It’s no secret that computer science careers are more lucrative than ever. Plenty of students have recognized the opportunity, but can higher education keep up?
In a New York Times article titled The Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting Into Class the author brings to light a very serious issue – universities and colleges across the country are turning away students who want to study computer science.
By now we’ve all heard the news about Amazon splitting it’s HQ2 between Long Island City, New York and Crystal City, Virginia. While the split was certainly unexpected, it should come as no surprise that this decision was one driven by talent.
In a further justification of this decision being a good bet for Jeff Bezos & Co, Forrester Research just released an independent report that shows New York City has more tech workers than any other city in the country. The 333,000 tech workers in NYC beat out San Francisco by 23,000.
In an industry jam-packed with jargon, few terms get abused and misused more than “AI.” If you’re like me, the use of “AI” in marketing-babble stops you dead in your tracks and causes you to mutter suspiciously, “What exactly is artificially intelligent about this product?” Now, at last, Karen Hao of the MIT Technology Review, has given us a clean, simple way to cut through the buzz words and understand if what we are talking about is truly “artificial intelligence.”
We have been thrilled to play host to the Open Source NYC Meetup a couple of times in recent months at our HQ at 42 West 24th. Last week’s Meetup featured a compelling discussion of intellectual property law as it relates to open source development. Topics ranged from the problem of proprietary platforms constructed upon open source foundations to more nuts-and-bolts issues like licensing. Back in July the discussion was all about GitHub in the wake of its acquisition by Microsoft, with people from GitHub as well as GitLab there to answer questions and share their insights.
Yesterday’s Tech Day NYC event, held at Pier 94 on Manhattan’s west side, was jam packed with the kind of bustling energy we’ve come to expect from this annual event, with countless start-ups showing their smart ideas off for potential investors (and each other). Once you made your way in and onto the exhibition floor – no mean feat, even early in the day! – you were met with an overwhelming throng of baby businesses as well as some established companies.
Udemy is currently having a Black Friday sale for over 55,000 of its online courses. Some that previously were hundreds of dollars are now just $10! Continue reading
I had the privilege of attending several events at the Fast Company Innovation Festival – held here in New York City last week – and my hat is off to FC for a job really well done! Sessions ran smoothly and on-time; well-curated panels were packed with interesting discussions; and the Convene space in midtown Manhattan proved an excellent, impressive venue.
It’s been quite a while, a long while in fact, since I was a Girl Scout, and I was surprised and super excited when I learned that the Girl Scouts have incorporated STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) into their badge program.
The new merit badges include everything from robotics, to app development to cybersecurity. It’s great to see that girls, from a young age, are being encouraged to learn more about the sciences and technology. You go girl(s)!
Read more about the STEM program here:
http://www.girlscouts.org/en/our-program/our-program/stem.html
I’m always keeping an eye out for STEM toys during Toy Fair. Over the years, I’ve seen an influx of toys that help children learn about Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. There are tons of kits that show kids how to get started in anything from robotics to game development. Today I’ve rounded up three toys that I think might be a hit for future engineers and devs. Continue reading
The University of Stanford’s Computer Science department has been teaching Java as its introductory computer science course since 2002 (before Java, the introductory course at Stanford was taught in C). As of this spring, Stanford has adopted a new language to teach students the basics of programming: JavaScript.
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