RebootLA: A pathway to entrepreneurship for returning citizens
In this installation of the reWerk Impact blog, we’re spotlighting our partner RebootLA, which is an initiative born to help people with a criminal record — including people that may have been incarcerated, returning citizens — find a pathway to entrepreneurship through technical training and microenterprise support. RebootLA is a partnership between the City of Los Angeles’s Economic Workforce Development Department and Sabio, which is a coding bootcamp and developer community.
RebootLA’s main goal is to provide training to individuals who have a criminal record, and help them launch tech startups or thrive in freelance opportunities by providing access to tech incubation and microenterprise incubation programs.
The hope is to expose system-impacted individuals to career paths that go beyond commonly accepted jobs (like construction or warehouse opportunities).
Knowing that tech opportunities are only ever-expanding, part of RebootLA’s responsibility is to provide opportunities for returning citizens to envision a life for themselves in tech. This work supports Black and Latinx individuals who have been overwhelmingly impacted by profiling and incarceration.
We can only envision what we know. So we have to expose as many individuals to a better life through better-paying employment in tech.
We at reWerk were able to facilitate a donation of 17 monitors, two TVs and e-waste material from our corporate partners at Yelp and Twitter to support RebootLA’s programs. The monitors went directly to students who can now boost their coding environment, since a dual-screen setup greatly increases productivity when it comes to coding. TVs were provided to transitional homes RebootLA partners with to train individuals. And the e-waste went to support Homeboy Industries’ e-waste recycling program which is an award-winning, full-service IT asset disposition and electronics recycling company designed to create employment opportunities for formerly incarcerated men and women. (Fun fact: For every 75,000 lbs. of electronic equipment they collect, they can create a new job.)
Returning citizens are often incredibly creative because their former incarceration pushed them to be innovative with limited resources. When working one-on-one with returning citizens, RebootLA often finds that many have great business ideas and motivation, but simply lack basic access to resources. Transitional homes don't all necessarily have reliable access to WiFi (assuming they have WiFi to begin with). And for those with aspirations of a career in tech, lack of laptops and access to tech are often huge barriers. Most individuals prioritize purchasing a phone over other tech, given limited financial resources. Chromebooks are commonly donated to justice-impacted individuals, but their limited use does not allow for coding. Equipment with more computing power is necessary to help launch careers as developers.
“Investing in formerly incarcerated individuals through building technical skills is an incredibly beneficial endeavor that has a ripple effect of good throughout the community. BIPOC are disproportionately justice-impacted. So when you invest in their tech careers, you are raising their earnings and wealth potential while simultaneously addressing the urgent demand for technical talent and overall lack of tech diversity.”
The origins and impact of RebootLA
The organization first began in 2018 with a small training cohort with ARC (Anti-Recidivism Coalition). Since then, the program has gained traction, with the Mayor of Los Angeles supporting the initiative. The program has already jumpstarted many bright futures — with one alum (formerly a juvenile with a life sentence) who became a developer at GAP. He was incarcerated before the age of 18 and was released after serving about 20 years. He decided he wanted to become a developer, and was able to make that dream a reality. One of RebootLA’s recent alumni also just accepted a role as a developer at Cash App.
RebootLA’s training is rigorous and provides real hands-on skill-building. They currently have 4 alumni from this cohort, with another 4 currently undergoing full stack web development training, and 10 more finishing up the introductory work before starting the full stack development training.
About 119 students in total have learned basic HTML & CSS through RebootLA’s programs.