WiCS Newsletter 

February 17th 2021

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Nominate WiCS for a Leadership Conference Award

 Outstanding Program Award - This award is for the Foothill or De Anza Program which has served its community, gone above and beyond to help their students, or undertaken a great project during the last year. You can nominate a program or a club for this award. 

Leadership Awards Nomination

Nominate someone for a Leadership Award for the 2021 FHDA Student Leadership Conference in Winter 2021! You can fill this out as many times as you would like and nominate multiple individuals and organizations for the same award. All awards will be chosen by the selection committee and be presented at the Conference.

Sign Up below to avail DISCOUNTED tickets to the Harvard WECode 2021!! (Use Fellow Code - Arushi)

Harvard WECode 2021 | Hopin

The Harvard WECode (Women Engineers Code) Conference is organized by undergraduate women at Harvard University and is the largest student-run women in tech conference in the world. This year, the conference will be taking place virtually on March 6 -...

Virtual Hackathons

SacHacks

 (February 19-21st)

Connect with industry professionals and make worthwhile connections. It will be a weekend filled with fun, workshops, and mentorship.

Participate and get the chance to win the Best Community College Hack award for the first time! 

 

 

 
Click Here For More Info

JS MusicHacks: Web-Beats

(February 19th) 

Are you a software developer? Looking for a new project? Come join us and code together in a week long hackathon with a very active community of growth oriented developers gathered in one virtual place to help each other learn.

 
Click Here For More Info

WiCS Hacks

 (February 20-21th)

 Both beginner and intermediate technical workshops are offered in the days leading up to the 24-hour hackathon starting on Saturday! Various company talks will be hosted and time will be allowed to meet the sponsors.

 

 

 
Click Here For More Info

WiC Hacks

 (February 27-28th)

All-female and non-binary 24-hour hackathon hosted by Women in Computing at RIT. 

This event is open to students of all skill levels! 

 

 

 
Click Here For More Info

What's New in Tech?

Using AI to Identify Humans Based on Vein Patterns 

 

What is biometric recognition?

"Biometric recognition (also known as biometrics) refers to the automated recognition of individuals based on their biological and behavioral traits (ISO/IEC JTC1 SC37). Examples of biometric traits include fingerprint, face, iris, palmprint, retina, hand geometry, voice, signature and gait " (Scholarpedia).

 

What is the recent breakthrough?

Researchers from the University of South Wales in Australia have implemented a method to identify humans based on the pattern of the veins on the hands. " [...] Syed Shah, a researcher at the University of New South Wales' School of Computer Science and Engineering [, says that] Vein patterns lie underneath the skin, thus do not leave any imprint, unlike fingerprints, are not available over social media, unlike facial photographs, and cannot be obtained surreptitiously, unlike irises," Shah told CNN in an email. 'Therefore, we believe that a vein based approach will be much more difficult to bypass ' (CNN). 

 

How does AI aid in identifying veins?

"Using artificial intelligence, researchers extracted "discriminating features" from these patterns [identified from photos taken with a depth camera] -- these, they say, could then be used to identify an individual with more than 99% accuracy from a group of 35 participants" (CNN).

 

 
Read more here
 

How do veins compare to identifying humans based on fingerprint?

Shah says, " 'Fingerprints can be collected from a surface someone has touched and duplicated to create a dummy print, facial recognition technology could be bypassed using images garnered from social media, and contact lenses could be used to confound iris based mechanisms [...]' " (CNN). However, this is not the case with veins. 

 

What is the future hold for this recent breakthrough?

This " [...] technique could be used for authenticating individuals on personal devices, like laptops and mobile phones" (CNN).

 

Sources: 

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Biometric_authentication#:~:text=Biometric%20recognition%20(also%20known%20as,%2C%20voice%2C%20signature%20and%20gait.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/16/world/vein-hands-identify-intl-scli-scn/index.html

 

Photos:

https://d1sr9z1pdl3mb7.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/21150210/biometric-palm-vein-scanning.jpg

 

https://ekg.md/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Pediatric-ST-Segment-e1523655945228.jpg

 

 

 

 

 
Read more here

Virtual Conferences/Workshops

Tech Workshops 

(Multiple Sessions)

Workshops by women for women. These series of workshops offer introductions to game development, web development, python and more!

 
Click Here For More Info

How to Land a Software Engineering Role at Amazon

(February 18th 2021)

Join this class to learn how to prepare and what to expect from each stage of the Amazon technical interview process.

 

 
Click Here For More Info

API  for Beginners

(February 23rd 2021)

This webinar will start with a 1-hour lecture to introduce the core concepts. You will then be onboarded on Le Wagon e-learning platform and access the slides, a sum-up of key notions as well as exercises to keep practising after the workshop.

 

 
Click Here For More Info

Coding for Women by Women 

(February 27th 2021) 

Hack Reactor’s Coding For Women By Women was created to provide a safe learning environment for women entering into the tech space. Join Liz and Kelly, as they discuss beginner JavaScript skills.

 
Click Here For More Info

Women in Tech Feature

Sister Mary Kenneth Keller (1913-1985)

Computer scientist, religious educator

 

Born in December 1913, Sister Mary Kenneth Keller was a religious educator and computer scientist. After taking her vows as a Roman Catholic sister and studying mathematics and physics, she worked at the Dartmouth College’s computer center–surrounded solely by men. 

Here, Keller helped develop the BASIC programming language, a way to translate low-level, binary instructions to high-level code that could be understood intuitively by humans. BASIC allowed people without extensive math and science experience to understand computer programming. In 1965, became the first woman in the United States to receive a PhD in Computer Science. She earned hers at the University of Wisconsin. She went on to set up and lead the Clarke University computing department in Iowa for twenty years.

 

 
Read more on Keller
 

She enabled the program to include a master’s degree in computer applications program. 

She was a visionary who hoped computers would allow information to become more accessible and predicted the impact technology would have on education. Sister Keller also advocated for the role of women in computer science. She saw no reason that women could not do the same jobs men did, and strived to offer them opportunities to succeed in the field.

 

Fun Fact: Keller defied traditional expectations as a nun receiving a PhD in computer science.

 

Sources:

https://www.bvmsisters.org/women-can-compute-kenneth-keller-bvm-paved-the-way-for-women-in-computer-science/ 

 

https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/online-extra/on-alumnae-mary-kenneth-keller/ 

 
Learn about Keller's legacy

Online Courses/Workshops 

Intro to Artificial Intelligence in Software Testing 

 

Learn about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and what is the relationship of AI with Machine Learning and Deep Learning.

 

 
Click Here For More Info

Intro to Deep Learning

 

Use TensorFlow and Keras to build and train neural networks for structured data.

This course can be completed within 4 hours! 

 

 
Click Here For More Info

Code Your First Game

 

Program a complete game without any special software or installations required. All you need is a text editor and a web browser.

 

 
Click Here For More Info

Programming Languages

 

An introduction to the basic concepts of programming languages, with a strong emphasis on functional programming. 

(Starts March 1st)

 
Click Here For More Info

Community Feature

My name is Lupe and my channel is called "fruitlupa"! I remember people always coming to me whenever they needed advice, so I decided to create a channel to help others on their journey in college! I post videos ranging from information about community college, being a first generation college student, and what it’s like being a women in stem (specifically Computer Science)! I hope through my channel people understand that STEM is meant for all people and that it becomes a space for those who need help on their journey to and through college.

Click Here for Lupe's Instagram

Check out how AI can make art by using data as the pigment!

Coding Challenge!

Longest Sequence of Consecutive Zeros

(Language: C++)

Write a function that returns the longest sequence of consecutive zeroes in a binary string. If no zeroes exist in the input, return an empty string.

Click Here for the Challenge

Keep An Eye Out for Future Newsletters!

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