Code2College Employs IoT to Enhance Student Learning Experience

Code2College, a nonprofit organization aimed at helping minority and low-income students achieve tech/STEM careers, was facing challenges in managing and analyzing student data. The organization's data, including student attendance, grades, and teacher input, was kept in spreadsheets or gathered by word of mouth. This approach was inefficient and time-consuming, especially when specific data on a student's performance or an overall view of the student population was required. The organization used Salesforce for operations and Canvas as a learning management tool. However, extracting information from these platforms to answer a single question would require a day's work, which was untenable given the small size of the data team. The team wanted to centralize their data using Google's BigQuery data warehouse tool to streamline retrieval and expedite responses to student needs. However, the challenge was how to transfer data from platforms like Salesforce and Canvas into BigQuery.

Code2College is a nonprofit organization based in Austin, Texas, founded in 2016 by a group of volunteers. The organization's mission is to expose low-income and minority students to the tech industry and create a pipeline from previously untapped talent. To date, Code2College has served more than 2,000 students, placed more than 250 students in tech internships, and helped more than 250 of its alumni get into college. The organization uses Salesforce for operations and Canvas as a learning management tool. It also conducts student surveys and stores them in Google Drive. The organization's leadership recognized early on that data would be central to their mission, and they have been proactive in seeking out efficient and cost-effective solutions to manage and analyze their data.