WeTeach_CS Summit 2019

Conference kick-off session with WeTeach_CS Summit overview followed by speaker, Kyla Guru.

Kyla Guru is 17 years old, a rising senior at Deerfield High School in Deerfield, IL, by day and a security supergirl by night. The summer before her freshman year of high school, Guru discovered her unique passion for cybersecurity, fascinated by the task of protecting technologies of our future. With this discovery, she also learned that 90 percent of cyberattacks on national infrastructure were due to human error. In an effort to combat this vulnerability, Guru founded Bits N’ Bytes Cybersecurity Education (http://www.bitsnbytes.us.com), a national 501(c)(3) that now sustains 20+ national partnerships with school districts, corporations including Facebook and IBM, and educational platforms like Discovery Education, all in efforts to increase awareness, literacy, and fluency in privacy and cybersecurity. In her keynote at WeTeach_CS, Guru will share her story of being a social entrepreneur in the cybersecurity industry and what she believes is the power of the youth and the current educators. She will use her unique perspective of going through the education system to talk about what she sees for the future of the industry, and, of course, how we can make radical change to our current state of cyber-insecurity.

K-12 Students and Teachers from around Texas share projects they’ve worked on this year in an interactive setting.

Participants

• Del Valle Elementary
• Harmony Science Academy - Cedar Park
• McDowell Middle School
• O Henry Middle School
• Sartartia Middle School

At a time when computing is so much a part of all of our lives, has incredible job opportunities, and is so empowering, most students graduate high school without having had any introduction to computer science. A decade ago in the United States, the CSforALL movement  was launched to broaden participation in computing to those traditionally underrepresented. This talk reflect on the current state of that initiative, and introduce the "Beauty and Joy of Computing (BJC)" course, which has received worldwide attention and currently has 65% female enrollment at UC Berkeley, among the highest in the nation.

Data science is an interdisciplinary field that tackles complex problems using statistics, computing, math and domain knowledge.  The impact of data science in Puerto Rico post Hurricane Maria was unforeseeable. Seeing Puerto Rico as a microcosm of the United States, I will demonstrate why it is important for all students and teachers in the US to learn how to do data science.

Walter Doyle will give attendees an overview on DonorsChoose.org, insight on current funding opportunities, and a chance to brainstorm innovative ideas. Learn how to break down larger projects into fundable grants, and how to keep your donors coming back with each new project. And Door Prizes!!