Johnson C. Smith University News October 2015 JCSU students show ‘techs’-ellence at Black Enterprise conference Four Smithites represented the Gold and Blue at the first annual Black Enterprise TechConneXt Summit, held Oct. 12-13 in Santa Clara, Calif. The summit featured tech luminaries and opportunities for students to meet with tech recruiters, as well as a hack-a-thon where students developed money management apps for their college peers and young professionals. Kimberly McFadden, Allen Johnson, Michael Gibbs and Lewis Lawrence are all Class of 2016 seniors majoring in computer science and information systems engineering. They were joined at TechConneXt by teams of students from across the country representing Howard University, Southern University and Spelman College, competing to build apps that help users create budgets, manage expenses, track spending, and develop savings and investment plans. BE covered the cost of their travel, lodging, and meals. “This event motivated the students to find solutions for real-time problems from several perspectives. Our students were very excited to explore their own creativity in designing projects that illustrate fundamental concepts of computing applied to interesting contexts," said Dr. Hang Chen, chair of JCSU’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering. It wasn’t the students’ first hacking and app-building experience. McFadden recently completed an internship with Wells Fargo as an application programmer and analyst with JAVA Programming Language. Last year, she attended a 12-hour hack-a-thon at Central Piedmont Community College with Major League Hacking. Johnson attended and hosted a hack-a-thon, and taught app and MOD design courses to elementary, middle and high school students through the Youth Digital program. The four budding tech gurus showcased JCSU’s intellectual rigor and made JCSU shine in a spectacular way on the national STEM stage. The University will doubtless continue to participate and contribute Golden Bull excellence to this program year after year! SANDRA M. PHOENIX Executive Director HBCU Library Alliance sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org> www.hbculibraries.org<http://www.hbculibraries.org/> 800-999-8558, ext. 4820 404-702-5854 Skype: sandra.phoenix1 1438 West Peachtree NW Suite 200 Atlanta,GA 30309 Toll Free: 1.800.999.8558 (LYRASIS) Fax: 404.892.7879 www.lyrasis.org<http://www.lyrasis.org/> Honor the ancestors, honor the children.