You can meet the next generation of STEM workers at Blacks in Tech’s happy hour Friday

A Friday night happy hour this week is getting students in front of businesses.

Blacks in Tech is set for Friday, Oct. 28, at the Engineers Club in Mt. Vernon. Businesses can still register to attend.

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Along with business leaders, about 50 students from Baltimore signed up to mingle. It’s a chance to pick up advice, as well as learn about opportunities that are out there in the workforce, said Keimmie Booth of the Baltimore City Robotics Center, which is organizing the event.

The event, which was first held in 2014, was inspired by Mario Armstrong’s efforts to gather experiences using the hashtag #NPRBlacksinTech in 2013.

While business leaders may attend networking on the regular, the students aren’t as experienced. So Booth and Ed Mullin organized a prep day last Thursday at the Robotics Center in Southwest Baltimore. The students heard from tech professionals like McKeever Conwell, who also helped get the word out to the business community about the networking event itself. Representatives from 14 West also talked about interviewing.

We often hear about how hiring underrepresented communities in one’s own town can help close the gap between tech jobs and workers to fill them. Here’s a chance to put both sides of that equation in the same room.