HOW RIKERS INMATES AND COLUMBIA STUDENTS BUILT A TWITTER BOT—WITH NO INTERNET

IN A NEW CLASS, INMATES LEARN TO CODE BEHIND BARS.

Not long ago, a team from Columbia University set out to build an automated Twitter bot in a place with no Internet access—part of a 12-hour class for people with no prior programming experience. They held the class at New York’s Rikers Island in an ongoing effort by Columbia’s Center for Justice to provide educational programs for young people incarcerated at the jail complex. Teenage inmates worked alongside Columbia students to learn the basics of Python, put together tweets about their personal experiences, and contributed code to Rikers Story Bot, which randomly selects and posts a tweet from the group every day.

TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE, CLICK HERE.