A Platform Discussion

Over the last few days in class we have been discussing the idea of what a platform is. From the very basic definition of platform to the impact of companies or organizations that are successful in pulling off a platform play.

On Wikipedia, under platform, they list over twenty kinds, from a diving platform to a political parties platform. The one that has the greatest relevance to the Internet and the World Wide Web is provided this definition.

Platform technology is a term for technology that enables the creation of products and processes that support present or future development. It establishes the long-term capabilities of research & development institutes.

Whether a computer operating system provides a platform for applications, or TCP/IP stacks provide a platform for Internet technologies to develop, the impact and power behind a platform is tremendous.

Just ask Google engineer Steve Yegge, who in a post that was meant to be between peers ended up going public. He deleted it afterwards, but it was too late. Elvis had left the building.

PC Magazine has an article on the topic here and it is worth the read.

Here is just a taste of what he wrote in his post as reported by PC Magazine:

"Amazon does everything wrong, and Google does everything right," he wrote. Yegge criticized the company's hiring procedures, operations, charity giving, accommodations, compensation, and what he perceived to be lack of perks. Founder Jeff Bezos, he said, was "an infamous micro-manager" on the level of Steve Jobs, who made "ordinary control freaks look like stoned hippies." (Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.)

"But there's one thing they do really, really well that pretty much makes up for ALL of their political, philosophical and technical screw-ups," Yegge wrote. About a decade ago, Bezos realized that "that Amazon needs to be a platform."

"A product is useless without a platform, or more precisely and accurately, a platform-less product will always be replaced by an equivalent platform-ized product," Yegge wrote.

Where it hurts is that Yegge points the finger at Google+ as doing it all wrong, claiming that "is a prime example of our complete failure to understand platforms from the very highest levels of executive leadership."

The question is, is this a Jerry McGuire moment for Steve Yegge, where he is applauded internally but ultimately jettisoned? Or will the public/private posting error (if it really was in error) be forgiven in favor or harnessing the passion that he shows in his post toward creating a successful platform out of Google+

Steve Jobs and History

After Steve Jobs passing from pancreatic cancer, there has been a huge number of articles and remembrances about the man and his impact on technology. There will be many books written in the future as well.

I just wanted to add a few of my own thoughts while they are fresh to me now. I talk about Steve Jobs in my classes. How could you teach about entrepreneurship and technology and not. Or the evolution of the Internet and the Web as well. The latter may not be the first topic that comes to mind, but his impact has been felt there beyond the personal computers and digital players that have come from the company.

I was able to meet Steve Jobs in person once in my life. He was at the University of Washington Seattle and visited the tech fair. I don't even remember the year, though because he has just launched the NeXT Computer and gave a presentation at Meany Theater I believe it was around 1989-90. I was working at Microsoft at the Time.

He has had an interesting life, and his relationship with Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple is in itself a character study. You can read "West of Eden, The End of Innocence at Apple Computer" for some background on the relationship of Steve to the company. You can even watch some of the recent biopics that have come out like "The Pirates of Silicon Valley from 2005". And that film came out before Steve brought Apple back to be the giant it once more is. Steve Jobs life may become its own course of study.

However there are two things that I like to point out when talking about his life. He has helmed two different billion dollar companies. Apple and Pixar. His company he founded after being ousted from Apple, NeXT Computers, made it easier for Pixar to create Toy Story and Finding Nemo. It was on a NeXT Computer that Tim Berners-Lee set up the very first World Wide Web server.

A Full Ride, Living Stipend and a Job in Information Assurance

How does a full ride scholarship, a living stipend (because the funding organization wants you to work on research and studies) and employment once you’ve earned your degree sound? That’s what the Information Assurance Scholarship for Service program does, and is doing for two graduate students currently at the Institute of Technology. And there is more to come in the next three years.

To create a powerful incentive for students to enter the Information Assurance field, the Department of Defense is offering the program described above. As they put it:

Nearly every day, the United States faces growing threats and attacks against our critical government systems. DoD’s mission is to address the Nation’s urgent security challenges and to proactively seek solutions to protect and defend our information and information systems. One of the key security challenges DoD faces daily is assuring that the Department's information, information systems, and information infrastructure are protected and available in order to support the Department's transformation to a secure net–centric environment.

To continue to provide the growing number of trained personnel needed, DoD is working with universities across the country, known as, often referred to as CAEs, to develop and expand IA–related curricula and to offer programs of study for future IA professionals.

Universities must qualify in order to provide the scholarships and earn a National Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance designation. Then that university has to pass muster during an NSF (National Science Foundation) site visit to be vetted to provide that opportunity. If you would like to apply for the scholarship, you must attend a qualifying institution.

As it happens the University of Washington has qualified as one of the universities to offer it. Last June, led by Dr Barbara Endicott-Popovsky, the Director of Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity at the UW, the site visit by the NSF was conducted and included visits to the Institute of Technology at the University of Washington, Tacoma.

The visit was such a success that they asked that Barbara increase the budget in her proposal.

Three months later Barbara sent out the announcement:

The NSF has officially awarded us $2.1M to fully fund 18 graduate-level scholars over the next 4 years to fully immerse in information assurance (IA) studies! Further, we received an additional $ ½ M on top!! This truly launches us on the national scene as a significant IA presence in the Northwest and in the field at large!
There are only 30+ schools in the US who have had similar awards, our sister iSchool—Syracuse University—being one of them, along with CMU, Johns Hopkins and Purdue. There are only 200+ such scholars in the US at any one time—we’ll have 4 this year—we are in elite company!!

Once again I am reminded of the strengths we have in the South Puget Sound to help generate success in research and technology in the area of Information Assurance and Cybersecurity. With our partners in academia to the North, and in particular UW Seattle’s Information School, we can be part of future solutions to the challenges described on the CISC (Center of Information Assurance and Cybersecurity) site:

The challenges of information assurance are not going to be solved easily, quickly, or independently. Solutions will require new research, new capabilities, new products and services, a spectrum of broadly and specially educated professionals, a much more aware public, and much innovation and broad collaboration. Washington is a convergence of international commerce, military defense, and network-based software development. As such, it is both vulnerable to disruption, and is the home of a spectrum of professional talent and organizations that can be well served by the presence of a national center of excellence.

If you are interested in applying for the program, consider applying to the graduate program at the Institute of Technology at the UW Tacoma or the Information School at the UW Seattle.

A Tech Events Calendar for the South Sound

Earlier this year, at the 2011 South Sound Technology Conference, a small group of people met in one of the breakout rooms in order to talk about the technology event calendar for the next year. That year being more of a Summer to Summer span as opposed to calendar, but I am already digressing.

My intent was to try and publish a straw man calendar so that a more firmly established annual list of meetings could be drafted, vetted and adopted. Also, edited, enhanced and engaged. Not to mention perused, published and... ok, never mind.

So poster boards were put up and people wrote down events, organizations and ongoing meetings. However, the end result was not really easy to digest and articulate into a calendar. I will give you the raw results first. If it is too much for you just skip down:
__________________________________________

POSTER BOARD ONE:

• EDB Annual Meeting
• A Funding Seminar
• ISSA Training – 1st Tuesday of every month in the Tacoma Room
• Pacific NW Cybersecurity Challenge
• PNW Cybersecurity Symposium
• City Club – a technical based presentation (social networks, online privacy, cybersecurity)
• Technology Career Fair (put on by Workforce?)
• Group meetings – Tacoma Tech Consortium
• - South Sound WTIA
• - Tacoma Angel Network
  

 
POSTER BOARD TWO:

• Ruby on Rails coding meetup
• Startup Weekend
• Suite 133 –
• William M Factory Incubator
• Tacoma Angel Network
  

POSTER BOARD THREE:

• Gaming – Intel
• Kinects – Microsoft
• Have an out of town big tech event meet up. Whether going to a Washington Technology Industry Event like the Industry Achievement Awards or the Technology Alliances Annual Luncheon, coordinate a group to attend the event together.
• Hold a digital government summit in Tacoma
• Washington URISA
  

POSTER BOARD FOUR:

• Shift Awards – Honoring Innovation
• Meet ups – unstructured
• Look at the www.washingtontechnology.org online calendar
• Harmon: Science Café
• Dorkbot
• South Sound Technology Conference 2012

POSTER BOARD FIVE:

• Startup Weekend
• Barcamp X 4
• Alliance of Angels pitch session in Tacoma
• Social Media Outlets
• Tacoma Library meetings (books?)
• FIRST Robotics – Intel Dupont SOTA Winners
• End of the quarter colloquium at the Institute of Technology at the UWT
• PLU

____________________________________________

You see. Plenty of stuff there, but where to start?

It seems to me, there are several organizations listed. Whether they put on events or might put on events that focus on the technology sector, they are part of what aggregating a calendar might look like. Now I don't know if dorkbot is an organization or an ongoing event, but they have not done anything around town for several years. I just know I enjoyed going to the meetings that they had. To the point, each of these organizations holds multiple meetings and events, and could contribute to a calendar.

1. The Tacoma Angel Network
2. Institute of Technology
3. Economic Development Board
4. Dorkbot
5. City Club
6. Grey Hat Group
7. Tacoma Tech Consortium
8. Tacoma Workforce
9. William M Factory
10. Suite 133
11. Washington Technology Industry Association
12. Technology Alliance
13. Washington URISA
14. Alliance of Angels
15. Tacoma Library
16. PLU
17. Not to mention, but I will, Microsoft and Intel.

Several ongoing events were listed as well. These are usually bigger events and have some history to them. These alone would be almost one big tech event per month.

1. The Pacific Northwest Cybersecurity Collegiate Challenge
2. FIRST Robotics Competition
3. PNW Security Symposium
4. The South Sound Entrepreneurs Weekend (A StartUp Weekend like event)
5. The South Sound Technology Conference
6. The Economic Development Boards Annual Meeting (listed, though not tech focused)
7. The SHIFT Awards (put on by SiteCrafting)
8. A Technology Career Fair

Not finally, but about as much as I want to cover right now, are events or meetings that take place several times a year. For example, the end of the quarter colloquium at the Institute of Technology happens four times a year. Each event, though student presentation based, brings about 70 people together during the course of the day. It should probably be more.

1. End of the quarter colloquium at the Institute of Technology
2. Barcamps (suggested we have one quarterly. The last was great.)
3. City Club meetings (on occasion tech subject matter)
4. Science Cafe at the Harmon (is this still going on?)
5. ISSA Training (Tuesday of every month)

That's about it for now. Please feel free to comment on edits, additions or subtractions.

Do the Puyallup (Again)

For the last few years I have posted the lyrics to the Puyallup Fair's most well known theme song here on the blog. Yes, it is time once more to review the lyrics to the "Do The Puyallup" song of yesteryear.. I will be going to the Puyallup Fair with the family and riding rides (and getting ill), watching shows, checking out the booths for Sham-Wow or a Magic Bullet demonstrations, eating ears of corn and scones and generally having a good time.

Last year my second oldest wanted to go on the giant slingshot for her birthday. Who knows what this year will bring.

So

"Do the Puyallup"
musics and lyrics by Saxon Rawlings, (slogan by Denny Hinton)

Oh you can do it at a trot,
You can do it at a gallop,
You can do it real slow so your heart won't palpitate.
Just don't be late.

Do the Puyallup.


All the people and the animals down at the fair,
They do the Puyallup like they didn’t have a care
And it looks like so much fun to do
I think I’m gonna learn how to do it too.


I saw a duck and a chicken down by the farm,
A kickn' up the hay and a raisn' such a storm,
That I asked the farmer what they were up to
and he said "Puyallup, That's what they do."

You can do it at a trot,
You can do it at a gallop,
You can do it real slow so your heart won't palpitate.
Just don't be late.

Do the Puyallup.


Asked the farmer if he’d show me how to do it
And he said "why son their ain’t nothin to it.
Just move to the music and jump in the air
Like everyone else who comes to the fair"

You can do it at a trot,
You can do it at a gallop,
You can do it real slow so your heart won't palpitate.
Just don't be late.

Do the Puyallup


You can do it in the rain or the sun or the fog
It comes real easy like rolling off a log
Get a partner from Tacoma or Seattle or Fife
Even let you do it with your husband or wife.


It’s a natural thing there isn’t any doubt
Folks do it while they’re sittin’ or walkin’ about
While over on the midway on the merry go round
Kids are doin it in circles going up and down.


Now it don’t matter if it’s rain or shine
When you do the Puyallup you have a good time
So guys grab get gals and gals grab a fellow
If you’re worried ’bout the rain just bring an umbrella.


You can do it with a mouth full of cotton candy
Caramel apples, salt water taffy
Hot dogs, hamburgers, man oh man
Hot buttered scones with strawberry jam


I do the Puyallup cause it feels real neat
Put a smile on my face and a tickle in my feet
Ain’t no way not to do it right
You can do it all day and into the night


you can do it at a trot,
You can do it at a gallop,
You can do it real slow so your heart won't palpitate.
Just don't be late.

Do the Puyallup

Do the Puyallup

Do the Puyallup

Summer Colloquium at the Institute of Technology

It is the end of the quarter and time for another set of presentations from students on research, readings and internships. Taking place in two rooms in the Cherry Parkes building the discussions, discoveries and lessons learned start at 9:00am and go until around 2:00pm.

Here is the order of presentations:

Institute of Technology Student Colloquium
Summer Quarter 2011

Speaker Session One (CP 105):
09:00am Digital Forensics and Law Enforcement
Josh Phelps (Andrew Fry)

My internship with the Lakewood Police Department’s digital forensics services has a work flow and style is very dynamic and project oriented. I work with Detective Darin Sales and the Forensics services manager Brian Johnson. After the background check process I met with them to discuss a number of problems they have encountered from an IT perspective as well as possible projects to undertake as a solution to those problems. I communicate primarily through e-mail and of course in person. Currently I am working on two projects.

The first project is refining the departments “Computer Case Worksheet", a document that is the first step in the documentation process after a computer is seized and is being analyzed. Here, I am utilizing my system analysis and design experience as well as what I know and what I’m learning about digital forensics practices for law enforcement purposes.

The second project I’m working on is coming up with a sound, viable solution to an issue faced when prosecutors receive the report generated by our forensics software.

09:30am Web Development Internship with Weyerhaeuser
Travis Corbett (Andrew Fry)

Many large companies today utilize Microsoft products and technologies for the majority of their business needs. Weyerhaeuser is one of those companies. In my internship with Weyerhaeuser’s Web Content & Collaboration Services department I had the opportunity to work with some of these products and technologies, and in most instances, for the very first time. We in the Information Technology & Systems degree program have often been told of the importance of conceptual learning versus specializing in particular technologies. So while the trend in academia, it would seem, is biased against Microsoft products, I found myself in a situation where I had to use the conceptual knowledge that I have gained in college in order to adapt and become proficient in new technologies that I have had little to no experience with. In my presentation I will be discussing this experience.


09:50am Agile Development Methodologies
Sushma Konda (Dr. Larry Wear)


Agile software development is a group of software development methodologies based on iterative and incremental development based on requirements and a collaboration of team work. There are many such methodolgies implemented by various sectors of companies around the world. In this presentation, I'll be discussing the most popular methodolgies implemented by large companies and thereby gained profits. Scrum and distributed scrum and extreme programming are the topics on which I have been working with my advisor Dr.Larry Wear this quarter. I'll be discussing each methodologies behavior, its pros and cons.


10:10am Creation of Pedagogically Useful Algorithm Animations

Suma Gopalakrishna (Dr. Donald Chinn)
With a brief introduction to what Pedagogically Useful Algorithm Animation means, this presentation will go over the 2 algorithm animations that I created over the summer, under the guidance of Dr.Chinn. The presentation will cover details of the aspects we considered in design of the animations, the tools we used and the algorithms we animated. It will also include display of the said animations.

10:30am Avue Technology Internship: Java Development for a Web Based Application
Jeff Bleckert (Andrew Fry)

A discussion of the searching and interview process for a developer internship, as well as the experience of working as a fulltime Java developer intern, focusing the challenges of finding and beginning a new position as an intern and working with a web based, sql driven system using the Java language and libraries.



11:00am Weyerhaeuser Internship and Access Control Directed Reading
Shakil Sahim (Andrew Fry and Dr. Yan Bai)
Internship

I’ll have the presentation on my Weyerhaeuser internship split to 3 main topics. First will be Asset management. I’ll go over the routine process of handling a ticket that’s requesting change of ownership of an asset. I will include screen shots of the tools we use. Then go over some of the stuff on the side such as major updates, transitioning to new system (requirement gathering, testing, etc) and daily reports.
Next ill go over Identity management tasks that I was taught and did for a short period of time. This included practicing how to create new accounts, enabling, disabling, and terminating accounts, managing duplicate accounts, and granting/stripping roles, running scripts against Active Directory to pull data requested and the attempt to modify a Delete/Disable script that is outdated so it’s more accurate and runs efficiently.
Finally, I’ll go over some of the new tasks that I will be taking up starting in a few weeks. I’m currently reading up on ASP.NET, C#, Visual Basic and etc. My manager has also encouraged me to research on CRM systems because of its high demand. I’ll finish things off with some final thoughts.

Directed Reading

I’ll start the presentation off talking about the definition of Access Control and go into the main topics that the chapter covered. I will pick a particular topic from the chapter that has various sub topics to cover in greater detail. I’m not a 100% sure at the moment but it will most likely be the many forms of authentication such as passwords, key cards, retina scan, finger print, voice and etc.

I will wrap up the presentation with what I took away from the reading and a summary.


11:30am Internship at Regence – Agile Project, Directed Reading Computer Forensics and Mobile Devices
Brandon Son (Andrew Fry and Dr. Yan Bai)

The Proof of Concept consists of a 12 week agile project regarding Regence's PIM (Provider Information Management) system. The current system was written in VB6 10 years ago. This new project involves a PoC of Microsoft Dynamic CRM. The team involves lead developer (Garfield Lindo), three interns (Brandon Son, Jason Green, Shawn Smith), and a consulting firm: Collibrium Partners (from Atlanta, GA). Taking to account that it is a 12 week project and the system is large in scope, our sprints are focused on the main functionality of the important parts of the system.

Regence Sponsor: Garfield Lindo

12:00pm Internship at Institute of Technology – Critical Services Virtualization
Vera Brennan (Stephen Rondeau)

Turning the information technology to 180-degree view happens enough often in the industry. However breaking the connections
between hardware and applications layers has numerous advantages and disadvantages, and so brings hardware, software and networking conflicts between existing physical servers and new virtual servers. Especially if we consider the potential upgrading conflicts during the transformation of existing physical servers running Windows Server 2003 into virtual servers running Windows Server 2008 R2.

During the summer 2011 internship I was asked to learn in depth Linux and Windows administration commands, practice in setting and testing, virtualization environments, install Windows Server 2008 and 2008R2 in virtual machine, create and configure Windows domain, migrate existing INSTTECH users to INSTTEST, familiarize with Windows clustering for files,create cluster and migrate existing files to new cluster,create license management and much more. In my presentation I will present troubleshooting workaround that I gathered during the internship and a general overview of switching from physical servers to virtual.


12:30pm Micro Server Architecture Evolution and Associated New Architectural and Debug Challenges
Johnson Daniel (Dr. Jie Sheng)

In the recent years, the adaptation of micro servers is gaining momentum in the server market segment due to the compelling advantage of power efficiency, size, and total cost of ownership over traditional servers. Micro server is defined as any server with a large number of nodes, usually with a single socket or multiple low-power processors and shared infrastructure. The independent study will explore the three aspects of micro servers current state of implementations, architectural challenges, and debug challenges.

01:00pm Functional Test Automation in Web Applications
Sergiy Kulyk (Dr. Josh Tenenberg)

As technology moves toward web applications, developing functional test suites for such applications becomes of higher and higher importance. Small and large companies face the problem of maintaining the quality of their web products, while at the same time regularly updating and renovating them. I would like to share my experience as an SDET in a large online retail company. In my presentation I will introduce the problem at hand, why it is important, challenges that need to be solved, and how those challenges are approached by the QA team I have a privilege to work with.


01:30pm Temperature Control With a Thermistor and an Arduino Aakanksha Gaur (Dr. George Mobus)

It is a project to control (increase or decrease) the temperature of water using an Arduino board and a thermistor as main components. I will be giving a power point presentation along with the project demonstration.



Speaker Session Two (CP 108):

09:00am Internship at Isilon
Gavin Greene (Dr. Daniel Zimmerman)

The goal of my internship was to design and implement a web application that incorporates a variety of existing technologies in a modular way . The program is a web-based administrative panel that uses SQL alchemy to preform operations on a MySQL database containing areas that the company provides support at, and the level of support. The application takes user inputted addresses and uses Google's geocoding API to retrieve longitude and latitude information, verify that the user inputted a valid address, and normalizes data ('United States' as opposed to 'USA' or 'usa') . the front end of the application is written in JavaScript using Ext-JS 4 and the backed is written in python using pylons. This project involved learning about each of the languages, frameworks, API's and protocols (such as:SQL, Google maps api, Ajax, JSON), as well as the way each of the components interacted with one another. The project provided an excellent sampling of many different technologies and gave me an good example of how applications are designed, developed, tested, and implemented in the real world.

Isilon Systems, a division of EMC, is the global leader in scale-out storage. Our nearly 2000 customers attest to that. Our mission is to remove the barriers that exist between businesses and their data. And our goal is to help customers get to the information they need, manipulate it and act on it.

09:30am Hacking and Countermeasures
Douglas Kroll (Dr. Yan Bai)
In this project I am using new techniques for hacking and then showing how to defend against the different attacks I had researched.

1. Describe the different types of hacking techniques

2. Show the attacks on my secure network.

3. Show how I defended against the attacks


10:00am Internship With T-Mobile
Brent Sargent (Dr. Yan Bai)

T-Mobile is the #4 mobile carrier in the US. After forming through a series of mergers and acquisitions, T-Mobile itself is being acquired. My internship has been working in the product development group where new hardware / software is tested before release. In my presentation I will focus on what it's like to work for a seemingly large organization, what it's like in the product development team, and how the impending acquisition has affected the work environment and product development.



10:30am Sales Manager Form on Android Platform
Billie Jo Wood (Dr. Ankur Teredesai)

I did a project at CodeSmart Inc in Lacey, WA which Chad Stoker the president as the superviser and project lead.

The project: Establish an android application that will be used by for Sales Managers of Natural Molecular Testing Corporation utilizing Java in the IDE eclipse. The application is an order form for a client that includes the patients private data.

11:00am Text Mining Biological Research Papers to Index Drug-Drug Interactions
Aaron Munger (Dr. Ankur Teredesai)


In many scientific domains, there is a vast amount of useful information that is sparsely distributed across volumes of research papers. In order to make this information useful as a whole, text mining algorithms can be used to parse out and index the requested information using Information Exctraction (IE). I am proposing a project that will demonstrate the use of IE on the specific case of finding drug-drug interactions within Biology texts. A variety of techniques will be implemented, including the formerly developed PRISE, that searched for protein-protein interactions, as well as submissions from other contestants in a current IE contest to find drug-drug interactions.


12:30pm Internship at Boeing - Local Area Networks - Northwest Region Design & Engineering
Roger Klink (Andrew Fry)

I will go over the experiences I have had over my Summer internship with the Boeing Company. In particular I will highlight four areas of interest which include:

1. Company Overview

2. Organization

3. LAN Technologies

4. Summer Internship Activities


01:00pm Internship With the School District
Gary Armstrong (Andrew Fry)

To be provided


01:30pm Internship System Three a Real Life Website – Reading Computer Forensics

Tyler Withrow (Dr. Yan Bai)
The main objective for the internship was web development, code debugging, and research. The website is actually a collection of three different applications that work together to create the web site and its features. The main framework is ASP.NET and then there is a cart program and a PHP locator application that works together with the framework. I researched the code that I have never worked with, ASP and the cart, then developed and debugged the code I knew, PHP and basic web code. After changes were made, they were approved by the internship sponsor and owners of the company.

Internship Sponsor: Brett Cowman VP
System Three Resins

Directed Reading with Bradon Son: The main objective was to continue our study on computer forensic applications and methodologies using the book “Guide to Computer Forensics and Investigations” by Nelson, Phillips, and Steuart. Our focus was on current computer forensic tools (ch.7) and forensic methodologies & tools for mobile devices (ch.13). Using a complementary lab book, we tested the tools and methodologies.

Math, Science and Leadership at the Institute of Technology

On the week of Monday, July 25^th 2011, the Institute of Technology held its Math, Science and Leadership program on the University of Washington Tacoma campus.

We welcomed nearly 50 students from 7^th through 12^th grade for a week of robotics, environmental science and architecture. Highlights included field trips to visit the Center for Urban Waters on the Thea Foss Waterway and visits to the History and Art Museums that stretch along Pacific Avenue in Tacoma.

Each summer, the program provides a different experiential learning process which focuses on leadership skills and preparation for excellence and success in mathematics, science, technology, engineering, and leadership. The students formed cohort groups averaging 16 students on each team and followed through the week focused on three different themes. The themes this year included Environmental Science, Robotics and Architecture, with morning themes of Leadership, Computer Science and Math.

It was in 2003 that the Institute of Technology implemented the Math Science Leadership (MSL) program. MSL targets populations that are underrepresented in these respective fields, by focusing on three specific disempowered groups: minorities (which can take on varying connotations), low-income students (determined based on whether or not they qualify for free or reduced lunch) and first-generation college-bound students. The program seeks to enrich the lives of youth in three areas:

· High level of secondary academic achievement in high-potential youth, specifically in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

· Leadership and social skill development for students as they transition from middle school to high school, and high school to college.

· Encourage students to develop the necessary skill-sets to become successful in pursuing postsecondary degrees in these respective fields.

The event could not have succeeded without a wonderful team of instructors, parents, volunteers and generous sponsors. In particular a big thanks to Intel Corporation who have been long time supporters of the program.

Logistically, programmatically and thematically everything went well. We some advance planning and work over the academic year we hope to continue the program next Summer and the Summers to follow.