DETROIT (WXYZ) — About 1,000 metro Detroit students took over the Michigan Science Center on Thursday for an event designed to increase Black representation in technology fields.
Watch Evan Sery's video report:
The youth takeover marked the first day of a three-day Detroit Digital Empowerment Summit hosted by Black Tech Saturdays, a community-led initiative founded by Johnnie and Alexa Turnage in 2023.
"We saw there were youth who needed more programming and support," Johnnie Turnage said.
The event gave students like 6th grader Aaliyah Beecham from Dixon Educational Learning Academy a chance to experience technology beyond the typical school day.
"I like being here, it's really fun," Beecham said. "It gives me more experience with technology."
The Turnages launched Black Tech Saturdays after hearing a discouraging narrative about Detroit's tech scene.
"We were told the narrative in Detroit was Black people weren't in tech, tech wasn't really gonna be in Detroit," Turnage said.
Since its founding, Black Tech Saturdays has raised $3 million for programs and hosted 1,000 workshops across the country, all focused on changing that narrative and increasing Black tech representation.
"Sometimes you have to see it to believe it, and then once that barrier is removed, kids go on to do amazing things," Turnage said.
Students had the opportunity to network with successful entrepreneurs, including Neil Jones, CEO of Aerial Knight Games, a video game company he founded in Detroit.
"I want them to be great so I have more people to hire," Jones said.
Jones' company has produced five games on platforms like Xbox, PlayStation, and Steam, featuring characters from Detroit and representing that culture and background.
"When you look around the gaming industry, you don't really see a lot of people who look like me or the games I'm trying to make," Jones said.
Jones shared his latest creation with students while inspiring the next generation of tech entrepreneurs.
"When I was growing up, I didn't have any kind of examples of gaming in Detroit, but in the last couple of years been a big push of bigger studios like Xbox coming to Detroit," Jones said.
The summit continues Friday and Saturday with two live pitch competitions offering $175,000 in prizes funded by Rocket Mortgage.
"It's kinda become this mission of all of us saying we can be this next great tech hub, it's gonna look like us coming together and making sure we plant seeds early," Turnage said. "'Cause the youth are gonna get much further than we are."
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