One of the best things that I did while serving as a national BDPA officer was appointing Dr. Jesse Bemley to serve as the conference delivery manager for the BDPA IT Showcase.
My vision was twofold. First, I wanted to find a way for HSCC alumni to continue to participate in the annual BDPA technology conference after their high school careers ended.
Second, I wanted to inspire young African American technologists to continue their educational arc through the Ph.D program by providing role models ... successful African American Ph.Ds in the computer science, engineering and information technology fields.
Dr. Bemley took the BDPA IT Showcase from a one-day event to its current position of being a 3-day event, sponsored by Johnson-Johnson, at the 30th annual BDPA Technology conference in Atlanta, GA. IT Showcase activities are now a part of the Youth Technology Camp (YTC) and Adult Forums. The main IT Showcase occurs on Thursday.
Dr. Bemley took the BDPA IT Showcase from a one-day event to its current position of being a 3-day event, sponsored by Johnson-Johnson, at the 30th annual BDPA Technology conference in Atlanta, GA. IT Showcase activities are now a part of the Youth Technology Camp (YTC) and Adult Forums. The main IT Showcase occurs on Thursday.
The activities include presentations, both paper and poster, of advanced computing topics. Participants are high school and undergraduate students. The focus is leading edge technologies, hardware and soft
ware methodologies, research proofs of concepts encompassing, but not limited to, intelligent technologies (i.e., smart toys, machine learning, genetic algorithms), wearable computing, web technologies, high performance computing, computing curricula, computational science and so forth.
Demonstrations are incorporated in the presentations where applicable. Presentations/projects are judged in two categories, college (undergraduate) and high school. Three awards will be made in each category. Previous showcases have answered questions such as:
ware methodologies, research proofs of concepts encompassing, but not limited to, intelligent technologies (i.e., smart toys, machine learning, genetic algorithms), wearable computing, web technologies, high performance computing, computing curricula, computational science and so forth.Demonstrations are incorporated in the presentations where applicable. Presentations/projects are judged in two categories, college (undergraduate) and high school. Three awards will be made in each category. Previous showcases have answered questions such as:
- What is a smart toy?
- Can machines actually learn?
- Is there a difference between virtual humans and avatars?
- How will high performance computing change IT as we know it?
- Will genetic algorithms put more programmers out of work
- Can neural networks actually be trained?
- Why would anyone want to wear a computer?
- Should I get an Internet phone?
- Are those movie/video scenes actually computer-generated?
- Can I actually make maps on my computer?
Click here for a copy of the 2008 IT Showcase Handbook.
Our hope is that all 49 BDPA chapters will identify HSCC alumni or college students to participate in this year's IT Showcase. We are pleased that Johnson-Johnson stepped up to become sponsor of the 5th annual BDPA IT Showcase taking place on August 6-8, 2008 in Atlanta, GA. Let's see if we can make this the largest IT Showcase in BDPA history!
Any thoughts or questions?
Is your chapter going to have students participate in the IT Showcase this year?
ReplyDelete