Browning Participates in Computer Science Education Week

On December 7 Dr. Craig Nevill-Manning, director of New York Engineering at Google, Inc., and a computer scientist who founded Google’s first engineering center outside of Silicon Valley, spoke to Form II through VI boys at Browning during Computer Science Education Week celebrated across the world via “Hour of Code” events. Dr. Nevill-Manning completed his doctorate in computer science at Waikato University, New Zealand, in 1996 before moving to the U.S. for post-doctoral work at Stanford University. He was honored in 2010 by the Carnegie Institute as one of America’s great immigrants. Read more about him at carnegie.org.

During his talk, facilitated by Browning parent David Eun, Dr. Nevill-Manning discussed various projects that Google is working on, including self-driving cars, Internet for all, and disaster relief support. He encouraged the boys to get involved with the Hour of Code via code.org.

The day before, Browning’s Director of Academic Technology Saber Khan organized a hackathon series with Columbia Prep and Riverdale on December 6 as part of the Agile Youth Challenge (AYC), a programming hackathon/codeathon competition for students in grades 6-12 with any level of programming experience enrolled at any New York City or area school. Mr. Khan, along with Director of Technology Aaron Grill, led two teams of Browning boys in the competition. He declared, “This was the most diverse hackathon we’ve ever seen!”

Mr. Khan added that AYC was founded by members of several New York City schools, and grew out of the organizers’ desire to blend ongoing learning experiences into the immediate and intense challenges of a hackathon/codeathon. The goal is to bring teams together in friendly competition, give them a chance to evaluate and learn from their performance back at school, and then present another chance to compete and apply what they’ve learned. The second AYC hackathon will take place at Grand Central Tech on Sunday, March 13, 2016.