Latta has surely thrown himself strongly into his work as co-founder and executive director of Hack Club.
Hack Club is a non-profit organization with four full-time employees including Latta.
The organizations 2014 tax filings indicate the majority of its funding resulted from grants and contributions.
When Latta was 17, he was awarded the fellowship last June and had no plans of attending college.
The thought behind Hack Club is simple, even if the coding behind it is not.
According to Latta, coders working in the industry in reality use software written in the past six months.
It offers software tools, baseline coding curriculum and community-building training.
Latta was one of the youngest honourees on the list.
You dont have to have a college degree, you dont have to have years of training.
As long as you have internet access you might do whatever you want to.
Many of the apps or websites that Hack Clubs members have built are on display on its site.
Many companies including Business Insider, use Slack, a real-time messaging service to communicate around their offices.
Some of that establishment-killing attitude is intrinsic in hacking subculture, with its documented distaste for authority.
But some of that approach within Hack Club is likely a by-product of Lattas own attitudes about coding.
Before I started focusing on programming, I felt really stuck, he said.
Programming really changed that mindset for me.
Latta started coding in middle school.
His interest grew into a love of programming by the time he got to high school.
He designed his own home-schooling program sophomore year and tested out that same year.
When Lattas parents saw the success he was finding in the workforce, their unwillingness gave way to support.
I think to them at the time that was a ridiculous concept, Latta said.
During the upcoming year, he plans to concentrate on expanding his Hack Club.
Currently, there are clubs in Indonesia, Zimbabwe, and Hong Kong.
He plans to expand his reach domestically and internationally.
But at its root, his inspiration is to continue to empower students through coding.
source: www.techworm.net
