President of Girls Who Code Club Ari Sokolov ’19 received` the National Center for Women & Information Technology Aspirations in Computing Award for her commitment to computer science.
In addition to working with Girls Who Code, HW Venture and the Computer Science Olympiad at school, she develops apps through her own tech company, Logical Nonsense, LLC.
She also teaches girls in East Los Angeles about robotics.
Congress recognized Sokolov for her app developing and she has received awards from Apple for her projects two years in a row.
Out of 3,600 applicants, NCWIT selected 40 students to be national winners.
Sokolov traveled to a convention in Charlotte, North Carolina March 9-11.
While there, she met the other winners, network and receive her award.
“The best part was getting to know other accomplished computer scientists that are doing the same things I am and cooler things,” Sokolov said.
In order to be considered, students filled out an application detailing what they have done with regard to computer science, how they have helped their community through their work and what they want to do with computer science in the future.
At the conference, winners attended a question and answer session with a panel of people who work on the engineering side of Bank of America, which sponsored the event.
They also spoke to people working in security, software, development and gamifying to learn about different industries that encompass computer science.
Before the conference, winners took a Myers-Briggs test. While in Charlotte, they learned about how different personality types respond to scenarios by completing activities in groups based on Myers -Briggs types and listening to a lecture about how personalities affect group work.
They also attended an interactive museum where they used a robot to spell out their names and communicate a message in Morse code.
At the ceremony for Aspirations in Computing winners, each student received an Apple computer, speaker, booster, headphones and backpack.
Sara Kangaslahti ’19 won an honorable mention on the National level from NCWIT in December.
In her application, Kangaslahti emphasized how she conducted research with a USC graduate student during an internship at a USC robotics lab.
“I know that it’s really competitive, so I wasn’t expecting to be recognized nationally,” Kangaslahti said.
NCWIT also recognized Chronicle Assistant A&E Editor Lexi So ’19 at the regional level.
“I’m just excited that I get to be part of a larger community of women in tech,” So said.