Bagley College trains ‘Digital Divas’
July 17, 2015
STARKVILLE, Miss. – Girls from across the Southeast learned what it takes to become a “digital diva” at a summer program in the Bagley College of Engineering’s computer science and engineering department.
Nearly 40 middle and high school students participated in the Bulldog Bytes Digital Divas summer camp designed to introduce budding minds to the world of computing.
Sponsored by the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) AspireIT outreach program, the program works to inspire young women to pursue technology by teaching them computing concepts through fun, interactive activities.
The Bulldog Bytes’ partnership with the National Security Agency’s GenCyber program allowed participants to also learn the importance of cyber security, digital forensics techniques, robotics and computer programming.
Bulldog Bytes uses the “near-peer” approach of enlisting high school or college students to teach their younger peers to encourage girls to consider a field they may not have otherwise pursued.
“The lack of girls choosing computing majors and careers is depriving society of more diverse perspectives and ideas that can lead to technological innovation,” said Sarah Lee, the director of undergraduate studies in the computer science and engineering department.
Lee and Stacy Kastner, an assistant professor of English, worked with Mississippi State students Sarah Darrow and Rian Walker, who both earned NCWIT Aspirations in Computing awards, develop the curriculum for the program. They also lead the activities, while Abby Clark, also an NCWIT Aspirations in Computing award winner, served as one of the camp counselors.
Recent data revealed that females comprise 56 percent of all advanced placement test-takers, but only 20 percent of AP computer science testers. Similarly, at the college level, women earn only 18 percent of all computer and information sciences bachelor’s degrees.
Bulldog Bytes Digital Divas is one of 48 national NCWIT AspireIT summer programs. To date, NCWIT has given more than $334,000 to 115 programs, providing an estimated 130,992 instruction hours to nearly 3,400 girls since 2013. AspireIT aims to engage more than 10,000 girls by 2018.
NCWIT AspireIT is a component of NCWIT Aspirations in Computing (AiC), a national talent development initiative for young women in computing, from kindergarten through graduate school. AiC is supported nationally by Apple, AT&T, Bank of America, Bloomberg, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola Solutions Foundation, Northrop Grumman, and the Symantec Corporation.
Find out more about the NCWIT’s K-12 outreach by visiting www.aspirations.org/aspireit or by contacting Lee at 662-325-2756 or sblee@cse.msstate.edu.
For more information about AspireIT, visit www.aspirations.org.
By: Erin Boozer Zimmer