Media Advisory: Hundreds of students, grades 1-12, to attend computer science event Friday night

BUFFALO, N.Y. – A 3-D hologram generator. Ping pong ball-sized robots. A video game version of the board game Pentago.

Hundreds of students from the Buffalo Niagara region will have the chance to tinker with those technologies and more at Kid’s Day, an event Friday night at the University at Buffalo.

The event, which is part of UB’s Computer Science Education Week, is designed to spark interest in computer science. It aligns with a White House-sponsored initiative that aims to get more students learning how to code, program, script, design and harness the power of computing to solve new challenges.

Who: More than 200 students, grades 1-12, from the Buffalo Niagara region. The students will be accompanied by adults. They will be joined by students, faculty and staff from UB’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

When: 6-8 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 11.

Where: Davis Hall (building No. 25 on this map: http://www.buffalo.edu/content/dam/www/shared_assets/campus_maps/NorthCampus_bus-routes-opt.pdf) on UB’s North Campus.

Why: The White House projects that within five years more than half of all jobs will require information technology (IT) and computer science skills. The percentage is greater in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. This is expected to lead to a shortage of more than 1 million IT-skilled Americans, according to the White House.

On-site contact: Atri Rudra, PhD, associate professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Alternate on-site contacts: UB students Bob DeBortoli, Wendy Jansson and Gela Malek Pour.

Did you know? Computer Science Education Week is held during the same week that Grace Hopper, a pioneering computer scientist for the U.S. Navy, was born. There is a large mural of Hopper celebrating diversity and inclusion in computer science on the third floor of Davis Hall.