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SALT LAKE CITY — Pat Wright, a father and engineer, was at a meeting in 2006 when someone asked: “Does someone want to put on a conference for coding?”
Even though he had never done such a thing, Wright raised his hand and said, “I’ll help put it on.” That simple action started a chain of events for Wright that has impacted many.
Wright started with small coding camps for professionals through his job at MaritzCX, which led to Digiforge, a youth technology conference. He has been the chairman of Digiforge the last two years.
Digiforge is aimed at helping high school students in school districts in the Salt Lake Valley. It has been running for almost a decade and is put on by the Wasatch Front South Consortium, educators, professionals in the tech community and dedicated volunteers.
The Digiforge conference was held again last Wednesday, March 16, at Salt Lake Community College’s South City campus. Over 500 teens attended keynote and professional presentations on topics such as big data, graphic design, video game programming, 3-D animation and coding.
Jana Davis, programs coordinator of SpyHop Productions and one of Digiforge’s organizers, said, “The professionals giving tracks are giving a real world outlook of what other jobs are out there — teens get introduced to other positions that they might not be aware of.”
When the students attend these presentations, they don’t only learn about the topic, but all the work that goes in to create their favorite games or the apps and tools they use every day.
“We have students say, ‘I want to create the next Halo’ or ‘I want to be a film director’ but they aren’t always aware of the hundreds and thousands of positions to make that finished product,” Davis said.
When Davis was asked what brought all these people together for Digiforge, she said, “There’s so much need in Utah… There’s so many needs for programmers, networkers and designers, and that need just keeps getting bigger.”
Wright also saw the need, which led him to create Utah Geek Events (UGE) in 2010. UGE is a nonprofit that partners with other organizations to put on coding camps. They started with adults but in 2014 switched to organizing coding camps for kids aimed at ages 5-13.
“I do this because I believe we should all help each other, we should all mentor," Wright said.
This summer, Utah Geek events is partnering with Utah Open Source, Goldman Sachs, HealthEquity and MaritzCX to put on an entire summer of coding events. They will have a kids' coding session all day on June 11 at Neumont University, where they expect hundreds of kids. That will kick off a summer of coding where kids can work on a project and earn prizes.
From raising his hand to volunteer in 2006, Wright has been able to help hundreds of professionals and youths learn and grow.
“Being in the community out there helping people makes you a better professional and a better person,” he said.
Now, one of Wright’s teenage daughters has decided she wants to pursue computer science in college.
If you also want to raise your hand and get involved, Wright said Digiforge and Utah Geek Events could use more help. But he also suggested to “get involved in the technologies your kids are interested in… start talking about how things work.”
For more information about Utah Geek Events and its upcoming coding camps, visit the organization's website. For more information on Digiforge and how to be involved, contact Wright at pwright@utahgeekevents.com or contact Digiforge online.
Carrie Rogers-Whitehead is a senior librarian at Salt Lake County Library. In addition, she is an instructor at Salt Lake Community College and CEO and co-founder of Digital Respons-Ability. Carrie can be reached at carrie@respons-ability.net
