December 14, 2024
PreparationTech's 2024 Tech Skills Day was a day of inspiration, networking and hands-on learning about coding, robotics and AI. Mattias Scheek kicked it off with a bang, sharing his tech journey from age 5 to selling his speaker tech company for $100 million and now heading up hardware development at Sonos. We also heard from technologists about their journeys into tech (biggest advice: do what you love and follow your passion). Students then participated in a speed dating session with role models, many of whom are women, racial and ethnic minorities and from low-income backgrounds.
A big part of getting high school students from groups under-represented in tech interested in tech study and careers is demystifying tech tools. That's why during PreparationTech's Tech Skills Day event last week, students participated in different workshops to familiarize themselves with coding, robotics and AI.
Python Coding
Our partner CODAM taught Python coding workshops during which students co-created pixel art together. For some of them, this was the first time they learned about this coding language (which was invented by Dutchman Guido van Rossum). It was a revelation for some who found it much easier than they thought it would be while others found it the most difficult of all workshops.
Robotics and Coding
Robotics workshops are a perfect way to bring computer science concepts to life in a very tangible way. Participating high school students designed, built and coded self-driving vehicles during workshops taught by NewTechKids. As usual, there were many unexpected moments: including a pair of girls who were initially disengaged but who ended up building one of the best robots of the day.
AI Chatbot Development
High school students 'took a look under the hood' to discover how system prompts are used to give AI chatbots their 'personalities' and instructions on how to answer queries. With training from Thomas Wolf, Co-founder and Chief Science Officer at Hugging Face, PreparationTech developed a workshop during which our teachers explained what AI chatbots are, how they work, key concepts such as Large Language Models (LLMs) and systems prompts, and how to use open source AI platforms to customize your own.
PreparationTech's Tech Skills Day was truly a group effort. Thanks to our event partners: CODAM, Adyen and OBA for helping provide such a great learning experience for Dutch high school students from groups under-represented in the tech industry.