UB Center to Co-Sponsor Student Cisco Networkers' Conference

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The third annual Student Cisco Networkers' Conference for area high school students and adult learners will be held March 19 at the City Campus of Erie Community College.

The day-long event will be co-sponsored by the University at Buffalo, the UB Center for Applied Technologies in Education (CATE) and Cisco Systems, Inc. It is designed to introduce local public school students to the atmosphere of a professional conference and give them the opportunity to expand their technical knowledge while networking with their peers.

More than 150 students, teachers, administrators from across the region, along with a number of Cisco Systems' engineers, will participate in the event, which will begin with registration at 8 a.m. registration and continue until 3 p.m. Participants will include students from the Buffalo Public Schools, the Ken-Ton School District, Orleans Niagara BOCES, Niagara Falls Public Schools, Chautauqua County schools, the Clarence and Sweet Home School Districts and adult learners from UB's Educational Opportunity Center.

The keynote address will be presented by Darren Strickland, executive director of Friends of Night People. His talk will be followed by a skills competition led by Robert Errington of Buffalo's Hutchinson Technical High School; and breakout sessions led by Cisco Systems' technicians and focusing on the topics "Internet Security," "IP Telephony," "Internet Protocol is Everywhere" and "Wireless Technology in Today's World."

Additional sponsors of the conference include the Department of Telecommunications Technology at Erie Community College, the Buffalo Public Schools and Buffalo Prep Tech, HSBC Bank and Computer Plus Staff Solutions (CPPS).

CATE, part of the UB Graduate School of Education, became a Cisco Regional Academy in Fall 1999. The Cisco Networking Academy Program is a comprehensive e-learning program providing students with Internet technology skills. While it originally supported "local" academies within five school districts, it now serves 14 "local" academies in urban, suburban, and rural school systems, as well as at Erie Community College and UB's Educational Opportunity Center.