Not long after graduating from Cliffside Park High School, Shravan Parvathaneni created a non-profit group called TAKTICS to teach kids the basics of computer science. This summer TAKTICS will tour 11 libraries around New Jersey, including a recent stop in North Bergen.
On Monday, Parvathaneni and a team of high school graduates from Cliffside Park visited the North Bergen Public Library to teach students how to make their own computer games. The students ranged in age from 10 to 16. Parvathaneni said everyone in the class already had coding experience, so they designed computer games to get more practice.
“We’re keeping the lessons free, because we want people to do this.” – Shravan Parvathaneni
____________
He added that in his travels with the group, “We saw that adults like making their own website, teens like making smartphone apps or computer games, and for the younger ones, we just want to get their feet wet with coding experience. Kids have to start early and get their feet wet to see if it’s something they want to do in life.”
The birth of TAKTICS
Parvathaneni and his friends started the nonprofit after working together in the robotics team in high school.
“We got into web design, and the teachers said they wanted to make their own websites,” Parvathaneni said. That’s when he and his friends gathered the teachers up, and taught them how to build their own website.
TAKTICS stands for To Advance Knowledge Through Instructing Computer Science. They officially became a nonprofit in September 2015.
Next week they’ll be touring libraries in Hackensack and Cliffside Park.
One of the goals for the team is to be able to bring their own equipment to schools or libraries that don’t have computers. In order to become more independent the group sells tee shirts to the classes and asks parents for donations towards their goal.
One of the TAKTICS volunteers, Hugo Moraes, 18, plans to take a computer science class next year in Cliffside Park High School.
“I heard about TAKTICS before, but the co-founder found me and talked to me more about it,” Moraes said. “I think it’ll be something good on my college application, and it’ll help me with the computer science class.” Moraes said he hopes to go to Rutgers for computer science.
“A nonprofit like us gives more opportunity for people to learn computer science, and for people to volunteer,” Parvathaneni said.
Samantha Meyers can be reached at samantham@hudsonreporter.com .