Digital Harbor Tech Center: converted rec center in Federal Hill opens Jan. 17 [VIDEO]

After months of planning, preparation and construction, the Digital Harbor Tech Center is opening in Federal Hill on Jan. 17. (You can RSVP for the grand opening here.)
A project of the Digital Harbor Foundation, the tech center occupies the same space where the South Baltimore Rec Center was located, at the corner of Cross and Light streets. It’s an initiative the foundation calls “Rec2Tech,” a response to the city’s budgetary woes that required the closure of four recreation centers in August and the transfer of operations at several other recreation centers to city schools. (The Digital Harbor Foundation runs programs out of another recreation center physically attached to Liberty Elementary School in the Forest Park neighborhood.)

But the main objective, one more paramount than just keeping open and maintaining after-school centers for Baltimore city school students, is making sure students realize they can “get paid to think,” said Andrew Coy, co-executive director of the Digital Harbor Foundation.
View the DHF “wish list” to donate to the Digital Harbor Tech Center.
To that end, the Digital Harbor Tech Center will “provide after-school digital literacy, tech workforce development, and innovation programs for Baltimore city public schools students in grades K-12,” according to an announcement marking the Jan. 17 grand opening.
As Rose Burt, director of the tech center, explained during an October EdTech Meetup, the center will guide students through a project-based curriculum each week, with different areas of focus: data visualizations, computer coding, 3D printing with MakerBots and more.
Rose Burt talks about how she became director of the Digital Harbor Tech Center:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBeobm6eyl4]
In addition, the Digital Harbor Foundation’s STEM Engine web design and development program will be run from the Digital Harbor Tech Center.