{"id":801428,"date":"2019-11-15T16:11:50","date_gmt":"2019-11-15T23:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=374576"},"modified":"2019-11-18T08:17:02","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T15:17:02","slug":"aaron-landau-and-evo3-named-outstanding-youth-mentor-in-annual-philanthropy-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/aaron-landau-and-evo3-named-outstanding-youth-mentor-in-annual-philanthropy-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"Aaron Landau and EVO3 named Outstanding Youth Mentor in annual philanthropy awards"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Aaron Landau, founder and owner of EVO3 coworking space in Frisco, pictured Thursday, Nov. 7.<\/strong>
Liz Copan \/ ecopan@summitdaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

FRISCO \u2014 As Aaron Landau recalls it, the germ of an idea that became the EVO3 Workspace\u2019s K-12 kids coding program came to mind like so many great ideas here in Summit County: over a couple of beers.<\/p>\n

While sipping suds with his friend Peder Hansen, then the STEM coordinator at Frisco Elementary School, Landau told Hansen about how his EVO3 coworking space on Frisco\u2019s Main Street was looking for a way to get involved in education for the community. Landau also relayed to Hansen how he thought working with the community could be a win-win for local education and EVO3, as the coworking space was looking for more exposure after its launch in March 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we found workbooks from a startup company out of Boulder, Bitsbox,\u201d Landau said. \u201cAnd we started using their introduction to Javascript app development workbooks and built a curriculum around that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In late 2016, Landau, Hansen and Summit County Realtor Phil Mervis founded the EVO3 Foundation. At the heart of the nonprofit\u2019s core mission is the Code Beetle kids coding program. Landau said the program most directly works with fourth and fifth grade students at Dillon Valley, Frisco and Summit elementary schools.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Hansen, Summit Cove Elementary and 15 of its students served as guinea pigs for EVO3 Foundation\u2019s Bitsbox Code Beetle pilot.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that the opportunities are in STEM,\u201d Landau said. \u201cBut we \u2026 don\u2019t know or are not teaching the right skills to fill these future, or even current, jobs. And that\u2019s what we are trying to do. We\u2019re trying to address that very early on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the pilot, the founding trio has grown the kids program to include a Girls Who Code program and a \u201c500 kids in 500 days\u201d initiative. With about 560 fourth and fifth grade students across Summit County, the initiative made sense. Through the 2016-17 and 2017-18 school years, the youth coding program taught 618 fourth and fifth graders.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a lot of kids,\u201d Landau said about the remote and on-site EV03 classes he taught with Hansen and Mervis.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a STEM coordinator,\u201d Hansen said, \u201cwe really try to bolster our science, technology, engineering and math instruction. And we can\u2019t all be experts and know everything. And that\u2019s where we all need to bring the experts that will work with kids and teach them the skills they\u2019ll need for the 21st century and even more than that. We need kids to strive in an environment where they can create, think critically, where they can be creative, and I think that\u2019s one of the things that coding can do for kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

To understand why Landau wanted to branch out into kids coding education, you must first understand the spirit \u2014 his spirit \u2014 behind EVO3.<\/p>\n

\u201cEVO3,\u201d Landau said, stands for and signifies the three evolutionary industries here in Summit County. First, there was mining, which came and went. Currently, skiing and outdoors tourism is the heartbeat of the local economy. Looking ahead, Landau is hopeful and confident technology can be a third evolutionary industry in the area.<\/p>\n

The EVO3 Workspace offers myriad daily, weekly or long-term working spaces and office-like conference rooms that work-from-home or remote-working professionals can use.<\/p>\n

When Landau relocated to Summit County a few years back, he wanted to bring with him the kinds of coworking spaces he saw on the Front Range. In March 2015, the EVO3 Workspace opened, providing a modern environment \u2014 complete with beers on tap \u2014 that talented young professionals could enjoy.<\/p>\n

That said, Landau still wanted to increase public awareness of how his workspace could help benefit the local industry and its people.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw a need years ago for really diversifying the local economy,\u201d Landau said. \u201cWe see all of our eggs in a couple of baskets. It\u2019s a tourism industry, which is very service based. You have real estate, so these are incredible volatile industries. And completely understanding our towns run on sales tax and everything else and having an appreciation for that, we want to attract the people who are going to not only take advantage of this incredible lifestyle but also contribute back to the community, and tech has always been our focus.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aaron Landau, founder and owner of EVO3 coworking space in Frisco, pictured Thursday, Nov. 7.Liz Copan \/ ecopan@summitdaily.com FRISCO \u2014 As Aaron Landau recalls it, the germ of an idea that became the EVO3 Workspace\u2019s K-12 kids coding program came to mind like so many great ideas here in Summit County: over a couple of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-801428","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-01 17:17:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":801474,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801428\/revisions\/801474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}