Career Fair and roles models

Each year TechKobwa features a panel with Rwandan women leaders in technology, business and government.  Students identify strongly with these women and find their stories truly inspirational.

The Career Panel at TechKobwa 2015 took place Wednesday afternoon.   It included:

• Crystal Rugege,  Director of Business Strategy & Operations at Carnegie Mellon University-Rwanda
• Lucy Mbabazi , President of Girls in ICT and Business Leader VISA
• Emma Marie Ndoringoma,  Founder of Fidalix Ltd. and Product Manager at Promelec
• Happiness Uwase,  Operations Manager and Membership Coordinator of PSF ICT Chamber
• Mariam M. Muganga , Chief of Operations at Academic Bridge
• Vanessa Mutesi, Miss Geek Rwanda 2015

We are truly grateful to these accomplished and busy women for making the long trip to Kibuye to talk about the paths that led them to where they are today and the satisfaction they derive from their careers.

I could not understand the talks (they were in Kinyarwanda).  But I could appreciate the intensity with which students listened to the panelists—and that students certainly did not lack for questions!

After the panel, students gathered around Vanessa to learn more    

The presentation by Vanessa Mutesi , Miss Geek Rwanda 2015, elicited an excited exclamation from the students. Rusty explained, “She just told them that she is 16 years old!”—not something you would have guessed from such a self assured and well-spoken young lady.  We could not have asked for a better role model for our 60 students ages 12 through 20!

This year at TechKobwa, students made the most of two other opportunities to connect with inspiring role models. 

Two students from the Akilah Institute—a non-profit, accredited women’s college offering professional degrees in technology, business, and hospitality management with campuses in Rwanda and Burundi—visited overnight.  We thank Aimee and Sandrine for presentations on their goals and aspirations and on their experiences at the Akilah Institute.

We were also fortunate to have a representative from Kepler Kigali with us for the entire camp.  Simon Niwemugizi spoke to students about opportunities for continuing their education through the Kepler Institute.

Thanks to all volunteers, teachers and guests for their mentorship, and for igniting the imaginations of 60 young Rwandan women.   The message came through loud and clear:  Determination, work, and education can change the course of your life, opening the way for fulfilling careers.

Learning some programming (Scratch)

To make room in the schedule for an extra hour of CS Unplugged, I cut the two Scratch lessons from last summer down from 90 minutes to 60 minutes.  I based the first Scratch lesson on the video course Scratch 1 provided by the curators of http://learnscratch.org.  TechKobwa students are more adept at reading written English than understanding spoken English.  I therefore started with a written transcript of the videos that we had created for last summer.  It had already been modified to use Scratch 2.0.  For this year, I also modified the order in which topics were introduced to give a quicker overview and encourage more experimentation, and added a lesson on changing the back drop. 

A teacher started by leading the students through the first couple of lessons, and then let them proceed at their own pace to read instructions and try things out.  Family leaders circulated through the room to answer questions.

The second Scratch lesson was delivered entirely by teachers with the help of family leaders, as I was teaching the fourth CS Unplugged lesson with half of the students at the same time.  They followed instructions for programming a simple show with two acts.  The teachers tell me that the students had a lot of fun with this lesson.   

The instructions for the lesson started out very detailed, as illustrated by the first few pages of the handout shown below:

Instructions gradually became less detailed.  The lesson left lots of room for extensions--addition of entirely new acts and embellishments of the two existing acts.  

For some reason, we don’t have any pictures of the Scratch lessons with students—maybe because all hands were to busy helping students and having fun with Scratch themselves.  This photo is of me introducing Scratch to the teachers during TOT. 

Unfortunately, several of the teachers are at schools that lack the infrastructure they would need (enough computers and reliable electricity) to teach Scratch at their home schools.  This was the rationale for spending more time on CS Unplugged lessons and less on Scratch, even though the teachers and students both had a lot of fun with Scratch. 

Of course, besides being fun, the Scratch lessons reinforced many of the algorithmic concepts they had learned about earlier in the week.  They could very concretely see that each sprite carried out a sequential algorithm; but that events allowed them to execute in parallel.  They also became very familiar with the concept of repetition.

Skype with America

A Sykpe call with a group of younger students from the Village Learning Place in Baltimore was a highlight of TechKobwa this year.

The Village Learning Place is an independent non profit that facilitates educational programs, enrichment opportunities and informational resources for the people of Baltimore City. The LINK (Let's Invest in Neighborhood Kids) Summer program is a full day academic program for over 100 youth from pre-K to 6th grade, designed to prevent summer learning loss and inspire creativity.

Jill Muth, a teacher at the Village Learning Place had been a PCV in Rwanda.  She had reached out to Rusty about a cultural exchange between America and Rwanda.  It fit perfectly with the goals of TechKobwa.

So 60 students, 10 teachers, and other volunteers all crowded into the larger of the two computer labs at IPCR West to “Sykpe with America” on Monday, August 10 at 5:00 pm  (Central Africa Time Zone).

The excitement both in Baltimore and in Rwanda was palpable!  Jill’s class greeted us with a big “Muraho” and then began bouncing around the room, vying for air time.  Jill’s students had prepared presentations about different aspects of Baltimore culture:  Food, dress, music, etc.  Try explaining “lobsters” to 60 Rwandan students, or “do do” to a handful of excited elementary-school students from Baltimore.   The Baltimore students had prepared a dance, which we enjoyed tremendously.  

In return, the TechKobwa students gave a heartfelt rendition of the TechKobwa cheer for the entertainment of the Baltimore group.

The quality of the display was not great—too much movement for Skype to keep up with.  But sound quality was good and the entire interchange was delightful!  This activity is certainly something we will want to repeat in the future.

After the call, TechKobwa students had many questions about the technology and how they could use it.