Call for Code P-TECH Challenge Newsletter

Welcome to the second edition of the Call For Code P-TECH Challenge Newsletter.  This newsletter will bring your monthly updates and inspiration as the competition to help fight COVID-19 and Climate Change progresses!

Throughout the month of March, 8 schools across 5 countries kicked off their competition and 4 schools across 3 countries began their Design Thinking workshops!

Check out each school's updates and highlights below!

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CHINA – Shou Gang Institute of Technology
  • Call for Code P-TECH track was successfully kicked off on March 15, a physical event was organized at the Beijing client center for 21 Shou Gang P-TECH students and teachers. The agenda includes Call for Code introduction, a Design Thinking workshop, and an IBM innovation solution visit.
  • The Design Thinking workshop was collaboratively delivered by 2 online volunteer trainers and 4 offline mentors. By setting “remote learning” as the topic of example, P-TECH students first time learned and experienced to use an innovative method to create a better learning experience for themselves. More importantly, group sharing in front of all students and mentors encouraged students to practice public speaking skills and effective communications skills. Students did that quite well!
  • IBM innovation tour at client center impressed students, it lighted up their passion for learning cutting-edge technology and becoming a real technical professional in a future career.
HONG KONG – Hong Kong Red Swastika Society Tai Po Secondary School
  • On March 26 we had the kickoff with our school HKRSS. Total 2 teams of 10 students participated in the event. Students were excited to learn about Design Thinking and sharing with their fellow competitors during the competitions. Teachers hope that their students will be motivated for future IT learning too.
KOREA – Seoul New Collar school
  • 28 students in 6 teams from Seoul New Collar school in Korea attended kick-off event to participate Call for Code P-TECH challenge 2021.
MEXICO – Escuela Politécnica de Guadalajara and Escuela Politécnica Jorge Matute Remus
  • There were held two virtual Design Thinking workshops per school:
  • Workshop 1 was focused on understanding the problem having in mind the user.
  • Workshop 2 was focused on defining the problem statement and developing the the best technology solution.
TAIWAN – National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, National Formosa University, National Taipei University of Technology, and Jenteh Junior College of Medicine, Nursing and Management
  • We did physical and virtual kick-off events for a total of 250 students across the 4 schools and 6 pathways in Taiwan. In the virtual one, we also invited students from China and Hong Kong to share their excitement about being part of the competition to their P-TECH counterparts in Taiwan.
  • In the kick-off event, we also invited Vincent Chung, P-TECH mentor and 2019 Call for Code advocate to share his experience in developing a solution using IBM technologies and code patterns. We also invited Laurie Yen, a long-time volunteer to give an introductory session on Design Thinking to the students.
USA – Falcon Tech
  • We held our first Design Thinking workshop. Students engaged with their teams deeply in order to create empathy maps and identify their target audience. It was pretty successful.
USA – Navarro HS P-TECH
  • Navarro HS students kicked off their Call for Code P-TECH Challenge virtually by joining a call where our 5 participating teams viewed the Kickoff Video, asked questions about what would transpire over the 14 week period, and decided what topic (Covid19 or Climate Change) they would be aiming to tackle. Students are excited to meet the IBMers that will be joining their teams in the coming weeks.

Call for Code P-TECH

If you would like to read more information about the Call For Code P-TECH challenge, check out the main page here!