Bemley Scholar James Arama Shares Educational Success with His Mom

One of the shining stars in BDPA history is James Arama. James is a 2-time national BDPA High School Computer Competition champion who used his Jesse Bemley Scholarship money to help fund his computer science degree at Marist College.

BDPA cannot take full credit for the educational achievements of this young squire. He had a powerful example set for him by his mother.

James wrote, "The graduates to be! My mom graduates today from South Central College with her nursing degree. I'm graduating from Marist next week with my computer science degree! Flew in for the day to capture this moment. We made it!!!! #beyondblessed"

BDPA Education and Technology Foundation wants to provide more college scholarship funding at the upcoming 36th annual BDPA Technology Conference on August 5-9, 2014 in Indianapolis. We are short of our fundraising goal. We encourage you to make a secure online donation in honor of James Arama and his mom!

Related articles

• Bemley Scholar Zakaria Ahmed Seeks Medical Training at University of Minnesota
• KTTC Rochester, 9/9/2013 (Herchran Singh, BDPA Southern Minnesota)

BDPA iRadio Show - March 25, 2014 (James Arama, LaDonna Crum, Michael Wulf)

BDPA Education and Technology Foundation (BETF) is very proud to be the creator of the BDPA iRadio Show. You can listen to the archive version of the show using the widget shown in the right-hand sidebar of this blog. FREE download from the iTunes Store is also available for our listeners!

Popular Technology Internet Radio with BDPA on BlogTalkRadio

---

The guests on the March 25th show:

James Arama - software engineer, Funeral Innovations - Five years ago James was trained by BDPA Southern Minnesota chapter as part of its Student IT Education & Scholarship (SITES) program. He was chosen to be part of a 5-person team to compete in the 2009 national BDPA High School Computer Competition (HSCC) championship held in Raleigh, NC. His team won the HSCC championship that year!  James earned scholarships that helped him finance his college education at Marist College. He is now a software developer and entrepreneur working side-by-side with his HSCC coach, Zack Garbow, for a company called Funeral Innovations. James is the embodiment of the BDPA tagline, '...classroom to the boardroom'.  You can follow James on Twitter -- @thejamesarama

LaDonna Crum - chapter president, BDPA Greater Birmingham - LaDonna Crum is an applications support analyst. She took on another critical role last year as the president of our BDPA Greater Birmingham chapter and she has been lighting things up in Alabama with a fervent roar about the benefits of membership in BDPA. She is attracting new volunteers and funding ... and she is planning an aggressive schedule of programs and services for both students and IT professionals in Birmingham.  Her chapter is currently the 36th largest in the nation.

Michael Wulf - vice president, BDPA Midwest Region - Michael Wulf began his term as the BDPA Midwest Region vice president in January 2014. Michael provides leadership and guidance to 11 chapters located within his region. He hosted a regional conference in Columbus OH on March 21-22, 2014. Our BDPA iRadio show listeners will learn about Michael's accomplishments over the first 100 days of his administration as well as his vision for the future of BDPA on both a regional and national level.
Michael can be found on Twitter - @michaelgwulf

---

We hope you enjoy the insights and commentary on the show from each of these guests. Please take a moment to post a comment to let us know that you care!

Related articles

• BDPA iRadio Show - March 11, 2014

Bemley Scholar James Arama Heads to Marist College

James Arama

BDPA Education and Technology Foundation (BETF) is proud to learn that 2-time national BDPA High School Computer Competition (HSCC) champion James Arama is using his Jesse Bemley Scholarship to help fund his freshman year at Marist College. James is studying computer science and software development at Marist College, as well as applying his knowledge to his own entrepreneurial venture.

We asked James to share his thoughts about his experiences as a member of the BDPA Southern Minnesota chapter:

---

In December of 2008 I joined BDPA, an organization that seeks to help minorities succeed in technology careers. The local BDPA chapter ran a Youth Computer Training Program (YCTP) that teaches students web programming techniques. I heard about the program from my friends who had posted pictures and updates on Facebook after they had won the National High School Computer Competition the year before. I signed up for the class with a goal of earning a spot on the competition team and competing at the National Competition. Whenever my teachers gave assignments and extra credit, I would search through online tutorials to ensure my project exceeded all the requirements. By the end of the year, my class rank was high enough to earn a spot on the competition team, a rarity for a first year student.

As a team, we got together during the summer to prepare for the competition via "boot camp," practicing our programming skills for up to thirty hours per week. At the end of the summer we traveled to Raleigh, North Carolina to compete against twenty-two other teams from much larger cities such as Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. The competition spanned two days, culminating with a seven hour programming project, which required us to create a full database-driven web application from scratch with no outside help. This year's project, which the teams had no advance knowledge of, required the students to write a web-based application allowing potential investors to fill out a form to invest in a venture company and immediately determine potential return of investment, using programming languages such as Java, Javascript, ASP, PHP, .NET in conjunction with MySQL, HTML and CSS.

2009 National HSCC Champions

We used our time wisely. Each member of our team had his/her own portion of the project to work on. I was the Technical Architect as well as a web designer. We began by addressing the requirements. Upon completion of each requirement, we utilized a double blind testing method wherein two independent evaluators tested the application. Errors identified by the evaluators were categorized as either consequential or inconsequential. Consequential errors that deemed to affect the functionality of the requirements were addressed immediately whereas inconsequential errors that deemed not to affect the functionality of the requirements were addressed as time permitted. Due to our methodical approach, we finished our project in four hours, leaving three more hours for more testing and enhancements. Our team ended up taking first place, beating the second place team by a large ten percent margin. At that point I was so stunned that I did not know how to digest what had just happened, but I was glad to be able to call myself a National Champion.

James is in the middle

To some extent I have believed that my life has always been full of luck. How else could I have come from one of the poorest villages in Africa, lived in the most unsanitary slums, won an immigration lottery and received national recognition for my computer programming and artistic skills? But as I mature, I realize these blessings are not due to luck at all. My family has supported each other through hard work to turn our fortunes around. They have supported and encouraged me to fulfill my potential. Without this support, I could not have achieved these goals and become the person that I am.

I now have many new goals. I strive to achieve great success in college, lead a career in business and technology, and impact the world in ways that I would never have thought possible while growing up in rural Kenya. But perhaps my biggest goal right now is to show my younger brothers that they too can find greatness in life – if we just stay together and work towards our goals as a family.

---

BETF is very proud of James Arama. He was part of the HSCC team trained by BDPA Southern Minnesota that won the 2010 national HSCC championship in Philadelphia.


Our hope is that we can provide more students with Bemley Scholarships over the coming weeks. If you believe in what we are doing ... please take a moment to help us do more.

Three BDPA Students Showcase Entrepreneurial Talents with 3D Virtual Integration of Facebook Called StartLounge

We often talk about BDPA being an organization that provides programs and services that advance the careers of our members from the 'classroom to the boardroom'. I think that we will find the reality behind those words in Rochester, MN. That is where three past national BDPA High School Computer Competition (HSCC) champions have joined together to create the StartLounge.

StartLounge is a visual, social interface that engages users with 3D-Facebook integration. StartLounge also gives you the power to preview your Facebook news feeds and pictures that you are tagged in. The co-founders indicate that the product is still in the development stages and will be continually updated with cool new features.

The co-founders are student members of our BDPA Southern Minnesota chapter: James Arama, Ahmed Mahamad and Adwait Walimbe.

James Arama, Ahmed Mahamad and Adwait Walimbe

Arama is a freshman majoring in Computer Science at Marist College. He specializes in information processing with emphasis on business based applications utilizing Open-Source Interfaces.

Mahamad is a sophomore majoring in Health Sciences at the University of Minnesota. He plans to continue his studies at Medical School while researching in the area of Bio-informatics. This is a topic that he researched for the 2010 BDPA IT Showcase held earlier this year in Philadelphia.


Walimbe is a senior at John Marshall High School. He is a developing programmer, aspiring entrepreneur, and business consultant with plans to major in Computer Science when he enters college next year. This isn't his first start-up business. In 2008, he created Socialdecks, a company geared towards online learning while focusing on the social aspect of education.

These three young men embody the spirit of  'classroom to the boardroom' more than most. I look forward to seeing where their current venture -- StartLounge -- takes them over the coming months and years. In the meantime, I hope that all of BDPA-Nation will share some love with these three young men.

Sometimes we wonder why we put in the hours that we do for BDPA. I suggest that it is young 'uns like James, Ahmed and Adwait that make it all worthwhile.  

You can help us create scholarship opportunities for other young men and women by making a donation to the Jesse Bemley Scholarship Fund. Every dollar makes a difference. Won't you share your blessings with these young people?