A crowded YTC clubroom at ETHS — older students showing younger students the inside of a computer

Youth Technology Corps · Evanston Township High School

Students don't just build robots. They build themselves—and then they help each other build trust inside their community.

A student-run club at ETHS since 2009. Members learn technology, teach it to the next person, and carry it out the door — into Evanston, and across the world.

See the work →Support the club
Photo: YTC clubroom, ETHS
2,300+computers, Chromebooks, and Arduino kits donated by ETHS students
400computers donated inside the Evanston community
17 yearsof a student-run club at ETHS, without a gap, since 2009
7 countriesin Africa where ETHS students have taught or trained teachers

What's new

This fall

Georgia Tech students will mentor YTC students beginning this fall.

Georgia Tech is the first university to join YTC's College Partner Program. Future engineers from Student Makers at Georgia Tech will teach STEM sessions virtually into the ETHS clubroom this school year — and additional college partners will follow, widening the network available to students at ETHS and across the YTC Global Alliance.

Student Makers at Georgia Tech presentation slide
Student Makers at Georgia Tech — the partner organization on the GT side.

It's the same idea the club runs on, one rung up: someone a few years older shows you how, and then it's your turn.

Dilan Mehta, founder and president of Student Makers at Georgia Tech, aerospace engineering

More from the club

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Two YTC students working together on a desktop tower in the clubroom

How it works

Learn it. Then teach it to the next person.

Most members have never opened a computer or touched a robot before their first meeting. Within a year they're the ones explaining it — to a freshman, to a family picking up a refurbished machine, to a class on another continent. That handoff is the whole design.

Learnpick up the skill
Teachhelp the next person
Leadown the responsibility
Repeattrain your replacement
“When I taught someone how to fix a computer and later saw them helping another person, I felt proud. It made me see that what we learn here grows, because we share it.”

— Chris, 17 · Student Voices at YTC, 2025

An ETHS YTC student helping a resident at a laptop at Primm Towers in Evanston

Close to home

The work starts a few blocks from school.

Schools, senior centers, churches, community organizations across Evanston — 400 refurbished computers, hundreds of lessons, since 2009. See every place on the map.

Open the map →

From Evanston outward

The work begins here. Then it travels.

ETHS students have taught robotics into Ethiopia by video call, trained the teachers who launched Nigeria's first class, and in July 2025 five YTC members flew to Namibia and met, in person, the students they'd only known on a screen.

Nigeria · Namibia · Sierra Leone · Cameroon · Ethiopia · Mozambique · Ghana

YTC's African partner countries, with Mexico and Guatemala in Latin America. Evanston-refurbished computers have also gone to El Salvador and Haiti.

Follow the work across borders →
Cecilia Bilski, an ETHS student, leans in over a laptop with Namibian students, one of them turning back to smile at her
Cecilia Bilski teaches in person, on the other side of the world from where her journey started, meeting students who first appeared at the far end of a Zoom session.

Where it leads

Different paths. The same starting point.

Former members carry the clubroom with them — the habit of learning something, taking responsibility for it, and helping the next person.

Ava Mosely

Ava Mosely

Purdue · Mechanical Engineering

Former YTC co-president at ETHS.

I can confidently say that this club has well prepared me for engineering in college and beyond.
Emma Bernal

Emma Bernal

DePaul · Cybersecurity

Former YTC co-president at ETHS.

YTC was the best decision I ever made, and I am confident that I will be successful in life because of it.
Spencer Grossman

Spencer Grossman

University of Minnesota · Product Design

YTC alum, ETHS.

YTC transformed my perspective on the world and enriched my understanding of human connections.

The club has generations

“YTC has been passed down through generations. You learn from the leaders before you, and then you take your turn.”

— Furqaan Idrees · ETHS. Earned a computer as a freshman; by junior year was overseeing instruction at Haile Manas Academy, Ethiopia.

Furqaan working at a computer early in his YTC journey

Who runs this

Students run the club. These are the adults behind it.

Support YTC Evanston

YTC built the club. Evanston has kept it going. Students keep it alive.

Support covers the practical things that keep student-led learning moving: technology, instruction, program supplies and the next serious teaching opportunity — and, right now, the small organization behind the club.

Youth Technology Corps NFP, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, tax-exempt since 2003. The Global Learning Alliance was submitted for the 2026 Chicago Innovation Awards.

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