Jannaeé Sick

IBM (formerly at MedThink)

Are you a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle or otherwise concerned family member of a minority child that will need help improving their literacy in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)? If not, are you are a concerned citizen what would like to help minority children better develop STEM skills? If yes to either or both questions, then meet Miles Sick, the three-year-old son of Jannaee Sick (Front End Developer, MedThink, Raleigh, NC) and Michael Sick (Big Data Architect, Ernst & Young, Raleigh, NC) who are both minority professionals working in STEM fields. As his parents, we understand that Miles will likely face challenges in the development of both skills and confidence around STEM and we are dedicated to addressing the problems head-on. We will detail our approach to the challenges, goal setting, and the planned activities for Miles’ STEM development with a focus on computer science. The audience will learn about the current and future challenges of raising minority children to excel in STEM. They will be presented with a practical set of methods and activities for increasing a child’s knowledge and confidence in STEM. Most importantly, the audience will learn how they can take practical steps to help encourage minority children to succeed in STEM. Last, we will show a few Scratch based programming examples that we’ve completed with Miles to date.