Before this summer, Lyfe Boone had never built a website. Now, he’s planning to help his mother launch her own e-commerce platform.
Boone is part of Dent Education’s “Bet on Baltimore” initiative, a five-week, full-time summer program that aims to equip Baltimore teens with business and technical skills they can apply to any future career. The program is funded by the city’s YouthWorks summer employment effort, connecting young people to paid job opportunities across the city.
Boone and his teammates developed App Attack, an app designed to function as an ad blocker, VPN and virus protector — and as a lower-cost alternative to popular antivirus software like McAfee.
“I got to learn a few more things to help my mom out,” Boone said. “And I like to say the treasure isn’t the money we got, but the cool people we met along the way.”
He and his teammates got to demonstrate this newfound camaraderie by participating in the program’s summer showcase, which took place last week at the University of Maryland BioPark’s 4MLK building in West Baltimore.
There, the young people the organization names Denters showed their summer work at display tables, with a select few sharing their ideas before a seated audience. (Dent reported 250 attendees, including the students). Presented projects ranged from an app tackling food insecurity to a pop-up bakery.
Ayomide Sekiteri, Dent’s strategic partnerships manager, said the program’s impact extends beyond this hands-on training. The team also emphasizes the importance of cultivating soft skills like public speaking and building connections.
“We’re really about fostering an entrepreneurial mindset,” Sekiteri said. “The mindsets are what young people carry throughout whatever career path they end up choosing.”
The program is divided into tracks led by experienced coaches. One of the newest, the UX design track, teaches Denters the fundamentals of app creation.
Alongside projects like Boone’s App Attack, the Food Plug app was selected by the UX design group for presentation at the showcase. Designed to address food insecurity, the app connects users to healthy, affordable food options and includes a map with transit routes to local grocery stores. It also features an AI-generated meal plan tailored to different budgets.
“We heard a lot of things like, ‘Oh, I have to pick between paying the bills or getting groceries or ‘I can’t get to the grocery store or I can’t eat at home,’… we wanted to solve that problem,” said Anijae Branch, one of the app’s team members, during the presentation.
Earlier this month, Branch also demoed the app at R. House and learned from community feedback to add more accessibility features for disabled users.
“We added features for people who are blind, who are non-verbal, people who cannot read, so everybody can feel included in our app,” Branch said.
The work doesn’t necessarily end with summer. Alumni have continued to develop their projects, drawing on Dent’s resources to keep progressing, Sekiteri said.
Keyarra Johnson saw some of that creative perseverance as a coach for the Made@Dent track, where Denters design and sell their own retail products.
“It’s great that they have the opportunity to have fun and minimize any damage or pressures that come with trying something on your own,” Johnson said. “They can do it within community.”
Johnson and her group produced over 100 custom items, including T-shirts, mugs, tote bags, and puzzles. Throughout the program, participants developed skills in sublimation, heat pressing and 3D printing. Members of this track even designed trophies to celebrate some standout participants in other tracks.
“I’m very proud of the showcase and final presentations and seeing our youth be confident, having them in a business professional environment,” Sekiteri said, “and in a space where they’re the stars of the show.”
This article mentions the University of Maryland BioPark, a Technical.ly client. That relationship has no impact on this report.
