On Oct. 30, AT&T visited Millikan for High Tech Day. On this day, Hacemos, an AT&T employee resource group that supports Hispanic/Latino communities, hosted more than 150 students through four different technology-based workshops in Millikan’s auditorium and quad.
Students were able to learn about “coding, smart tech vehicles, and broadband connectivity- all led by Hispanic STEM professionals,” said Miguel Lopez-Najera, Regional Media Relations Manager at AT&T. “Since 1998, more than 20,000 students have participated in this annual event.”
Even though High Tech Day has been happening for a while, it’s the first year it was hosted physically at Millikan. And while anyone can choose a career in the tech industry, SEGA was mostly involved in this event.
“In our SEGA courses, we try to include different Work Based Learning (WBL) activities to help expose students to careers, especially those related to the tech industry,” said Sylvana DeSantis, the Game Design and Game Development teacher here at Millikan.
“[High Tech Day] was pretty cool, there were a lot of speakers there and we got a lot of information about what they do,” said Izaih Nozan, a SEGA student who attended High Tech Day. He was able to learn a lot, including about how wifi works.
According to Reina Amaya, AT&T Senior Project Program Manager and HACEMOS Chair, this event is in place to educate minority students on how they can succeed in a STEM career through proper support since there is a lack of representation for them in the STEM workforce.
“High Tech Day is the most important day for Hacemos, it supports communities, and kids get to see representation so they know they can do it too,” said Amaya.
Keynote speaker, Roberto Martinez, was one of the speakers and Millikan alumni. Now he’s the CEO of Braven Digital Marketing, a digital marketing company. He was the first Mexican-American college student in his family and was able to share his journey with the students here at Millikan.
If you are interested in a tech or STEM career, AT&T provides internships and other programs that offer opportunities to minority students interested. If you’re interested you can email Reina Amaya.
Sebastian • Jan 25, 2024 at 11:40 am
I didn’t know this was an event that happened at this school, but I’ll be sure to keep my eyes open for it in the future.
Ryder • Jan 25, 2024 at 9:36 am
Cool and interesting article.
Morgan • Jan 24, 2024 at 9:26 am
I very much agree with this article
Allyson Richter • Jan 10, 2024 at 10:02 am
On December 15, 2023, Bhree Walker published the article titled “High Tech Day.” This is a very good and informative article that features an important resource for students. I did not realize High Tech Day was something that happened at Millikan, so reading about it has shown me a lot. I’m glad Walker chose to write this article about this event because I’m sure there’s many other people who have never heard of HACEMOS or the events they had at Millikan. Walker’s use of many quotes from people in charge of the event and participants of the event helps show the intent behind hosting HACEMOS. I’m also glad she used a quote from a student who attended High Tech Day, because this helped give a student’s perspective on the event. Featuring High Tech Day and the HACEMOS resource group helps them spread their message to other students, so thank you Bhree for your great article.
Tere Quezada • Dec 22, 2023 at 9:37 am
On December 15, 2023, Bhree Walker wrote a feature page article titled “High Tech Day.” In her article Walker dives deeper into the opportunity that our very own Millikan SEGA students were granted by AT&T in the month of October.
AT&T runs a campaign called “Juntos Hacemos Más,” which is a group that provides resources to Hispanic and Latinos people. Their mission is to teach and inform students about engineering and technology through Hispanic professionals.
Walker does an incredible job as she successfully came in contact with the leader of this campaign, Miguel Lopex-Najera. She provides the readers with a perspective on what the true essence of a program is.
She reaches out to many of the students who participated in the program. This allows for readers to take on a different perspective and proves that this program is a great way to motivate students. Bhree Walker does an exemplary job as she learns in depth about the program and its leaders.
Sincerely,
Tere Quezada
Chloe Stevens • Dec 22, 2023 at 9:37 am
I really enjoyed reading this article about High Tech Day at Millikan since it’s nice to have articles like this because I would’ve probably never known about this happening at our school without this article. As someone in QUEST, I mostly only hear about QUEST or COMPASS events, so it’s refreshing to hear about an important SEGA event at the school. The event itself also seems interesting and beneficial. It’s nice that there are people willing to put in the effort to help educate minority students in STEM topics, especially nowadays since technology is only becoming more prevalent in our society. Also, I enjoyed how the article was written. One particular thing I liked was the variety of quotes. It’s nice that the author was able to use quotes from students, teachers, and people from the project at AT&T. In addition, I liked how the author leaves the contact for someone from the project at the end of the article, so students who missed the event, or students who want to involve themselves more in the tech world have somewhere to reach out to. Overall, I believe that this is a really enjoyable and beneficial article discussing an interesting and important event that happened at our school.