Hack4Hope St. Louis returns June 10-12, 2016 providing a great opportunity for underserved St. Louis area teens in grades 7-12. Student registrants for the event can learn from area mentors during the hackathon weekend event, participate in the academy and gain access to other valuable resources to guide them as they explore technology career options.Hack4 Hope's mission is to provide STEAM educational opportunities and events to help heal the social and economic divisions of St. Louis, thereby offering youth a gateway to success. 2015 was a major success for Hack4Hope and they are looking forward to accomplishing more great things in 2016.But they need your help! Without the support from passionate professionals who are willing to contribute their time and knowledge, Hack4Hope's hackathon cannot continue to provide a great learning opportunity for their eager student participants.

Lend Your Tech Skills - Be a Hack4Hope St. Louis 2016 Mentor

If you're a St. Louis area technology professional here's what Hack4Hope is seeking from the mentors who volunteer their time during the hackathon (according to their site):

Development Mentor

Development Mentors, or Developers, are software engineers and developers who will work with our youth participants to write code. Developers must be available to answer questions or make suggestions on technical approaches to solving problems in the areas of:

• defining workflow
• web and/or mobile app development
• coding using tools such as Python, C#, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, etc.
• useful APIs or existing open source systems and existing data sources to leverage

Ideally, development mentors have a minimum of 2-­3 years experience on a software development team, have mentored other developers, and have participated in at least one hackathon.

Design Mentor

Design Mentors, or Designers, are individuals with a strong background in design (graphics, web, user interface, etc.). Designers should understand the importance of user experience, user centric design, paper mockups, wireframes, rapid prototyping, PowerPoint presentations, graphics and other areas of design. Ideally, design mentors have a minimum of 2­-3 years experience on a software development team, have mentored other developers, and have participated in at least one hackathon.

Strategy Mentor

Strategy Mentors, or Strategists, are professionals with knowledge of market strategy, PR, and effective presentation techniques. These professionals understand how to help students define their target audience, form a customer hypothesis, and relate and present their ideas in their final pitch. Strategists will play a key role in helping teams identify the value that their solutions provide and in preparing their pitch to judges. Ideally, strategy mentors have a minimum 2-3 years experience.

If you fit the bill for any of those roles and would like to help, you can register as a mentor for Hack4Hope here. If you're not available the entire weekend, you can still lend a hand as a volunteer, too!