The Dragon Kim Foundation selected Newport Beach students Preston Kousoulas, 17, and Evan Razmjoo,16, both attending Corona del Mar High School, as members of the Foundation’s 2024 Fellowship Class.
They will receive three weekends of leadership training and hands-on guidance from mentors in the community, plus a single grant of up to $5,000 from the Foundation to implement their social service project in their local community this summer.
“CodeQuest Kids” is a project driven by the duo’s passion for coding, and aims to equip underserved children with an essential introduction to coding skills. By conducting engaging coding bootcamps they will introduce students in grades six through eight to the world of programming and teach them to craft their very own 2D video games. During the bootcamp, kids will receive their own personalized copy of the popular CodeQuest Kids Coding Workbook, written and published by Preston Kousoulas (available at amazon.com), which is a modern take on the ABC’s of coding a video game.
CodeQuest Kids intends to help bridge the socio-economic opportunity gap by making an expensive coding education free and accessible to youth, helping them forge a valuable skillset that can lead to financially rewarding career opportunities.
“I am so excited to be selected as a member of the 2024 Dragon Kim Fellowship class and am really looking forward to us igniting a passion for computer science by teaching kids to code their own video game, and leaving them with valuable coding skills. We are taking a small step toward ending generational poverty through the power of coding,” said Preston Kousoulas.
“It is an honor to be chosen as a member of the 2024 Dragon Kim Fellowship class. We are eager and excited to provide an engaging educational experience through CodeQuest Kids for young students who otherwise would not have had an opportunity to explore the future that coding can provide,” said Evan Razmjoo
The leadership training, which elsewhere can cost several thousand dollars, is provided for free to each Dragon Fellow. Cumulatively, the projects will benefit thousands of people, including many from socioeconomically disadvantaged communities.
“We congratulate Preston Kousoulas and Evan Razmjoo and sincerely thank all of the students who took their time to submit their wonderfully creative entries to the 2024 Dragon Kim Fellowship Program,” said Dragon Kim Foundation Board Chairman
Daniel Kim. “We thank our sponsors, mentors and other supporters for their belief in our program.”
The Fellowship was founded in 2015 in honor of the late Dragon Kim, a talented young musician, athlete, and scholar who wanted to help others. It has become a seedbed for the next generation of creative thinkers and entrepreneurs who want to create positive change.
For more information, visit http://dragonkimfoundation.org.
