On Sept. 25, the Harker Programming Club held its fifth annual Girls Programming League Challenge, with 130 girls and non-binary people from 65 schools participating. Contestants worked in teams to solve a series of Olympiad-style computer science problems written by officers from the Programming Club. In keeping with the event’s theme of computer science in medicine, the event also featured a keynote speech by Google Health software engineer Maria Nattestad; a panel discussion with Dr. Natalie Pageler, clinical professor of pediatric critical care and chief medical information officer at Stanford University; Johanna Kim, executive director of Stanford’s Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Imaging; Aleks Goeva, a researcher at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; and upper school science department chair Anita Chetty.
Last week, 21 students were recognized in the National Center for Women & Information Technology’s (NCWIT) 2022 Award for Aspirations in Computing. This award recognizes “women, genderqueer or non-binary students for their computing-related achievements and interests, and encourages them to pursue their passions,” according to the NCWIT website. Students (all of them in grades 9-12) enter by submitting an application containing essay and multiple-choice questions.
Senior Alice Feng and juniors Ashley Hu, Ella Lan, Nidhya Shivakumar, Deeya Viradia, Sabrina Zhu and Sally Zhu all won National Honorable Mentions – the second-highest tier of award – and were all regional Affiliate Winners. Senior Alina Yuan was named an Affiliate Winner. Amiya Chokhawala, Amrita Pasupathy and Ariya Reddy, all grade 11; Ella Yee, grade 10; and ninth graders Melody Yin and Sophia Zhu each won an Affiliate Honorable Mention. Junior Michelle Jin, sophomores Harshini Chaturvedula, Claire Luo and Saloni Shah, and ninth graders Ainslie Chen, Chiling Han and Kashish Priyam were named Affiliate Rising Stars.
Yesterday, juniors Deeya Viradia and Nidhya Shivakumar and sophomore Ella Lan were named winners of an Award for Aspirations in Computing by the National Center for Women and Information Technology. They were among 360 nationwide honorable mentions (the second-highest tier in the competition) selected from this year’s 3,500 applicants, who were judged on their activities, experience, leadership and how they planned to continue their careers after high school.
A team of three Harker students – sophomores Joe Li, Dustin Miao and Aniketh Tummala – took second place at the Lockheed Martin Code Quest, held this past spring. Code Quest is an annual programming competition in which teams of high school students solve problems using various programming languages. More than 1,400 students (568 teams in all) from all over the world entered the event, which was held virtually. Harker won silver in the advanced division of the competition and were just one question shy of taking the gold.
Late last month, Misha Ivkov ‘17 received the Mark Stehlik Alumni Undergraduate Impact Scholarship from the Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science (SCS), which “recognizes and supports SCS undergraduates whose drive for excellence extends beyond the classroom,” according to the CMU SCS website. The scholarship is awarded to students as they approach the end of their undergraduate career. “Awardees have demonstrated a desire to make a difference in SCS, the field of computer science and the world around them,” a news story posted on the website states.
According to the story, Ivkov’s drive was applied not only to his own studies but to teaching other students, for which he was awarded the Alan J. Perlis Undergraduate Student Teaching Award. He has served as a teacher’s assistant in three classes and co-developed a student-taught class to help students give technical interviews.
Harker students Krish Maniar, grade 10, and Kabir Ramzan, grade 9, together with Saratoga High sophomore Shafin Haque, received the grand prize and several other awards at the HackDefy 2.0 hack-a-thon, held the weekend of March 27. Within 24 hours, the team developed a technology called EyesAIght that analyzes retinal images using artificial intelligence to help ophthalmologists determine the stage of diabetic retinopathy, a condition that can cause vision loss and blindness in diabetics. One in 10 Americans are currently diagnosed with diabetes, and 84 percent of patients are unaware of their condition because no objective assessment tool exists to automate detection, the team explains in its project overview.
EyesAIght also estimates the likelihood that diabetic retinopathy can cause blindness, thereby allowing physicians to determine appropriate treatment options. EyesAIght also produces a convenient summary report for review by physicians by utilizing natural language processing technology, .
In addition to winning the grand prize among 162 participants, comprising both high school and university teams at HackDefy, the team also received the Best High School Hack award. The trio also received awards at other hack-a-thons, including Best Healthcare Project at Merge 2021 and Best Medical Hack at Hack-2-Connect 3.0. For their efforts the team received over $650 in cash prizes and over $5,000 worth of non-cash prizes.
Harker students Krish Maniar, grade 10, and Kabir Ramzan, grade 9, together with Saratoga High sophomore Shafin Haque, collected a series of awards at multiple international hack-a-thons that took place the weekend of Jan 16. Over a 24-hour period, the trio developed a web application called DisastersAI that harnesses artificial intelligence and machine learning to better predict and prepare for natural disasters such as earthquakes, wildfires and hurricanes. The team’s goal was to create a positive impact on the world through their programming skills. The DisastersAI app has multiple features that can guide government officials and citizens with planning and impact analysis. The team was awarded Best Environmental Sustainability Hack at Hack the Northeast Beyond (among 1,064 participants), People’s Choice Award and Top Five Overall at ThetaHacks (among 402 participants), Best Machine Learning Hack and Most Creative Award at Orion Hacks (among 192 participants) and Innovative Project Award at STHacks (among 140 participants). The students have posted more information about their project and an overview video on Devpost.
Last week, Dr. Abigail Joseph, middle school learning, innovation and design (LID) director, was appointed to the Computer Science Teachers Association’s Board of Directors. Together with the appointment Charity Freeman of Chicago’s Lane Tech College Prep High School, Abigail noted, this decision “is the continuation of a shift that CSTA is deliberately making to change the face of computer science education so that more marginalized groups are granted access to CS education and opportunities to participate in the world in which they live.”
Joseph has been involved with the CSTA since 2012, when she was a computer science teacher at the middle school, and co-founded the San Mateo County chapter in 2015. Last year, Joseph was part of the inaugural cohort of the CSTA’s Equity Fellowship, helping introduce computer science to teachers in other disciplines.
“I have been involved with various organizations help to encourage more non-CS teachers to learn about computer science and integrate it into their discipline,” said Joseph. “I have enjoyed working with teachers in that capacity and focused my Equity Fellowship project on developing professional learning opportunities to demystify computer science for non-CS teachers.” Working with the Connie L. Lurie College of Education at San Jose State University, Abigail gave computer science education workshops “to shift perspectives on what computer science is and why CS education is an equity issue that all teachers should care about.”
Joseph said she is looking forward to bringing awareness to equity issues in computer science education in her position on the board. “As a board member, I hope to bring voice to those that do not normally have the opportunity to share opinions about systems that create inequities and access in the field of CS and CS education,” she said. “It is important that a diverse array of perspectives are accounted for when systems and policies are created in any organization.”
Three Harker students were named finalists in the 2020 ProjectCSGIRLS Competition. Rising freshman Reshma Kosaraju and rising eighth graders Saanvi Bhargava and Anika Pallapothu were invited to a virtual version of the ProjectCSGIRLS National Gala, to be held in early August.
In this annual contest, open to girls in grades 6-8, students use computer science and technology to build projects that address social problems in the categories of global health, safety, intelligent technology and inequality. The organization’s goal is to close the gender gap in computing and technology by fostering interest among middle school girls.
In early September, the Harker Programming Club hosted the second Girls Programming League Challenge, in which 100 girls from around the Bay Area took part in a coding contest and attended talks by a wide variety of guest speakers. The event was founded as a way to encourage the pursuit of computer science among middle and high school girls. Competitions were held for both novice and advanced programmers, and a total of 16 awards were distributed among the contestants. Teams of three students each were tasked with solving a series of programming problems within a two-hour time limit.
Talks were given by Chelsea Finn, an assistant professor of computer science at Stanford and research scientist at Google Brain, and Sharon Zhou, a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University studying artificial intelligence applications for health care and climate change. A panel discussion also was held with Paige Bailey, TensorFlow product manager at Google; Qualcomm senior product marketing manager Sreeja Nair; Sue Xu, managing partner at Amino Capital; and Harker’s own upper school biology teacher Kate Schafer.