Dylan

On Monday, July 3, a team of Gambian students was denied entry into the United States due to visa restrictions. Now, the restrictions have been lifted, and the students will now be allowed to participate in the First Global competition in Washington D.C. The students were denied twice even though Gambia, a Muslim-majority nation, is not listed in the U.S. travel ban. Team member Fatoumata Ceesay, 17, told the BBC that the team is “excited and happy, but also disheartened, because we are not going with our mentor because he is a government official.”  Mucktarr Darboe, director at the ministry of higher education, was not granted access because the U.S. has banned granting visas to Gambian governmental officials since last year, according to the BBC. The team is one of 164 others competing and showing off their robots. Gambia hopes to win big with their robot designed to clean contaminated rivers when the competition starts July 16-18. “I hope to come back with knowledge and...

Everyone talks about the lack of diversity in tech but when it comes to taking actionable steps to nurture a more inclusive landscape, Verizon is putting their money where their mouth is. In an ongoing effort to introduce more minority males into the Silicon Valley ecosystem, the telecom conglomerate is sending thousands of middle school age minority boys to college campuses this summer, for hands-on STEM workshops to take tech courses and learn tech fundamentals, adopt mentors, and gain valuable lessons in entrepreneurship. Launched in 2015, The Verizon Innovative Learning program boasts partnerships with 16 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and Hispanic Serving Institutions. On Monday Verizon announced that Tennessee State University, Florida International University, California State University, and Dillard University will be joining the program’s roster. This expansion is in lock step with the #weneedmore hashtag campaign outlined on the program’s...

Opioid addiction has reached epidemic levels. The Department of Health and Human Services reports drug overdoses as the leading cause of injury death in the United States. This year, in the city of Baltimore, Gov. Larry Hogan labeled the opioid epidemic an emergency. With heroin at the helm of this crisis, six Baltimore teenagers are taking matters into their own hands in response to this serious call to action. The high school students have been spending their Saturday’s at the offices of Code in Schools, a computer science education nonprofit in North Baltimore, building a tool using mobile devices to address part of the city’s heroin crisis. Bad Batch Alert is an anonymous free text messaging service aimed at helping those struggling with heroin addiction to stay alive in Baltimore City. Using data aggregated from the city’s Emergency Medical Services, the service sends a text alert to all registered users in that area whenever there is a spike in overdoses. Sharp increases in...