Technology and Literacy:Birmingham and Alabama

Jeff Gray, Ph.D.Associate ProfessorUAB – CIS Departmentgray@cis.uab.eduhttp://www.cis.uab.edu/gray

Department of Computer and Information SciencesUniversity of Alabama at Birmingham

S o f t C o m

Software is Everywhere

• Think of some of the things that entertain and enrich your daily life

• All of the above are driven by software

• Software developers equipped with a computer science degree have opportunities to work on exciting and cutting-edge projects

Software is Everywhere• 98% of all microprocessors control devices other than desktop computers– Automobiles, airplanes, televisions, copiers, razors…

• These devices also need software and often require strong technical skills to develop

>10Mb embedded software15-20Kb 1-1.5Mb

> 1M SLOC

Meteoric Opportunities

February 15, 2005: Domain registered (youtube.com)

Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley, and Steve ChenAround 25 years old at this time

November 2005:Official Debut

100 Million Clips viewed daily; 65,000 uploads per day 20 Million visitors each month October 2006: Time Magazine Invention of the Year

Great Talk: From Concept to HyperGrowthhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nssfmTo7SZg

October 6, 2006: Google purchased for $1.65B

Alabama Technology Leaders

Jimmy WalesWikipedia FounderHuntsville Native

• The biggest multilingual free-content encyclopedia on the Internet. • Since its creation in 2001, nearly 10 million articles in over 250 languages.• Over 680 million visitors each year; 75,000 active contributors.

The Demand for Computer Scientists

Offshore hysteria: Many companies with high paying jobs within the US are unable to fill positions with computer scientists.Source: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bestjobs/top50/index.html

The Demand for Computer Scientists

Computer Science occupations are projected to grow twice as fast as the average for all occupations.

Source: http://www.bls.gov/opub/ooq/2007/fall/art02.pdf

Between 2006-2016 a projected 822,000 new jobs will be available in Computer Science occupation areas in the United States alone.

The Demand for Computer Scientists

Source: http://www.bls.gov/opub/ooq/2007/fall/art02.pdf

Among the fastest growing occupations, software engineers had the highest median annual salary - $79,780.

The Demand for Computer Scientists

Source: IEEE Spectrum, August 2008

Computer science has the highest engineering salary and the fastest growing salary increase.

The Demand for Computer Scientists

According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, 5 of the top-10 growing jobs have a computer science focus.

(Reprinted with Permission from onInvesting)

The Demand for Computer Scientists• National Job Outlook

– $56,921 is the average starting salary for computer science degrees in the class of 2008 (among top 3 highest starting salaries); 7.9% increase over 2007 offers

• Recent Birmingham Software Success Story– Founder: Dr. Stephen Brossette, UAB CIS Graduate– Director of Systems Engineering: Dr. Daisy Wong, UAB CIS Graduate– Estimated $100M acquisition price– 179% growth – tops among Birmingham companies

# hospitals using MedMined 265# of Admissions 21,940,099# of Patient days 78,483,384# of Microbiology Specimens 26,753,304

The Potential for Alabama

Source: Entrepreneur magazinehttp://www.entrepreneur.com/bestcities/midsize.html

The Potential for Alabama• Per capita, Huntsville is

one of the top five cities in the US with concentration of software developers, and #1 in terms of total engineers.

• Cummings Research Park is the second largest in the United States and the fourth largest in the World.

Huntsville

Myth of Computer Science Education

• According to the Alabama Learning Exchange (ALEX)1, computing is equated to learning Microsoft Word and various mechanical tasks; this is not Computer Science!

1 http://alex.state.al.us/standardAll.php?grade=9&subject=TC&summary=2

• Number of schools passing AP CS audit

Computer Science in Alabama

State Number of Schools

Alabama 3 (out of > 460)

Tennessee 16

South Carolina 18

North Carolina 28

Florida 69

Georgia 78

New Jersey 133

California 165

Texas 271

• Number of students taking AP CS exams

Georgia’s Success Story

State 2001 2007

Georgia 69 CS A exams    422 CS A exams   

15 CS AB exams 107 CS AB exams

Alabama 22 CS A exams    27 CS A exams   

12 CS AB exams 7 CS AB exams

High School Outreach at UAB CISMentoring for Science Fair Competitions Summer Camps

• Weekly mentoring at UAB throughout academic year; students treated like a PhD student with office space

www.cis.uab.edu/gray/Pubs/jerrod-sutton.pdf

www.cis.uab.edu/progams/campswww.cis.uab.edu/heritage

www.cis.uab.edu/progams/hspcwww.cis.uab.edu/progams/alice-festival

Programming Contest and Alice Festival

•5 weeks High School (June/July); 2 Weeks Middle School (July)•Tuition Scholarships Available•Taught by UAB Faculty•Topics include Java, robotics, graphics,

game programming, scientific computing•In 2007, over 45 students attended from

4 different states

• May 2008• 2007: 46 students

from 12 schools (Huntsville to Mobile)

• 6 problems in 3 hours• Prizes: Laptop, Xbox,

software, books, gift certificates

• Alice Film Festival!

K-12 Outreach at UAB CISField Trips to the CIS Department Lectures for Technology Clubs

•3-hour tour of the CIS department:• Several topical lectures• Over 150 students in Fall 2006• Free Pizza lunch!

http://www.cis.uab.edu/field-trips

Alabama K-12 Workshop

http://www.cis.uab.edu/programs/hsws/

• July 31, 2006; 16 state-wide participants

• Purpose: To discuss critical issues needed to raise awareness of computing in Alabama schools.

Dual/Concurrent Enrollment

CIS faculty are available to give topical lectures to classes; if interested, faculty can help bootstrap a club

• Opportunity to earn college credit in the summer by taking the CIS 201 course (Intro to Java)

• 3-4 students each summer• Potential tuition waiver in some cases• Greatly speed up mentoring experience• Prepare students for programming

contest next May• “Concurrent/Dual” enrollment http://www.cis.uab.edu/cs201

How this relates to the XO

EToys:A Squeak-based Programming Environment

Pippy:Python Programming

• All of these provide real programming environments on the XO

• Students are taught how to be technology developers…in a fun way!

• Initiates the pipeline for technology exploration throughout K-12

Scratch:Visual Programming

• $1,080,000 from National Science Foundation• In collaboration with Birmingham City Schools

– UAB CORD, Computer Science, Mathematics, Education, and Mechanical Engineering

• Three-year engagement of 60 students per year– 10th grade: Game Programming with Alice; Linear algebra– 11th grade: Java and Robotics; Advanced mathematics– 12th grade: Computer Visualization; Science fair project– Teachers: Training of BCS teachers in parallel with student camps

• Seeking students and teachers for Fall08/Summer09

ALADDIN Drawing the GENIEous out of the kidemPowering the next generation for information technology