Anderson@Large

Lady Hackers Kick off Women’s History Month

It’s called the City of Brotherly Love (and Sisterly Affection) but last weekend’s Lady Hacks was for women only.

Philadelphia’s first women-only hackathon attracted 65 hackers. Tristen Hightower, an organizer of the event, said:

The point of this event is to try new things. You’re already successful. You’re here.

And while there, the ladies worked on a wide range of projects, including Hacking the Gender Gap, redesigning the website of Girls Rock Phillyto make it more teen-oriented, and developing a game to motivate girls to get interested in technology.

My team worked on a project that began at TechCamp Philadelphia, namely, how to motivate underrepresented minorities and girls to pursue STEM fields. STEM is short for science, technology, engineering and math.

My team members are Elise D, Jennifer Fazler, Jessica Hammond and Eleni Miltsakaki. Our mentor is Pamela Bey, a WordPress developer.

The problem we addressed was the lack of a central, user-friendly website for teachers, students and parents to find free resources and tools that would expand and enhance the learning process. Right now, STEM information is buried in silos. Our solution, STEMeverywhere, will fix that.

We will curate resources for students, parents, teachers, guidance counselors and community members. The one-stop shop will feature a Teachers’ Lounge where we will aggregate content-specific instructional materials that have been peer-reviewed. We will include a real-time, fully indexed library that will be searchable by keyword.

The Students’ Hangout will promote year-round learning and engagement for our target audience of 13-to-17-year-olds. With one click, students will have access to information about internships and mentorships, learning games, contests and challenges, and online learning opportunities.

STEMeverywhere will produce interactive videos to connect students with STEM professionals who can expose them to the possibilities. We will post engaging user-generated YouTube videos tagged “STEM Rocks” or “STEMRocks.”

We will also curate offline activities such as Web Slam!, Bootstrap, Operation Eve, Black Girls Code and Temple University’s Urban Apps and Maps.

Lady hackers’ work is never done. To join us, send an email. For updates, follow us on Twitter: @STEMeverywhere.

Philadelphia #LadyHacks: A Hackathon for Women

Today is the first day of Women’s History Month. I will get the party started at LadyHacks, a women-only hackathon.

While I have participated in a lot of hackathons [], I’m looking forward to being in a room full of lady problem-solvers. So if you pass by WHYY and hear some noise, it ain’t the boys. It’s #LadyHacks.

Coding Is Fundamental

 

STEM Reality Check: 1 in 5 Americans is Illiterate

Zora Ball is Young, Gifted and Black

Sometimes good news does sell. The story of the first-grader who developed a mobile video game has gone viral.

Seven-year-old Zora Ball is a student at Philadelphia’s Harambee Institute of Science and Technology Charter School. Her teacher, Tariq Al-Nasir, told CBS Philly:

She was given very basic information. She transformed her screen into a nail salon! She found a picture of a ballerina, she found a picture of a jewel, and then another picture of a vampire. The game she created is called “Vampire Diamonds,” and the object is to get the diamond and avoid the vampire.

Little Zora, the youngest computer programmer in the country, was recently featured at an event hosted by STEM evangelist will.i.am. Awesome!

2013 #SOTU Address

In case you missed it ...

STEM Puts a Dip in Your Hip, Glide in Your Stride

OK, not really. But the man who promised to put “more dips in your hips, more glide in your stride” reminded us that STEM is everywhere. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math.

I grew up listening to Frankie “Hollywood” Crocker.

Back in the day, Hollywood went, well, Hollywood and appeared in five films, including Cleopatra Jones and Darktown Strutters.  In Five on the Black Hand Side, he played Rolls Royce, a numbers runner. Before state lotteries, folks played the numbers, the “poor man’s stock market”:

Once known as the “policy numbers game” in Harlem, playing the numbers was a way of making ends meet as well as a way of meeting other needs in the economically starved community. Playing the numbers, a game where players betted on a series of three digit numbers from 000 to 999, was considered the “poor man’s stock market.”

The numbers man carried the money and betting slips to the policy bank. Some were mathematical geniuses who didn’t need slips; instead, they memorized the numbers.

Today’s Black History Month lesson: From runaway slaves looking for the North Star to their descendants running numbers to make ends meet, STEM is in black folks’ DNA.