From East LA to the White House – CyberCode Twins

The Hispanic Heritage Foundation (HHF) connects youth and other professionals to programs that highlight their success, and this success only continues to grow as they become Latino leaders in their fields!

The CyberCode Twins, America and Penelope Lopez, are sisters who grew up in East Los Angeles and have dominated tech competitions across the country. By getting involved in their community, they were able to introduce other young professionals to the opportunities in technology.

As 2016 Finalists for our ESA LOFT Video Game Fellowship, they were flown out to Washington D.C. where they met U.S. Representatives and White House members and presented their Virtual Reality (VR) Project: Sobriety Lab.

Their project was centered on the idea that 22 million people suffer from substance abuse, where only 9% of Hispanics reach out to recovery programs. Factors in this include the language barrier, and job security.

Players of the VR game would remain anonymous, and the VR headsets would be the start of the new era of addiction treatment in order to increase accessibility to treatment programs.

The ESA LOFT Video Game Fellowship serves as a platform for top minority game developers by identifying the top 20 minority innovators who are 15-25 years old, and can create video games or mobile applications that will focus on new, technology-based approaches to address local and global social issues.

Now, the CyberCode Twins are on a mission to make communities safer through wearable tech and mobile apps. Recently, they attended the AT&T 2017 Developer Summit in Las Vegas!

The CyberCode twins have also been featured on Forbes, ABC7, La Opinion, Huffington Post, and Digital LA. They have received various awards in tech competitions like the NASA International SpaceApps Challenge, HackForLA, and many others.

Through HHF’S efforts, the ESA LOFT Video Game Fellowship is just one way you can get involved! Our other programs include Code As a Second Language (CSL), Latinas On Fast Track, LOFT STEM Symposia, Youth Awards, and our LOFT Charlas.

To learn more about the CyberCode Twins watch this feature on LatiNation!