Marvis Kilgore is from Holly Springs, a small town in Mississippi. Rust College, its HBCU, has always been a beacon of education for the community. Kilgore credits the college, community, and family for providing role models that fueled his desire to be on the front line of change.
From family and community, he was taught that he could be whatever he wanted. However, in the broader community, particularly in mainstream media, he says young Black men in Mississippi received messages in stark contrast to his upbringing.
“What that meant for me was speaking up and speaking out when I was experiencing things as a young kid that I didn’t necessarily agree with,” he says. “From an early age, I knew that education was a way to give me the skills and tools needed to help my community move the needle a bit more.”
After obtaining a master’s degree from New Orleans’ Dillard University, Kilgore spent 10 years with a team in Qatar setting up the first community college in the region. With a background in bilingual education, he helped lead the English language learning program.
He is now in Minnesota. “Having just left the desert and trading it for a tundra, if somebody would have said that five or six years ago, I think I would have laughed in their face,” he says. Yet he didn’t find work he felt passionate about in Mississippi or the Houston area he was considering.
After the death of George Floyd, he came to Minnesota to lead the Sirtify program at Normandale Community College. The organization’s mission is to diversify Minnesota’s professional teaching staff.
“Looking at the data, less than one percent of teachers in the state identify as Black and male,” says Kilgore. The Normandale program covered tuition, books, and fees, supporting Black men to earn teaching degrees.
There were three students in the program when he arrived at Normandale. They had a budget of $10,000. Four years later, there were 22 students in the program with a budget of about $700,000.
“We were able to transfer students to four-year institutions on substantial academic scholarships,” Kilgore says. Nine students benefited from an all-expense paid study abroad in Senegal.
Kilgore began looking for a new opportunity to lead after feeling he had reached his pinnacle of success at Normandale. He found Code Savvy.
Code Savvy provides computer science training for students, teachers, and schools. For students, they offer hands-on computer science exploration with experienced mentors.
Technovation is their 12-week program that teaches teen girls to design code and pitch their AI or mobile app ideas. They offer teachers professional development opportunities, ensuring that they provide high-quality, rigorous computer science learning to the students in their classrooms.
They work with school administrators to support computer science learning techniques. They also encourage community members to serve as mentors.
“Those who are experts in computers and technology in STEM, or those who are curious, everybody can get involved,” Kilgore says. “We provide training, so you don’t have to be an expert in computer science to be a mentor of one of Technovation teams.”
Artificial intelligence is a fast-moving technology that Kilgore says is changing the face of the tech world. At Code Savvy, they are making sure that communities of color are not left out of advancement.
While doing research, he found that those who identify as BIPOC are often not included in the computer science industry. As the organization’s new executive director, he focuses on ensuring their services align with their current mission.
“Minnesota is touted for its high-quality education,” says Kilgore, “But once you peel back the layers of the data and disaggregate it, you know that this quality of education isn’t across the board for everyone.”
Minnesota ranks very low in the nation in computer science education. According to Code.org, when looking at the “percentage of public high schools offering foundational computer science,” only 28% in the state do, ranking Minnesota 48th in the nation.
Since its inception 10 years ago, Code Savvy has focused on providing computer science education. A few years ago, the group added an equity, diversity, and inclusion focus to its mission.
“That is one of the reasons that drew me to Code Savvy, the inclusiveness,” says Kilgore. We want “to ensure that underrepresented populations and [those] often left out of the conversation are reintroduced in a more meaningful and a culturally relevant way.”
He sees the tech industry as a quick way to economic mobility. “If you learn coding, you can basically write your own ticket with any job,” says Kilgore. “Coding is one of those things that can really change the game in our community because not a lot of time is needed, not a lot of expensive certifications. You learn the basics and people will hire you almost immediately.”
Kilgore encourages those in the community to connect with nonprofits like Code Savvy to learn coding basics free of charge. A focus on logic building, data science, or game development determines the code the person should learn: JAVA, HTML, or Python, to name a few.
He also encourages people to visit their website, follow them on social media, or get involved with Code Savvy.
“We wanted to interrupt and counteract those existing structures — those gender, racial, and social economic structures in computer science education — by equipping youth and educators with the knowledge base and skills to create and become more innovative in the tech space.”
Learn more at www.codesavvy.org.
Vickie Evans-Nash welcomes reader responses to vnash@spokesman-recorder.com.