Teens with an in­ter­est in cre­at­ing mo­bile apps, an­i­ma­tions or eBooks will soon have a chance to hone their skills at a va­ca­tion tech camp based in Port-of-Spain.The three-week camp, host­ed by in­ter­na­tion­al non-prof­it Bright­Path Foun­da­tion, tar­gets youth be­tween 13 and 15 years old with an in­ter­est in busi­ness, in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy, in­no­v­a­tive graph­ic de­sign, soft­ware pro­gram­ming, Web de­vel­op­ment, mo­bile apps and dig­i­tal me­dia.

Be­yond tech­ni­cal com­pe­tence, the camp in­tro­duces par­tic­i­pants to moral prin­ci­ples and im­parts es­sen­tial life skills. Top­ics cov­ered in­clude civic re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, tech­nol­o­gy and ethics, work­place eti­quette and lo­cal con­tent cre­ation."With Bright­Path Foun­da­tion, we are cre­at­ing a con­text in which tech­nol­o­gy is an en­abler, al­low­ing or­di­nary peo­ple, any­where in the world, and in the process dis­cov­er their true selves, and the val­ues nec­es­sary to change their world," said Bright­Path founder Bevil Wood­ing.

Full-time su­per­vi­sion, per­son­alised in­struc­tion, tech tours, dai­ly meals, a cer­tifi­cate and a keep­sake camp T-shirt are in­clud­ed. At­ten­dees re­ceive free copies of the text­books, soft­ware and oth­er learn­ing re­sources.Al­though ba­sic com­put­er lit­er­a­cy is re­quired, no pri­or ex­pe­ri­ence in dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy, mo­bile de­vel­op­ment or graph­ic de­sign is nec­es­sary.

The camp is al­so sup­port­ed by ArkiTechs, EM­POW­ER De­vel­op­ment, Dou­ble X Print­ers, KR Con­sult­ing, Philadel­phia Net­work, Teleios Sys­tems, TSG Con­sult­ing and re­gion­al col­lab­o­ra­tive part­ner, Colum­bus Com­mu­ni­ca­tions."In­stead of sim­ply teach­ing kids to use ex­ist­ing tech­nolo­gies, we must give them the tools to de­sign and cre­ate their own." said Kevin Khelawan, Chief Op­er­at­ing Of­fi­cer at Teleios Sys­tems and one of the fa­cil­i­ta­tors at the camp.

"The Bright­Path Tech­Camp does just that by pro­vid­ing young­sters the op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­ter­act with in­dus­try prac­ti­tion­ers and re­al-world in­no­va­tors in an in­tense but fun-filled three weeks of learn­ing that will ben­e­fit them for life."

Spe­cial at­tendee schol­ar­ships, were made pos­si­ble by the re­gion­al telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions firm, Colum­bus Com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Cor­po­rate vice pres­i­dent–sales and mar­ket­ing at Colum­bus Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Rhea Yaw Ching, says the Bright­Path TT.Tech­Camp reach­es out to an im­por­tant au­di­ence with a mod­el that can be ap­plied through­out the Caribbean.

"What at­tract­ed us to this pro­gramme was the unique blend of a tra­di­tion­al camp ex­pe­ri­ence with qual­i­ty tech­nol­o­gy train­ing pro­grams. This bal­anced ap­proach is con­sis­tent with Colum­bus' vi­sion for tech­nol­o­gy en­abled learn­ing," Yaw Ching stat­ed.It runs from to­day un­til Ju­ly 31 from 8.45 am to 3.30 pm dai­ly at KR Ex­ec­u­tive Train­ing Cen­tre, 141 Pe­tra St, Wood­brook, Port-of-Spain.

More in­for­ma­tion is avail­able at http://tech­camp.bright­path­foun­da­tion.org.