Inmates Receive Technology Training from Silicon Valley Experts

Silicon Valley experts and tech entrepreneurs have launched a training program for the inmates of the San Quentin State Prison, Calif.

The Center for Entrepreneurship believes that these inmates have the potential to start their careers in technological firms. They have selected some inmates to undergo six-month training from the Last Mile program.

The The Last Mile program founded by husband and wife Chris Redlitz and Beverly Parenti teaches the participants basic communication skills, business design, and job preparation for the technology sector. During the lectures, the inmates were handed books written by digital media experts and interacts with guest speakers and mentors from various technology firms. The couple used their connections to convince other tech experts to volunteer for the program.

"We believe that when incarcerated people are released into the world, they need the tools to function in today's high-tech, wired world," Parenti said in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.

The lectures are conducted twice a week during the evenings. Though they were prohibited from using the Internet, the program allowed them to learn social networking by teaching them how to tweet which are uploaded on the program’s website. They also use keyboard-like word processors for their notes.

Since the program launch in 2011, The Last Mile already has 12 graduates in which five were already out of prison. There are still ongoing classes which will produce additional graduates.

Matthew Cate, a former California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation director, is glad that he has approved the program as he watched the Demo Day of the students wherein they presented their works like how people do it in Silicon Valley.

"This program will go a long way to not only providing these guys with jobs, but it is my hope that they hire people like them who have changed their lives and are now ready to contribute to society, pay taxes, follow the law, support their families. All those things contribute to the economy," he told participants after watching the 2012 Demo Day.

The program will be expanded to inmates based in L.A Twin Towers Correctional Facility and soon to other states as well.