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Starting When They're Young
I know SIM has been very active in trying to figure out ways to get kids into IT. There was a SIM camp that exposed junior high school kids to IT projects and careers, which I believe was run by the SIM Foundation—the SIM unit that funds educational programs, research, and charitable outreach.
Right, the camp was actually started in Memphis and the chapter there ran it for a couple of years. Then the SIM Foundation took it on as the Teen Tech Challenge and we're trying to expand it to other chapters. I think three chapters run it now. And if our charitable contributions come through, I'm going to be able to do it in more locations next year.
We also have a counselor program where we go to various towns and talk to high school counselors about technical careers to get them excited about the profession so that when they're advising their students, they're advising them with a good background.
The counselors are very influential with respect to the school the kids go to and the majors for which they're prepared. In high school, you need a little bit heavier math background to get into some university computer sciences and MIS programs.
So you've got to salt that mine early.
And then you've got to keep the pressure on, because the first time university kids have trouble in a calculus course or technical course, the tendency is to divert to something else. But with the base background it does get easier and a lot more fun.
And what actually happens at the camp? What type of activities do the kids engage in?
They actually create things with technology. I think a neat example is that they had students create videos where they'd mix text, music, and video together into something that they could show their friends. One of the groups actually produced a commercial about the library system in Memphis. And one of the TV stations ran the commercial.
How long is the camp?
It's a week long for each group of students, and they ran several camps.
The key issue now is raising money to help us fund these things—they're not that expensive—and then finding a place to actually run the program, either a local library, a local school, or some type of other organization that'll help us out.
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