• by Sarah Mahoney , August 1, 2018

Best Buy is expanding its outreach to teens in underserved areas, highlighting three of its newly discovered talents in a new video campaign.

The Minneapolis-based electronics retailer began opening its Teen Tech Centers several years ago, and now has 21 in operation in the United States. The goal is to expand to 60 North American locations by 2020, giving 1 million teens access to the kind of technology they need to succeed, bolstered by an additional $20 million in funding from the Best Buy Foundation.

The three kids chosen for the campaign — Naje, a 15-year-old photographer; Tez, also 15, an aspiring filmmaker, and Latrell, 17, a musician (shown above) — share personal poems and are all using Best Buy-funded tech for the arts, and Best Buy teamed them up with writer and performer Joe Davis to polish their stories. But the centers introduce teens to everything from 3D printing, graphic design, robotics and app and video game development.

It’s also linked to the Best Buy Career Pathways program, which offers internships and mentoring to 2,000 teens each year. The company also runs a Geek Squad Academy program, designed to teach teens about technology through hands-on robotics, coding and other tech training, reaching some 10,000 young people a year.

It marks the first time the retailer has based a campaign on its philanthropic efforts and it is running the videos online, on social media channels and on the TV sets in its stores.