Cordell Carter II wasn't expecting an invitation to the White House as he ate sushi recently at a downtown Chattanooga restaurant.
"All of a sudden, I'm getting a call from an unknown number," said Carter, the CEO and president of TechTown, a youth-oriented technology and entrepreneurial learning center on Market Street.
Expecting a telemarketer, Carter at first didn't believe a White House staffer was on the line.
"I'm like, yeah, right," he said.
But the call was legitimate, and Carter was honored Tuesday as one of nine "Champions of Change" in computer science education at a day-long series of events that included a visit to the Roosevelt Room in the White House's West Wing.
"If you're a fan of the show [West Wing] like I was 15 years ago, it was incredible," Carter said. "It was great; it was a fantastic visit."
During a 90-minute session with U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith, Carter got to talk about TechTown, which opened on June 29 in a 22,000-square-foot space in the Chattanooga Lifestyle Center at 325 Market St. three blocks away from the Tennessee Aquarium.
TechTown isn't a school, Carter says, but a place where kids from 7 to 17 can find their own interests and explore them at their own pace in a space dedicated to robotics, circuitry, coding, film and performing arts. TechTown offers year-round after-school programs and summer camps. Adults can participate, too, at "corporate fun days," teacher professional development and other events.
Carter also got to talk about Chattanooga's advantages as the "Gig City," or home to the country's first and largest gigabit per second community-wide Internet service provided by the public power utility EPB.
"Broadband was a reoccurring theme that came up several times in our discussion," he said.
Two TechTown board members accompanied Carter, Mike Harrell and Reginald Ruff, though they didn't make it inside the White House. Snowy weather that day shut down government in D.C. and threw off plans for a larger ceremony.
"I think it was great for TechTown; I think it was great for Chattanooga," Harrell said. "We've probably had 2,000 to 2,500 kids to date [at Tech Town]. We were really the only ones represented that had reached critical mass in terms of attracting a lot of kids all at once."
Carter was among three male and six female honorees at the White House.
Other honorees included Grace Clark, a sophomore at International High School in New Orleans, La., who, according to the White House, worked with the New Orleans Police Department on a policing data event and taught New Orleans Police Chief Michael Harrison to write his first line of code. And Christina Li, a senior at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Macomb, Mich., who created Hello World, a week-long Computer Science day camp for 30 middle school girls to learn how to code robots, apps, websites and games.
Carter would be happy to have them visit TechTown, he said, "to work with a room full of girls." Harrell said TechTown officials plan to follow up with people they met from the National Science Foundation.
TechTown was founded by Paul Cummings, an executive trainer and owner of Chattanooga-based Woople, along with Todd Philips and John Foy, the trio who are also founding partners of SwiftWing Ventures, a venture capital firm. Cummings' vision is to roll out similar centers, first in Seattle and Norfolk, Va., followed by New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and Chicago.
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu @timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/MeetsForBusiness or twitter.com/meetfor business or 423-757-6651.