EqOpTech - Call for Volunteers

By Jane Zhao, August 20, 2016

EqOpTech is a nonprofit company started, led and run by students, and for the benefit of students in underserved communities. The Silicon Valley-based Company seeks to empower children with technology tools — donated refurbished laptops to access online educational content —to learn Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education.

Kids Helping Kids: Redeployed laptops enable easy access to online STEM learning.

The Equal Opportunity Technology program

The program not only provides computer hardware and software, but also support from a team of volunteers who mentors and inspires underprivileged kids to pursue STEM. EpOpTech hopes to foster STEM learning and computer skills in young children to enable success in school and work. 

Pilot STEM workshop

Starting August 28, 2016, EqOpTech will launch a pilot program at Sunday Friends of San Jose to roll out a series of STEM workshops in Khan Academy and Scratch. The program will kick off with Khan Academy’s Early Math and Basic Computer Programming. The curriculum is designed and tailored specific to participants’ age, skill and interest level. The first event will be held at Lowell School, 625 South 7th Street, San Jose, CA 95112 on Sunday, August 28, from 2 to 4 pm,. 

Calling student volunteers

EqOpTech team is seeking leaders with a passion in technology to teach, mentor and be a role model for the kids. This is also an excellent opportunity for student volunteers to gain valuable work experience involving community service and leadership responsibilities. All volunteer time qualifies for community service hour credits. Anyone interested, please sign up via the google form here.

About EqOpTech
Founded in May 2016, EqOpTech is a 501(c)(3) IRS-designated tax exempt nonprofit organization managed by students. EqOpTech promotes and enables equal opportunity free access to technology for computer learning and STEM education in under-served communities. website: www.EqOpTech.org, e-mail: Contact@EqOpTech.org 

Words to the Wise

STEM speaker Series #1,

By Terence Lee, July 29, 2016

On July 23, 2016, Ms. Rhonda Mak, an intern writer at Los Altos Town Crier visited with EqOpTech and shared her knowledge, experience and words of wisdom on college and career. Rhonda is currently a rising sophomore at Boston University and a graduate of Monta Vista High school. 

Left to right, Rhonda Mak, Terence Lee, David Ding, Jane Zhao

Rhonda is pursuing a major in Computer Science and a minor in Journalism or Communications at Boston University. Rhonda's interest in writing started in her junior year at Monta High School where she produced content for the school news magazine El Estoque. At El Estoque, Rhonda served as design editor for two years, providing guidance on the overall design of the magazine on top of writing articles on a regular basis. At Boston University, she managed social media and web support as multimedia editor at The Daily Free Press, contributing her expertise in video and web design work. Visit here to see her work. During this summer, she interns at Los Altos Town Crier where she enjoys researching and writing stories about a variety of different topics and people. She said that journalism is a human collection of stories that come together that tells people who we are and what we do. She has written about many different topics, from bank fraud to an autistic teen who self-publishes comic books.

New Ways to tell stories

With a computer science major and journalism minor, Rhonda hopes to explore the new and exciting field of Data Journalism. Data journalism uses numerical data analysis to tell stories and predict the future; turning data into information, intelligence and forecast. We have seen an explosion of data due to the proliferation of digital devices in recent years. With the advent of Big Data, data journalists can use statistics, calculus and computer science tools to tell a compelling story backed by data analysis and visualization. For example, an interesting application of data journalism is the 2016 Presidential Election forecast.

Rhonda also said that her CS major and Journalism minor opens up interesting opportunities into Tech Journalism such as the Wired Magazine. 

Get out of your comfort zone and explore…

When asked about how she decided on computer science major and journalism minor for her college, Rhonda provided this advice to students trying to decide on their majors. “Come out of your shell, put yourself in a nasty situation and be open minded,” Rhonda said. “Explore and try different things, expose yourself in a broad spectrum of subjects.” This is so true, take some risks and follow your passion.

Rhonda also has the following advice for college applications: know your deadlines, apply for scholarships, research schools that are strong in your major. On essay writing, she said write essays early, ask friends, teachers to review and edit, always highlight your good traits and character and tell your unique stories. As most essay has a general prompt, you can start with the common app essay and tailor the essay to other applications.

Thank you for these words of wisdom, Rhonda

EqOpTech would like to express our sincere gratitude to Ms. Rhonda Mak for spending a Saturday morning sharing her invaluable insight and words of wisdom.