STEM Summer Day Camp to Support Latino and African American Girls in Southern California

USC Viterbi School of Engineering and Tata Consultancy Services Prepare Middle School Girls for 21st Century Careers

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Aug 07, 2017, 09:57 ET

LOS ANGELES and MUMBAI, India, Aug. 7, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- USC Viterbi School of Engineering's Institute of Engineering, Community and Cultural Competence (IEC3), and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS) a leading global IT services, consulting and business solutions organization, today announced their collaboration with the IEC3 Summer Camp for Girls featuring goIT, TCS' signature education program. TCS goIT was developed as a cross-sector model that brings together the contextual relevance of industry, the pedagogical know how of education and inclusive access of youth serving organizations.

IEC3, a new institute led by its founding director, Dr. Michelle Flowers Taylor, aims to lessen the barriers that have historically limited African American and Latino girls and women from entering and advancing in the fields of engineering and computer science. Inspired by her doctoral research, Dr. Taylor developed the IEC3 Learning model in collaboration with USC STEM education faculty, which facilitates access to culturally-relevant, hands-on STEM experiences.

Primarily focused toward middle school students underrepresented in computing fields, TCS' goIT offers a free and flexible program for schools, non-profits and other youth-serving institutions to help students engage actively in computational thinking by using a student-driven exploration of community-centered issues. Students work in teams to identify a problem, generate possible solutions, wireframe their prototypes, develop and test their mobile apps, and present their work to peers and judges. TCS goIT has engaged more than 13,000 students in more than 50 cities and 100 school districts since 2009 in North America, with promising results. Over 88 percent of students said that goIT helped them realize that STEM skills affect their career options, and 94 percent of students learned more about careers in technology from goIT.

"We are thrilled to collaborate with IEC3 at USC as we seek to expand our collective reach to middle school girls from underserved communities," said Lina Klebanov, senior manager, Corporate Social Responsibility, Education Programs, TCS. "Public, private sector collaborations are essential to scale and impact, and we could not be more pleased with the excitement that our collaboration has created among the students and their parents."

"The collaboration with TCS is a terrific opportunity to bring real-world tech skills to the students, parents, and teachers that we serve with the IEC3 Learning Model," said Dr. Taylor.

A key component of the IEC3 model is the integration of hands-on, industry-driven skills development activities introduced to students in a culturally relevant manner, which significantly increases the level of student aspiration and confidence, drawn from their funds of knowledge and unique experiences.

The week-long IEC3 day camp will be held on the campus of USC. It addresses a National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenge of Restoring and Improving Urban Infrastructure. The camp will include an ideation component facilitated by Google engineers and innovators at the company's Venice campus.

Most recently, IEC3 facilitated a Girls Empowerment Workshop Series in a local Los Angeles school. "The IEC3 Girl Empowerment Workshop Series speakers were so informative and approachable to our students. The girls were inspired and now they are super excited about the upcoming IEC3 Summer Camp," said Susan Becker, assistant principal of 32nd Street School located within blocks of the USC campus.

About IEC3
The Institute of Engineering Community and Cultural Competence (IEC3) is aiding in the effort to eliminate the gender gap in STEM by providing culturally- and socially-relevant training and research to help pave the way for more women of color to enter STEM fields. To this end, IEC3's goal is to better prepare communities to foster STEM-learning opportunities for female African American and Latina middle school students.

Housed in USC's Viterbi School of Engineering (Viterbi), IEC3 operates within Viterbi's Computer Science Mentorship and Achievement with Relevance for Teachers and Students (CSMARTS) program which is intended to improve STEM achievement through culturally-relevant, applied computer science instruction with a focus on female African American and Latina middle-school students within Viterbi's Adopt-a-School, Adopt-a-Teacher (VAST) program. Additional information is available about VAST programs by visiting https://viterbipk12.usc.edu/.

About Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS)
Tata Consultancy Services is an IT services, consulting and business solutions organization that delivers real results to global business, ensuring a level of certainty no other firm can match. TCS offers a consulting-led, integrated portfolio of IT, BPS, infrastructure, engineering and assurance services. This is delivered through its unique Global Network Delivery Model™, recognized as the benchmark of excellence in software development. A part of the Tata group, India's largest industrial conglomerate, TCS has over 385,000 of the world's best-trained consultants in 46 countries. The company generated consolidated revenues of US $17.58 billion for year ended March 31, 2017 and is listed on the BSE Limited and National Stock Exchange of India Limited. For more information, visit us at www.tcs.com.