Who Trained Teens That Built an Overdose Alert?

Above, the teens that created the Bad Batch alert system. Code in the Schools

CITS participants. Code in the Schools

Last October, six Baltimore teens working at Code in the Schools built a text alert to warn people when an area’s heroin overdoses soar. CITS teaches computer science to underserved and underrepresented youth in Baltimore City. Technical.ly Baltimore broke this story.

The teens’ Bad Batch Alert is an anonymous free text messaging service to help keep heroin addicts from dying. The coders, 16-19-years-old, continue to meet weekly to add functionality to the service and fix bugs.

This spring, two Bad Batch team members were graduated from high school. One will study computer science at Stevenson University in the fall. The other is still deciding where and what he’ll study.

CITS alumni have also been accepted at Morgan State University, Towson University, the University of Maryland, University of Baltimore, Capital University and other schools. All CITS alumni have some type of scholarship and most intend to major in computer science.

CITS was co-founded in 2013 by Gretchen LeGrand, and her spouse Mike LeGrand. Ms. LeGrand is the CITS Executive Director.

To get the Bad Batch alert: text ‘Join’ to 952-222-5378

The gist: An active heroin user, or a loved one, registers with Bad Batch. Users get a text when there is an uptick in fentanyl-tainted heroin use in their area. Bad Batch’s goal is to lower addict dosages–avoiding overdoses–and advising loved ones. Follow Bad Batch on Facebook.

Bad Batch is data-driven. A Baltimore Health Dept. epidemiologist analyzes Emergency Medical Services information, and “When a spike is detected, a text alert is sent to all the users registered in that area.”

The CITS students learned to work with code for Heroku, a cloud app program as a service, and Twilio, a cloud communications app.

The 411 on Code in the Schools

Code in the Schools, a nonprofit, partners with the Baltimore City Public School System, city agencies, and local groups to teach computer science to Baltimore kids during In-school, after-school, and summer programs.

CITS has over 800 students on average involved in various Code in The Schools summer programs and 2,500 students during the year. There are 65 students, between 15-21, in CodeWorks bootcamp this summer. CITS has 22 partner organizations, in 10 Baltimore City locales, that teach key CS skills.

CITS Programs

CITS students study web, and video game, development, robotics, and programming languages including Python, which is used to create apps for websites, database design, and coding.