annual Meal Packing event with the Northbrook Chamber of Commerce.