Kevin Keogh helped launch Tech Saturdays, a Rutgers-Newark pilot program which put computers in the hands of underserved families
Kevin Keogh remembers the father who showed up to Tech Saturdays in Harlem a few years ago with his two small children in tow. After a morning of computer-literacy training, the man wore a grateful smile as he was handed a laptop computer to take home, the first the family would own.
“Because they had no computer at home, this guy had been dutifully taking his kids to the library three hours a night after he got off from work, to use the computers there and make sure they got a leg up on their education,” says Keogh. “How can you not be moved to help when you see something like that?”
Keogh did more than help. The Rutgers-Newark graduating senior has been a staple volunteer for Tech Saturdays, a four-year-old program in Harlem that bridges the digital divide by putting computers into the hands of underserved families and equipping them with training. Eventually, he would bring the idea to Rutgers-Newark and enlist the university’s help in piloting the project in that city, enhancing educational opportunities for scores of urban families and leaving a legacy that he can be plenty proud of.
Keogh, a political science major, got involved with Tech Saturdays while interning at The Clinton Foundation, in Harlem, during his sophomore year. The foundation encouraged all its employees to get out into the community and volunteer. Keogh chose Tech Saturdays because it was affiliated with The Children’s Storefront, an independent, tuition-free school in Harlem with a history of working with underserved kids that impressed him.
The program is the brainchild of Steve Bergen, a computer teacher at The Children’s Storefront. Bergen originally scraped together PCs from the school’s computer lab and basement, loading them with word-processing, spreadsheet, educational, and web and email software. He had tech-savvy friends set up wi-fi Internet connections for families graduating from his program and encouraged them to stay in touch through email, which had the added benefit of increasing their digital literacy.
Bergen, who started the program with five families, now serves 40 per month throughout the school year, and has 20 volunteers working on the project. Keogh has nevertheless stood out among the crowd.
“Kevin has been the best volunteer I’ve ever had, and I don’t say that lightly. Most come for a day or two, for maybe a couple of hours, and leave. Kevin’s been with me for three years – and stays all day,” Bergen says.
Throughout his time at Rutgers, Keogh has volunteered at Harlem’s Tech Saturdays on top of a full course load and an impressive list of internships, including long stints with New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, both in New York City and Washington, D.C. He also found time last year to help a former mentor from Gillibrand’s office, Gustavo Rivera, defeat embattled incumbent Pedro Espada for New York’s 33rd State Senate District seat.
But it is Keogh’s initiative in bringing Tech Saturdays to Newark that will leave a lasting imprint on the city’s educational landscape. Back in 2009, the Edison native told Rutgers-Newark political science professor Mary Segers about the Harlem program, and his desire to jump-start a similar one in Newark. Segers passed the news on to Vice Chancellor Marcia Brown, whose interest was immediately piqued. A committee was formed, with Keogh as the student representative and catalyst. Seven months later, a six-week pilot program was born, in conjunction with Newark Public Schools and the N.J. chapter of Black Data Processing Associates (NJBDPA).
The pilot program, which took place in April and May of last year, brought together 13 families of 7th to 9th graders for Saturday training sessions. Each student-parent pair was assigned a student mentor. At the end of the six weeks, each family took home an IBM ThinkPad laptop donated by Prudential Financial in Newark, where one of the NJBDPA members works.
The program is now on hiatus while Newark Public Schools choose a new superintendant. According to Brown, that gives her office time to complete a final report and transition the model over to the school district for implementation.
“Digital literacy is a necessity – not an option – for urban residents to meet the challenges of the 21st century,” says Brown “The role of the university’s outreach initiatives is not to run programs but to use its intellectual and human resources to build models that can be used as effective interventions for change,” says Brown. “Kevin’s choice to get involved enabled Rutgers-Newark to do just that.”
Keogh, whose policy passions are sustainable energy and economic development, looks forward to a career as a policy-outreach coordinator or government-affairs liaison, either for a nonprofit organization or advocacy group. Right now, though, he feels fortunate just to have had the chance to make a difference.
“I grew up in an extroverted family who was always helping out other people. That’s just the way we were,” says Keogh. “So, to be able to do this kind of work is incredibly rewarding. After all is said and done, I consider myself the lucky one.”