The Institute for Computing in Research announces new interns in Portland

Tue Aug 3 21:28:48 UTC 2021

URL: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2021/aug/03/icr-portland/

  The Institute for Computing in Research Announces Portland Cohort

One of Conservancy's member projects The Institute for Computing in
Research is launching a new branch of their mentoring and internship
program for high school students this week in Portland, Oregon. This
unique paid internship introduces high school students to software
freedom as part of a summer research position that focuses on computing
in the sciences. We're very happy to be hosting and facilitating an
initiative that is lending long time experience to fostering a new
generation of scientists.

The program has run in Santa Fe, NM in the past, due to its founder's
proximity to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, but this year it has
expanded to a second cohort in the pacific northwest. Portland has a
rich history of technology and computing institutions (the so called
Silicon Forest), so we're very hopeful that this program will help get
more young people involved with STEM minded trajectories in their
careers. Mark Galassi (a board member of Conservancy's) founded the
program in 2019 and this is the third year it has run. In it's first
year 5 internships were given out and 9 in 2020. This year there are
17(11 in Santa Fe and 6 in Portland)! Focusing on pairing 10th, 11th,
and 12th graders with mentors in the sciences, the students will work on
computing focused research projects in various disciplines. Supported by
academics at Portland State University, Reed College, and Oregon State
University, the cohort in Portland has projects in computational
biology, natural language processing, pure math, and AI and game theory.

Exposure to mentors, communities and the varied academic disciplines is
a great opportunity for these budding scientists. Bridging the gap
between programs like Outreachy (another member project of
Conservancy's, Outreachy, which provides internships to historically
underrepresented groups in technology), Google Summer of Code and other
open source internship options with the academic programs like Research
Experience for Undergraduates, the ICR is filling a vital role in
connecting FOSS and the academy. Showing students computing tools used
in industry and the workflows and day to day experiences of academics
doing research. Typically these kind of positions are unpaid and not
everyone has the luxury of working unpaid for a summer. It's this kind
of equitable thinking that makes the ICR standout to us and why we are
pleased to work with them.

This pilot program in Portland is supported by funding from the Oregon
Community Foundation with space donated by Beaverton Round. If you would
like to donate to The Institute for Computing in Research[0] or The
Software Freedom Conservancy please visit our support page[1].

About The Institute for Computing in Research:

The Institute for Computing in Research is a consortium of scholars and
students who work on research and pedagogical aspects of using advanced
computing methods for research and scholarship. Any application of
computing to physical science, life science, social science, arts and
humanities is of interest to our researchers. We are located in Santa
Fe, New Mexico and in Portland, Oregon.

About Software Freedom Conservancy:

Conservancy is a resourceful, non-profit organization dedicated to helping
people take control of their computing experience by growing the software
freedom movement, supporting community-driven alternatives to proprietary
software and defending free software builders with practical
initiatives. Conservancy believes that the future of software should be for
everyone, and in particular, home users of small electronic devices such as
wireless routers.

Social Media posts:
https://mastodon.technology/@conservancy/106694185922754295
https://twitter.com/conservancy/status/1422662006016942084

[0]: https://computinginresearch.org/support-us/
[1]: https://sfconservancy.org/donate/
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