On March 16th, 2019 Fly By Nature Foundation partnered with Chic Diva Geek, PG Parks & Recreation, Boys & Girls Club to host a FREE S.T.E.M. Workshop & Career panel.
Tech Flash Summit was created by Adrian McClanahan, founder of Chic Diva Geek who is a Network Administrator by day and Web designer part-time. Her passion for overall youth development, lack of people of color in the IT Industry & community engagement sparked her to form this wonderful event free for DC area children ages ranging from 8-17 years old.
" You can literally get on your phone and get to answers to anything, that is so much power, knowledge is so much power" was a quote from Amanda, one of the 2019 S.T.E.M. panelists. Amanda is a Information System Security Officer by day and founder of Off My Block Non Profit Organization, a 501c3 created to uplift young girls in the DC area.
This event had a total of 5 workshops with approximately 50 kids in attendance. The 5 workshops were Cyber Bullying, giving the kids an introduction to internet safety, digital reputation & social media etiquette. In the Photo wizard, kids learned how to edit pictures with cool filters. In the Doodler Team Build, kids were able to creatively explore and draw their own geometric based structures. In the Code with Kano workshop, Boys & Girls Club Teen instructors taught the kids the basic components to build a CPU, how to connect those parts & how to code so those devices could operate to play video games.The final workshop was the Star Wars Drone obstacle course. Kids learned how to operate these drones from their smart phones.
S.T.E.M. Panelists
They had an amazing group of young black DC area IT & Engineering professionals that stopped by to provide their back story, how they ended in their respective careers, some encouragement, information & resources. Below from left to right are the panelists in the picture below.
Ronnie Frost - Systems Cyber Security Manager
Victor Terry - Sr Advisor, Field Support
Amanda Reid - Information Systems Security Officer
Lionel Taylor - Senior Associate Project Manager/ Electrical Engineer
