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How students spent the summer building Baltimore's tech future
Jabir Ghaffar had always been interested in tech, but this summer gave him his first chance to explore it in a professional setting.
Ghaffar participated in CodeWorks+, a paid internship experience that places participants at tech companies and nonprofits in Baltimore. It's part of the broader YouthWorks summer employment initiative, which connects young people to jobs across the city.
'I already came in with a problem-solving mindset,' Ghaffar told 'I just needed something to focus it on.'
Ghaffar interned at DataTrail, a free program that teaches data science to teens and young adults from marginalized communities. He presented his work last Friday during the CodeWorks+ internship showcase at the Spark Baltimore coworking space in downtown Baltimore — the program's first year operating out of that location.
At DataTrail, Ghaffar redesigned the curriculum to resemble a video game, introducing a ranking system and fictional 'bosses' to challenge students' data science skills.
It all culminates in a final boss named 'Corvexus Null,' who obscures data about Baltimore neighborhoods. Students have to defeat Corvexus by cleaning and analyzing data to produce an accurate report about a neighborhood of their choice.
'It's not about perfection, it isn't just about the grade. … This is the moment they show they understand their tools, their data and, most importantly, their communities,' Ghaffar said during his presentation.
Other presenters included Jack Overton and Evelyn Bachman who worked at the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance. The organization, part of the Jacob France Institute at the University of Baltimore, organizes community data for the city.
Overton adapted income intervals for the organization's Economic Diversity Index and found that the Greektown/Bayview neighborhood had the highest economic diversity. Bachman analyzed city projects funded by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act and evaluated feedback from the last Baltimore Data Day, a free event that brings together community leaders to explore data usage.
'I really enjoyed talking to people in Baltimore, local people who work with data and seeing how so many people care about helping Baltimore City,' Bachman said.
Building Baltimore's talent pipeline
Andrew Pham, co-executive director of Code in the Schools, which runs the CodeWorks+ program, wants to ensure Baltimore retains local talent like Ghaffar. He sees summer internship programs as essential in nurturing the city's tech pipeline in the city.
'Baltimore is a place where you can start a business and get a job — you don't have to leave for another tech hub,' Pham said.
LaTonya Hall, founder of cybersecurity firm Stondoh Secure Digital Solutions, found out about CodeWorks+ through a newsletter from Spark, where she keeps an office. She decided to hire interns through the program to help create a pipeline for potential employees.
'We as business owners, especially cyber companies, have a skills gap, so I think it's important that we do our best to try to create opportunities that are centered in the real-world applications of cybersecurity,' Hall said.
Eileen Jiang and Oluyinka Ojolayo worked at Stondoh, where they learned about the controls set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology that help organizations manage cybersecurity risks. The duo explored ways to automate the rules implementation process.
Ojolayo, a student at Amherst College, noted the depth of the experience and credited Hall for her guidance.
'I had dabbled a bit with cybersecurity in a previous internship, but had never worked on something to this scale,' Ojolayo said. 'But thankfully, everyone was so accommodating and I learned so many new tools.'
Maria Eberhart is a 2025-2026 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs emerging journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported in part by the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation and the Abell Foundation. Learn more about supporting our free and independent journalism.
