Big Brother Big Sisters of Long Island’s mission is to “create and support one-on-one mentoring relationships that ignite the power and promise of youth.”

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Long Island provides children facing adversity with strong and enduring, professionally supported, one-on-one relationships that change their lives for the better, forever. To this end, BBBSLI has many different mentoring programs.

SpringBoard will be doing a STEM workshop for Bigs’ and Littles’ on September 25, 2021. I am very excited to be part of the team that will be teaching the workshops. So what will we be doing? Here is a preview.

My workshop is a gentle introduction to robotics. I will introduce the concept of autonomous robotics using the SPRK + robot. What can Bigs and Littles expect? They will work together to program our robot to do simple tasks, hence, autonomous robotics. It will be a great learning experience and I cannot wait. – by Tuly Reyes

Click Here to Learn more About BBBSLI: BBBSLI

I live in a suburban area in New York. I drive of course but most of the time I walk around the streets to my local pharmacy to pick up some essentials. As I do my afternoon cardio, I noticed around me empty buildings with signs that say “Rent” and a phone number displayed underneath. Next to the pharmacy, I take a small peak from the window, just to get a good look inside. I can’t help but think “You can definitely open an animation studio in there.”

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By Tuly Reyes & Chelsea Prudencio

As promised in our series, “A Data Science Story” this blog will provide insights into data from surrounding villages in Nassau County as it relates to Education and the Digital Divide. The data set was downloaded from the US Census for the following Villages: Rockville Centre, Freeport Village, Garden City, The Village of Hempstead, and Lynbrook.

Step 1: In Data Science terms, we “wrangled” the data. That means, remove blanks, and organize in a structure that we can use. We used Excel, and a nice trick to “transpose” the rows and columns, then saved it as a comma separated values (CSV).

Step 2: Next we need to explore the data. So we will use Google Colab. It is an excellent tool for data exploration and analysis, again in Data Science terms, this is EDA or Exploratory Data Analysis.

During our EDA, we noticed that “computer and internet access” were reported in percentages. And while the percentages looked good all around, we wondered what the impact would look like not in percentages but in terms of individual persons.

Data scientists are “big data” wranglers, gathering and analyzing large sets of structured and unstructured data. A data scientist’s role combines computer science, statistics, and mathematics.  Data scientists are in high demand. They analyze, process, and model data then interpret the results to create actionable plans for companies and other organizations.

“Data scientists are anomaly spotters”, said Dr. Steven C. Lindo, Chairman & CEO of SpringBoard Incubators Inc. Meaning that they follow a technique for Exploratory Data Analysis (or EDA). This method uses data visualizations techniques to look for outliers in datasets.

At SpringBoard, our Data Science workshops use the Python programming language for data analysis. We use it natively or with platforms like Google Colab or Jupyter IPython.

Python is perfect for scientific computing, here are the main components you will learn to use at SpringBoard:

• Basic Python: Basic data types (Containers, Lists, Dictionaries, Sets, Tuples), Functions, Classes
• Numpy: Arrays, Array indexing, Datatypes, Array math, Broadcasting
• Matplotlib: Plotting, Subplots, Images
• Pandas: Data analysis methods and tools.
• IPython or Colab: Creating notebooks, Typical workflows

Our next blog in “A Data Science Story” will use these tools to provide insights into census data from surrounding villages in Nassau County.

Knowledge is understanding gained through learning or experience. You read a recipe to gain knowledge about baking rhubarb pie. When it burns in the oven, experience gives you the knowledge that you need to stop doing three things at once. Fields like biology, math, art, medicine, and others have huge bodies of knowledge. Knowledge can mean information and also deeper understanding. You can use this word as a disclaimer too, as in “To my knowledge, my sister walked the dog.” – source https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/knowledge

Learning leads to awareness but the most important thing is the knowledge that we gain. The definition of knowledge above, can be summarized this way. Awareness.

Today we have a very advanced technology at our finger tips. If we need some type of information we can quickly find it online. We also have the ability to read, communicate, ask, and above all discover to do something new every day.

I want to learn because …

I want to be a person full of knowledge. I want to continue learning until I can’t no more! I want to able to help other people and to continue sharpening my reasoning and problem solving skills. Thanks to Dr. Steven Lindo for his teachings, for motivating us and, for being a fantastic person. Make the most out of your summer and learn!

By Tuly Reyes

Un torneo de innovación es una competencia por equipos donde los estudiantes se reúnen para enfocarse en un problema específico. Nuestro torneo de innovación fue organizado por SpringBoard Incubators Inc en asociación con Sean John del 4 al 5 de junio de 2021.

El tema fue Justicia Social, y se nos pidió que brindemos soluciones desde nuestra perspectiva a problemas como:

• La discriminación racial
• Sesgo de sexualidad y género
• Brecha salarial
• Bienestar infantil
• Trabajo infantil forzoso
• Abuso y negligencia infantil
• Pobreza e injusticia económica
• Falta de recursos
• Calidad de vida Sistema educativo
• Cuidado de la salud

A la competencia asistimos estudiantes de las escuelas: Hempstead High School, Roosevelt Middle School, West Hempstead y Sewanhaka High School.

La competición duró dos días. El primer día fuimos juzgados por nuestras ideas y nuestros bocetos. El segundo día tuvimos que proporcionar un “prototipo en el que se puede hacer clic” y justificar nuestra solución.

Como incubadoras SpringBoard, los estudiantes tuvieron el privilegio de poder participar y trabajar con otros estudiantes. Aprendimos de nuestros entrenadores y mentores a medida que interactuamos con expertos de la industria y recibimos el aliento de los jueces. Fue una experiencia técnica interesante, informativa y práctica. ¡Sobre todo nos divertimos! Divertido aprendiendo cosas nuevas como crear un prototipo de aplicación, colaborar en equipo y crear soluciones en iniciativas educativas, compromiso cívico y liderazgo. ¡Todos deberíamos innovar, colaborar y crear!

Muchas Gracias a Dr. Steven Lindo y todos los que participaron en este torneo, fue experiencia grandiosa porque aprendimos a innovacion sobre problemas que estan pasando actualmente.

“Club de Computación” de las escuelas secundarias de Hempstead aprovechando al máximo su verano

Las primeras semanas de las vacaciones de verano para los adolescentes se pasan idealmente de compras, yendo a la playa y con la familia. Sin embargo, este no es el caso del “Computer Club” de Hempstead High School. El Computer Club se enfrentó al desafío de codificar la tecnología E.R.R.S.E.L.A. de el Instituto de Tecnología de Nueva York. (Robot de investigación ETIC para actividades de aprendizaje y participación de los estudiantes). A pesar de no tener experiencia en codificación, el grupo de jóvenes tuvo que afrontar la abrumadora tarea de forma remota a través de ZOOM.

E.R.R.S.E.L.A. es un robot desarrollado por el Instituto de Tecnología de Nueva York con el único propósito de desarrollar las habilidades y la disciplina para poder colaborar y participar en E.R.R.S.E.L.A. ‘ funcionalidad y diseño. Trabajando con E.R.R.S.E.L.A. el Computer Club adquirió conocimientos del mundo real sobre áreas relacionadas con la ingeniería y la ciencia de la computación.

Hempstead High Schools “Computer Club” Making the Most of Their Summer

The initiating weeks of summer vacation for teenagers is ideally spent shopping, going to beaches, and or with family. However this is not the case for the Hempstead High School “Computer Club”. The Computer Club was met with the challenge of coding New York Techs E.R.R.S.E.L.A. (ETIC Research Robot for Student Engagement & Learning Activities). Despite having no coding experience the group of young individuals had to face the daunting task remotely over ZOOM.

E.R.R.S.E.L.A. is a robot developed by the New York Institute of Technology with the sole purpose of developing the skills and discipline to be able to collaborate and take part in E.R.R.S.E.L.A.’ functionality and design. Through working with E.R.R.S.E.L.A. the Computer Club gained real world knowledge of areas surrounding computer engineering and science.

This 10 day program was consisted of putting the Computer Club through a crash course of critical thinking, problem solving, and innovative designing. Attending the program here at the SpringBoard Innovation Hub the Computer Club was able to control E.R.R.S.E.L.A. autonomously. Considering E.R.R.S.E.L.A. is located at the NYIT location in Old Westbury, witnessing E.R.R.S.E.L.A. being controlled miles away was a marvel to experience. Through trial and error the Computer Club was able to persist and was able to put E.R.R.S.E.L.A. through various motions by the use of JavaScript. To creating figure eights through stop motion to creating multiple strings of code, the Computer Club was able to do it all.

Big thank you to Michael Nizich, Ph.D, director of New York Tech’s Entrepreneurship and Technology Innovation Center (ETIC), who created E.R.R.S.E.L.A. (ETIC Research Robot for Student Engagement and Learning Activities), for giving our eager students a chance to work with E.R.R.S.E.L.A. and exposing them to potential careers in Computer Sciences and Engineering. To learn more about E.R.R.S.E.L.A. click here

Geoffrey A. Moore’s book Crossing the Chasm starts out by saying “If Bill Gates can be a Billionaire”.  Implying that so can you.  I remember in high school using similar logic while waiting to take my driving test, saying to myself, “if Wayne can pass the driving test, then so can I”.

For those of us who don’t remember, Crossing the Chasm takes us through stages of marketing and selling our business & products.  The book then points out the phenomena called “The Chasm”, and why businesses fail as they fall into this crevasse instead of crossing over it. COVID-19 has dramatically widened the chasm and small business owners see it as an impossible task to cross.  Forbes Magazine reported that more than ½ black owned business have permanently closed because of the pandemic.  The Federal Reserve Bank of New York released a report that said black-owned businesses were more than twice as likely to close than other businesses.    So, if you own a small business, what should we be doing?  Here is my opinion on what we should be thinking about. 

I started my first business back in 1992.  I was already working full-time as a software engineer so I guess that you can say this was my “side hustle”.   But it was much more than that.  The business model aimed at providing IT support for small businesses who cannot afford to have their own IT team.  But I quickly learned about “cross-selling” & “up-selling”, “channels” & “partnerships”.  Cross-selling and up-selling are textbook, so I won’t cover that here.  But channels & relationships are essential to growing your business organically.  All too often we forget that business and relationships go hand-in-hand.  And these relationships will open up other channels of revenue streams for you. 

Here is the framework I suggest that you follow.  Make a list of any and everyone associated with your business.  Create a category of “Know”, “Like”, Trust”.  Then label your relationship with these categories.   Consider this a living document that you visit and update regularly.  Deliberately and systematically communicate with everyone on this list 1:1. What you will find is that relationships that you have labeled as “Trust” will be your saving grace.    These are the folks that will stretch out their hands and pull you across “The Chasm!

Science Technology Engineering & Math (STEM) Impact on Jobs

June 25, 2018 – SpringBoard Team

Since the information technology (IT) boom in the 1990’s IT workers more than doubled between 1990 and 2000. The chart below from the U.S. Census shows the growth since 1970 and the diversity of jobs that are available to IT professionals.

From the chart above we can see that many different skill sets and job functions have been created from 1970 to 2014. The chart shows 3 categories in 1970 and 14 different categories in 2014. The industry has continued to grow and evolve from 2015 to 2018 and Big Data problems have given birth to a new set of job skills: Data Scientists, and Cloud Architects. Some of the key skills that Data Scientists possess include Python Programming, Statistical Analysis and Machine Learning.

STEM Impact on Salaries

As the information technology industry continues to evolve into 2020, new skill sets will be required to meet the demands of this expansion. Information Technology continues to be one of the highest paying professions in the U.S. The information provided by the United State Department of Labor – Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the potential earnings for computer and information technology professionals by industry.