Young Tech Professionals

The Young Tech Professionals program develops the next generation technology workforce by educating undergraduate and graduate students on business and technical skills that are necessary to succeed in the real world. Students engage in a 6-week hands-on bootcamp augmenting their academic curriculum with digital using the Google Design Thinking framework and core, professional skills, such as diversity and inclusion, project management, and communications. Students learn how to collaborate and work in diverse teams led by industry coaches who guide them through the process of ideating, validating and refining their solutions, to a final Minimal Viable Product (MVP), and finally present their solutions to industry judges during a pitch competition.

Open to undergraduate and graduate students, the bi-annual YTP Tech Bootcamps are designed to accelerate this growth in the areas of:

Digital Skills: UI/UX, cloud, AI/ML, blockchain

Business Skills: project/product management, agile framework, how to pitch

Human Skills: problem solving, social impact, emotional intelligence

Students are provided real-world problems to solve through student teams. In our Fall 2019 program, we partnered with the Los Angeles County Office of the CIO to address three real-world challenges, including homelessness, food inspection safety, and wildfires. Students are connected with industry coaches (including Alums) who mentor and guide them weekly through the process of developing an MVP. Students are further supported by exposure to industry leaders in both the public and private sector to learn about roles in technology and potential internships or full-time employment opportunities. Students are exposed to various employment opportunities in technology including those students who don’t have STEM backgrounds but are eager to be part of the tech workforce. Students accepted into this program come from a variety of backgrounds, mainly, STEM, and are selected using a blind resume review process in order to help remove bias and diversify participants. Application deadlines for Fall and Spring Quarters are approximately 3 weeks prior to the start of the quarter.

Visit ytp.ucla.edu for information on upcoming YTP Tech Bootcamps, workshops, events and to apply to be a member of the Innovate@UCLA community.