A fresh new start
Hi there!
Thanks for visiting our site. SPLIT, also known as, Strategically Positioning Lives in Technology is an Elementary School for Entrepreneurs.
It was founded in 2010 by Dominique Da’Cruz while completing his undergraduate degree at Howard University in Washington, DC. The organization began out of a fundamental need to service metropolitan youth in introducing them to current methods and practices used in web product development.
Dominique saw a growing digital divide between new and emerging web technology and opportunities for metropolitan youth to understand and participate in the ever-changing web. He built an education program that was developed to provide students with all the tools necessary to spark their engines and encourage them become thinkers, contributors and producers of web technologies, thus bridging the gap.
Over the years
After launching in Washington, DC, Dominique moved to New York City to pursue his career in finance but was able to also become a vendor for the Department of Education in New York City. This gave him the opportunity to partner with local schools in Brooklyn and teach after school students the SPLIT curriculum.
The program ran for about a year or two successfully.
The gap
Although the program ran successfully for a few years, the program came to a pause when Dominique and his family moved to Detroit, MI. For a few years, the program was dormant. Although Dominique was eager to bring the program to a new city, he first needed to understand the dynamics of his new home in order to offer and implement solutions that could work.
The rebirth of the program
The opportunity for this came in the midst of COVID-19. When Dominique launched the program in Washington, DC in 2010, he was not yet a husband and father. He had a heart for inner-city youth and always knew this was something he wanted to do with his children.
Now as a father, the program and its impact means more than ever. When considering how to handle the impact of COVID-19 to the school systems, Dominique knew he did not want to risk putting his young children back in school amidst news of increasing COVID cases.
This inspired Dominique to reactivate and launch SPLIT in Detroit. The focus of the program would be on helping elementary school students understand entrepreneurship through technology. With his two children as his first two students in Detroit, Dominique plans to open up the program to other parents and guardians looking for specialized and curated alternatives to teach and activate their children to lead from the future.