New Program Recruits African-American Girls to Computer Science
The computing workforce continues to grow, but women of color remain largely underrepresented. Tuskegee University recently announced a $1.3 million grant program funded by the National Science Foundation that aims to prepare African-American girls in Alabama for careers in computer science.
The program is called Black Girls from Alabama for Computing. It is a collaboration between Tuskegee, the University of Alabama and Oakland University. The project is open to African-American high school girls who enroll in AP Computer Science. The bulk of it takes place during the summer, when students will split time between the University of Alabama and Tuskegee University. They will learn about careers in computing and prepare for AP computer science.
African-American women make up about 3% of the nation’s computing workforce. Mohammed Qazi, a professor at Tuskegee who helps lead the new project, says diversity is important. “It’s all about diversity of thought,” he says, “bringing different perspectives when one is solving a problem.” Qazi says there is a tremendous need for computer scientists in the U.S. He hopes to create a pipeline to recruit more minority girls to the field. The National Science Foundation will fund the program for three years.
Young offenders are often denied credit for “dead time” behind bars
Juvenile detention systems often deny young offenders credit for the time they spend waiting behind bars
From bromance to breakup: How Elon Musk and Donald Trump blew up
The blow up marks the end of an alliance between the president and the billionaire that lasted far longer than many observers expected.
Fans drive huge Nintendo Switch 2 launch; others play the waiting game
Criticized for its high cost but still selling out nearly everywhere, Nintendo's sequel to their popular Switch console releases as a trade war squeezes the video game industry.
Israel says it’s arming clans to fight Hamas in Gaza
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged the government was arming factions in the Gaza Strip to combat Hamas, after accusations from an opposition politician.
Trump’s travel ban includes Afghanistan, where thousands await U.S. resettlement
President Trump's travel ban on a dozen countries includes Afghanistan. Since American troops left in August of 2021, many Afghans have already arrived in the U.S. but many more are still waiting.
After his mother’s death, Ocean Vuong wrote his way out of grief
Vuong's new novel, The Emperor of Gladness, is the first he's written, from start to finish, since his mother died in 2019. He says writing it was a way to honor her memory.
