Hour of Code 2019

During the second day of my new job at Amazon Web Services as a business development manager for cloud intelligence specializing in artificial intelligence, I discovered that Amazon is a premiere sponsor of The Hour of Code.

From code.org, "Code.org is a nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to computer science in schools and increasing participation by women and underrepresented minorities. Our vision is that every student in every school has the opportunity to learn computer science, just like biology, chemistry or algebra. Code.org provides the leading curriculum for K-12 computer science in the largest school districts in the United States and Code.org also organizes the annual Hour of Code campaign which has engaged 15% of all students in the world. Code.org is supported by generous donors including Amazon."

The Hour of Code is held during December in celebration of Navy rear admiral Grace Hopper, one of the founders of COBOL programming language and the engineer who coined the term "bug" to mean a computer defect after finding a moth in a mainframe computer.

Despite having missed the initial deadlines with my November start date, my fantastic and dedicated Amazon colleague Jacqueline Olliges enabled me to order swag including stickers, Amazon Future Engineer certificates of completion for students, and t-shirts for volunteers. The look on students' faces when receiving their stickers and certificates was priceless. They felt so proud having spent the hour learning about coding and imagining a future in engineering.

Amazon Future Engineer sticker

Amazon Future Engineer certificate

On December 11-13 at Philbrick Elementary in Boston, MA, kindergarten through 5th grade students participated in the international movement to teach programming and logic skills to kids. This year, Amazon sponsored an expansion of the Dance Party game, including an expanded hit song list, new characters, and effects.

Dance Party from Blain's perspective

Katia Inezian, 4th grade, creating a Dance Party scene

Aiden Alexander, 3rd grade, codes using Dance Party

Chloe Alexander, 3rd grade, finished her Dance Party level

Charis watches 5th grader Blain Assefa's creation

Using the drag and drop Sketch interface to teach programming

5th graders Blain Assefa and Yasniris

Hazel Hartung, third grade

De'Ana Florence, Philbrick science teacher and Zipei Wei, Amazon volunteer, assist 5th grade students

Dance on!

Science teacher De'Ana Florence graciously welcomed me and my colleague Zipei into her classroom. We had an excellent, memorable time and can't wait to return for next December's Hour of Code.

The Hour of Code 2016

This week, I had the pleasure of spending 2 days at my daughter's Boston public school, the Philbrick Elementary School. I was helping the school's fantastic science teacher Erin Flynn to teach the Hour of Code for Computer Science Education Week, celebrated on Grace Hopper's birthday.

Erin and Charis

This was my fourth year teaching the Hour of Code, which coincides with the program's existence. Here are my 2014 and 2015 recaps, which detail the drag-and-drop program Skitch. You can view all of the code-based games on the Hour of Code's website. Thanks to my employer RueLaLa for making this opportunity happen with their volunteer days program!

Every year, I am astounded by the students' boundless energy and impressed by the teaching staff who keeps them engaged on a daily basis. This year, we worked on the students' ability to solve difficult problems, and talked about the determination and perseverance required to end up at the correct solution.

Although it's exhausting to teach programming to 170 students in just 2 days, the Hour of Code is a rewarding experience every time and I am so grateful to be a part of it. This year was especially gratifying when my daughter came home after day 1 and we spent 2 hours coding on a Monster High platform from code.org before I finally convinced her it was bedtime. I am so proud of my little coder and all of the wonderful students at the Philbrick. It's really special to be able to have lunch and attend recess with my daughter two days in a row, and a great side benefit to this volunteer experience!

Girls Who Code Visit Microsoft NERD Center for Mentoring Event

Author's note: This blog originally appeared in, and was written for, the Microsoft New England blog.

For the second year in a row, Microsoft hosted 20 girls this summer at the Microsoft Cambridge campus to teach coding in partnership with the Girls Who Code Summer Immersion Program. The girls apply for this competitive program and spend 7 weeks learning Python and other programming languages, as well as building their business and networking skills. When I participated in a speed mentoring session at the NERD office on July 11th, I had the chance to speak these 20 remarkable young women. They mostly live in Massachusetts, but some attend Girls Who Code from as far away as Virginia. Over 25 women Microsoft employees participated from both sales, marketing, R&D, data science and machine learning, as well as from our intern program.

We started the event with lunch and informal mingling.


The Microsoft mentors and students shared stories about how their interest in technology developed, from whom they drew their inspiration, and what type of projects they were working on.

Through the mentoring program, Girls Who Code aims to provide girls with the invaluable opportunity to interact with strong, powerful, and exemplary female role models. Through mentoring relationships, students gain deeper exposure into the professional world and career opportunities once deemed impossible or unattainable. Mentoring sessions provide a safe and encouraging space for girls to ask questions and get both academic and career advice. Mentors had the opportunity to have a positive impact on the lives of ambitious and talented girls interested in technology.


I very much enjoyed being able to spend 10-15 minutes individually with nearly a dozen girls. I told them what I liked best about my job, which is that I use technology to make a global impact to improve communication outcomes for neurological patients and improve health screening for women in developing nations. I honestly addressed questions about maintaining work-life balance and coping in a male-dominated environment. Most of my advice revolved around confidence. I explained imposter syndrome and suggested that they read Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In and watch Amy Cuddy’s TED talk on body language.

Contribute to Women’s Health Outcomes Via New Data Science Competition

Check out the latest competition I just launched at work!

According to a World Health Organization (WHO) report released in 2011, about 820,000 women and men aged 15-24 were newly infected with HIV in developing countries. Over 60% of these were women. Among so many other challenges, developing countries are plagued with serious reproductive health illnesses such as sexually transmitted infections (STIs), unintended pregnancies, and complications from childbirth. A key priority for policymakers, researchers, and health care providers working in developing nations is to emphasize prevention and distribution of information about STIs and other reproductive tract infections (RTIs). This report on Improving Reproductive Health in Developing Countries from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences contains additional information on the topic.

To achieve the goal of improving women’s reproductive health outcomes in underdeveloped regions, Microsoft has created a competition calling for optimized machine learning solutions to allow a patient to be accurately categorized into different health risk segments and subgroups. Based on the categories that a patient falls in, healthcare providers can offer an appropriate education and training program to patients. Such customized programs have a better chance to help reduce the reproductive health risk of patients.

Read more ...

Game On! Introducing Cortana Intelligence Competitions

Cross-posting an interesting project I spent this winter and spring working on.

Machine Learning algorithms powered by intelligent applications serve useful functions in our daily lives in ways we may not even be aware of. For instance, predictive analytics allow businesses to retain key customers, help assembly lines and buildings to run more efficiently, and help us find movies that we are likely to find intriguing. The ML field has gained tremendous traction and respect over the last decade, prompting Harvard Business Review to name the Data Scientist the sexiest job of the 21st century.

To encourage new ML applications and foster a vibrant online community, we are thrilled to launch Cortana Intelligence Competitions, a gamification feature of Cortana Intelligence Suite, as well as our first competition Decoding Brain Signals. This platform provides an intuitive and fun environment to hone users’ data science and analytics expertise, and our first competition will allow you to have the chance to contribute to the important field of neuroscience to win prizes and recognition.

Read more ...

Hour of Code 2015

Today and yesterday, I had the pleasure of spending my day at Lu's awesome Boston Public School, the Philbrick, teaching the Hour of Code. Thanks to my employer EMC for making this opportunity happen with volunteer days and for their generous grant of $5,000 for technology to support learning at the school. I also want to thank our amazing science teacher Erin Flynn for allowing me to spend time in her classroom.

Kids as young as age 3 up through 5th grade enjoyed the challenge at their own ability level. This year, the kids had the choice to code using Star Wars, Minecraft, or Frozen. See last year's writeup for details about Blockly, the graphical language the kids learned to code in.

With the new movie coming out, the Star Wars game was a big hit.

Minecraft was very popular with all of the classes.

 

 

Last year's favorite, Frozen, made a special guest appearance in science class.

The games really were fun and neat. But the kids' concentration and focus, especially in the lower grades, astounded me!

 

The hour of code has quickly become my favorite STEM outreach activity. Technology is so fundamental to our, and especially our children's lives, that being exposed to it at a young age is crucial. I urge you to give it a try in your local school or community. It's quick, easy, fun, and so rewarding! Please check out the hour of code's website to get started.

STEM education for the win!

I just received some very exciting news! My employer EMC recently awarded several community service awards. I applied for one for my daughter's school, Philbrick Elementary in Roslindale, a neighborhood of Boston. They routinely face budget cuts and do not have a technology budget. So I was thrilled to hear that EMC has made a generous grant of $5,000 to support technology at the school! This will enable technical support for the teachers and staff, enabling the teachers to focus on learning rather than troubleshooting technology problems.

In addition, this grant will allow the Philbrick to purchase additional hardware to support parallel instruction in technology. Currently, the teachers do not have access to equipment if the laptops and iPads are being used in another classroom.

This grant will greatly enhance technical learning at the Philbrick. The staff, students, and parents at the Philbrick would like to thank EMC for this generous gift that will have a lasting impact for our students.

 

Facilitating the hour of code at the Philbrick last year

I'll be donating 2 volunteer days next week to teach the Hour of Code to the entire school. Come back on the 18th for a new blog post on that topic!

Little Ms. Crate: gift idea for kids

If you read my blog, you know I'm an active supporter of STEM education, especially when it comes to girls. As a girl, it never occurred to me that working in technology was an option for me because I did not see any women role models. I fell into this field that I love in my mid-20s, but I wish I'd found it sooner. So one of my biggest volunteer missions is to be an active volunteer in my community so girls see that they, too could have a career in tech if they so choose.

Today, I want to share a new crate subscription that was launched recently on Kickstarter.

The service, Little Ms. Crate, introduces young girls to a new career in STEM or leadership each month, and spotlights female role models in the featured field. Crates samples are Little Ms. CEO, Little Ms. Digital Animator, Little Ms. Scientist, etc.

I think it's a great idea and I have supported it. If the venture is funded, then Lu will get a Little Miss CEO kit for Christmas. If you'd like to support the venture, here's a link to the Kickstarter page.

Moms as Mentors Building Bridges workshop

It's been a hectic few weeks at work trying to launch 2 marketing websites, complete with new links and assets. But when I read on my local moms' forum that Moms as Mentors was hosting a STEM mom/daughter bonding event, I decided to take the day off and go with Lucinda. I'm so glad we went.

It was a dreary day as we trudged out to Uncle Chris's prized Saab wagon, a loaner while my reliable-but-worn 10 year-old Camry was in the shop, courtesy of Uncle Chris. After a struggle with locks and a fight with the umbrella (who lost), we were on our way to Dedham.

We were the first participants to arrive, and Lucy made me a lovely name tag.

We visited the amazing science room at the Dedham Country Day School and its classroom pets, turtles. We ran into another JPmom Hillary and her daughter, who brought a friend.

We started the session with a big circle. The organizer kicked off the event with a fun activity where she asked questions such as "who has a purple toothbrush?" and if you fit the description, you ran into the middle of the circle. Then the daughters introduced their moms to everyone in the room.

Our main activity was pairing off with our daughter to build roller coasters for marbles using foam tubing, cardboard, masking tape, and some cardboard. The activity progressed in difficulty. The first challenge was to build a roller coaster that included a hill. Then we were to add a loop. Finally, we tried to incorporate both a hill and a loop.

We got right to work and Lucy started brainstorming. She surprised me with how many creative ideas she offered, and how easy it was to work together on this project. I noticed no resistance, only enthusiasm, as we worked through the various obstacles of the activity.

We finished the hill challenge quickly and set about the loop. We had a few failed attempts, wherein I held the tubing and Lucy let the marble go and she would retrieve it from across the room. I think I impressed her by introducing new vocabulary such as minimum viable product, beta, and testing phase.

On about the 5th or 6th run, we got the loop working. We spent the remainder of our time securing the loop with tape, cardboard, and trying to repeat our early success. Lucy was overjoyed when she got the whole thing working!

I was struck by how fun loving yet determined Lucy was throughout the morning. It struck me, as a scholar of Amy Cuddy and her research on power poses, how after each success, Lucy automatically threw her hands over her head, beaming and exclaiming. I use the power pose and a pep talk as part of my interview preparation, and it is very effective.

We had the chance to recreate the victory pose after we finished our third challenge.

Then we had a few minutes to walk around and admire the other teams' work.

For our final, much shorter, activity, we made bracelets for each other. Each bead was intended to signify something we appreciated in our relative.

At the end of the activity, we filled out surveys and a few participants offered observations. I shared that I was impressed by Lucy's patience. She told the group that she thought I was good at angles. and engineering.

We went to lunch afterward and shared the meanings behind the bracelets we'd made for each other. I told her that hers meant she was a true friend, excellent leader, loved the water, was a princess, had true love and kindness in her heart, and was a hard worker. Her bracelet for me had all sorts of holiday symbolism, and told me I was beautiful, kind, and loving, and a leader.

Don't worry if you missed this event! There's another one right around the corner this Saturday 11/14 in Boston.