Presentation by Give a Summer to Boston's New Urban Mechanics illustrating varied ways technology can (and may already!) improve summer programming for young kids in Boston. Ideas are grouped around i) improving discovery, enrollment, and engagement and ii) expanding and improving summer opportunities.

1. GIVE A SUMMER PRESENTATION TO
NEW URBAN MECHANICS
Technology opportunities to improve summer
programming in Boston
Note – This is an attempt to list different whiteboard ideas for how technology could improve
summer outcomes.
This is not intended as a list of work that hasn’t been done yet or what should be done next.
Rather it is a record of different ideas to illustrate how technology can – and may already! – help
improve summer outcomes for kids.
Prepared by Give a Summer
ramon@giveasummer.org
GiveaSummer.org

2. Tech opportunities –
Improve discovery, enrollment & engagement
• Create parent / kid facing interface that help parents/kids easily find and enroll in summer programs
• Develop ‘recommended programs’ to improve parent / kid & mentor decision-making
• For example, generate 1-page recommended program lists unique to each school that can be sent home to
parents
• Problems – Need to reach kids & parents offline, help sort through options, benefit from showing opportunities
(beyond describing where to find them)
• Connect real-time tracking of availability in summer programs to enrollment website
• Current – after-the-fact Boston Beyond survey of summer program capacity
• Problems – churn & missed opportunities because kids/families can’t be directed to available programs in real-time
• Create site for local counselors / mentors / families to log problems with summer opportunities in their area
for quick troubleshooting
• (perhaps integrate with Mayor’s Youth Line calls?)
• Problems – system-wide, may not have clear picture of hiccups & blocks, especially in real-time
• Create way for programs to text reminders to kids & parents
• Problem – typically, 10% to 20% of kids don’t show up for programs they’ve signed up for
• Tie together summer participation to school records to identify at-risk kids missing out on opportunities
• Problem – no surveying of what kids do over the summer, not connected to school year records
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3. 3
Tech opportunities –
Expand and improve summer opportunities
• Expand summer program opportunities
• Expand summer opportunities with technology – Cities of Learning
initiative
• Idea - increase out of school opportunities by creating apps for /
‘gamifying’ learning
• Make better decisions about summer program resources
• Create better map of summer program resources to identify gaps in
coverage (compare summer programs to student populations)
• Make it easier for review of programs / feedback to be collected
electronically & put online

4. Appendix
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5. Background – Give a Summer
• Give a Summer is a new, not for profit organization to help
more young kids participate in enriching summer
programs
• Works to develop promising policy, advocacy, and program
innovations to expand summer program participation
• Tries to find great partners to help improve these ideas and push
them forward
• Immediate goal is to partner with a school district to
• Survey young kids (and parents) this fall about summer activities
• Use that data and the help of community supporters and mentors to
increase enrollment in next summer’s programs
• Started and run by Ramon Gonzalez, a recent Yale
College graduate
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6. Give a Summer’s beliefs
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• Summer programs can play a crucial role in youth development,
though many kids do not have access or enroll in them.
• Recently, there has been increased study of effective summer
programs and some expansion of them to underserved kids.
• Still, too many young kids, especially kids who are academically
struggling or from lower income backgrounds, do not participate in
enriching summer opportunities.
We can do better (cheaply and quickly)
• Survey young kids’ summer activities to identify gaps in access or
enrollment
• Increase the low enrollment of struggling and lower income kids in
available summer programs
• Partner with mentor organizations to attract young kids to summer programs
• Involve young adults in a summer-oriented mentorship program for young kids

7. Give a Summer’s approach
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• Focus on the problems of low enrollment and limited data
on youth summer activities
• Why?
• Not much has been done about these problems
• Efficient approaches to start addressing them
• Benefits from this approach –
• “Easy” way to increase participation
• Helps advocacy efforts by demonstrating demand & improving
knowledge of gaps in access
• Brings in outside groups to summer program issues
• Increasing funding / greater access advocacy is being done well,
partly successfully, and with tremendous effort by others