BDPA Philadelphia chapter plans to give out $1,000 scholarships each of the five (5) students that earn a spot on the city's national team competing at the 29th annual BDPA High School Computer Competition (HSCC) championships being held Aug 14-17, 2013 in Baltimore. The mission of the BDPA Philadelphia chapter is to support local information technology (IT) professionals and increase the number of historically under-represented persons of color in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) areas.

This Crowdrise Project seeks to raise $5,000 to fully fund these college scholarships for the 2013 HSCC team.  Secondly, we hope is that we can find 10 people to join our fundraising team.

BDPA prepares for the annual HSCC through SITES (Student Information Technology Education & Scholarship) a computer instructional program available to Philadelphia area students in grades 8 through 12. Participating students receive quality instruction in basic computer skills, computer programming languages, website development, database design public speaking, and career development.

The BDPA High School Computer Competition, (HSCC), was founded in 1986 by Dr. Jesse Bemley, of Washington, D.C. What started as a two-team event between Washington DC and Atlanta has grown to an annual championship in which 45 teams from around the nation are eligible to compete. It's all designed to introduce our youth (entering 8th through 12th grades) to the field of Information Technology, encourage them to seek higher levels of education, and groom many of them to become our next generation of IT professionals.

EDUCATION EXPERIENCE and FUN

Providing students with education, experience and fun is what the HSCC event is all about. The competition has three parts: Team oral exam, Individual written test, and Team website development. The highlight of the event, is the 7 hour requirements based website and database design and development competition.

Through involvement in the competition, students will gain practical experience in the design of web based applications, programming languages, requirements gathering, needs analysis and test & development. In addition, they will also develop skills in communication, leadership, teamwork, fundraising and time management.

DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE and MORE

One of the primary concerns of industry today is that many engineering students (of all majors) are entering the workforce with little or no practical knowledge or design experience.

BDPA student competitions and projects are an important key to help prepare students to be effective professional IT professionals.

On the morning of the Computer Competition, teams are given a project and challenged to design and develop a web application during the next seven hours.