Tech Equity Day Brings Together Industry Experts and Students Who Aspire to Enter IT Careers

The Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC/CUNY) Tech Equity Project—led by Computer Science Professor Mohammad Azhar and part of the CUNY Tech Equity Initiative—along with the BMCC Tech Learning Community presented Tech Equity Day on April 3 in BMCC’s Fiterman Conference Center. The program of sessions and panels was supported by sponsors including NSF and Google.

“Tech equity is a crucial issue for our amazing students, and we aim to give them every competitive advantage by providing them with a quality tech education including experiential learning activities such as boot camps, internships, research and certification classes,” says Professor Azhar. “We aspire to inspire and motivate our student tech community in events such as Tech Equity Day, which promotes diversity and equal representation in the tech industry.”

Topics of focus include emotional intelligence and cybersecurity

The double conference room hosted close to 90 participants and the stacks of pizza boxes on tables along the wall were well received.

Once BMCC students, faculty and staff got settled at the oversized round tables throughout the room, they turned their attention to the session “Emotional Intelligence for Successful Careers,” presented by Professor Azhar and Sara Crosby, Director of the BMCC Learning Academy.

Emotional intelligence comes into play when providing customer service, interacting with colleagues and cultivating clients. “I actually think it’s a great workshop for any of our students because increasing emotional intelligence is essentially a problem-solving strategy in all industries,” says Ms. Crosby.

Next up was the panel “Cybersecurity Hygiene 101,” hosted by Professor Azhar and developed with Amish Batra, Chief Technology Officer of Information Resources and Technology (IRT) at BMCC.

The panelists were from the BMCC IRT Enterprise Group: Christopher Pena, Manager of Networks, Cybersecurity and Cloud Computing; Samsen W. Marwieh, Cybersecurity Analyst II; Lidiane M. Miller, Service Desk Lead; Ethan Orenstein, Desktop Engineer and James Tomasuolo, Cyber Security Analyst.

Topics the cybersecurity panelists covered included how to tell if an email is a phishing attempt and how to identify a fraudulent email address. They also talked about their efforts to protect the BMCC community from cyber threats.

The panel closed with a video prepared by Professor Azhar, cybersecurity experts in the BMCC IRT department and Student Government Association (SGA) President Djibrilla Issa Hamani.

Women tech leaders share their insight

The last event of the day was a panel, “Women in Tech Careers” that featured three BMCC alumni and three IT professionals working in the field.

The BMCC alumni on the panel were Karan Yang (Computer Science), Software Development Engineer II, Amazon; Gabriella Uwadiegwu (Computer Science, ’17), Senior Software Engineer, Carta, and Inna Yedzinovich (Computer Science, ’18), Software Engineer, J.P. Morgan Chase.

The three alumni were joined by tech professionals Dhani Abey, Director, AI and Cybersecurity, Microsoft; Elizabeth Granda, Director, Tech Group Lead Payment Investigations and Product Activation Services, BNY Mellon, and Zarin Lokhandwala, Engineering Manager, Information Security Division, BNY Mellon.

As Ms. Yedzinovich commented, “BMCC gives you a great foundation. Keep talking to your professors. Don’t be shy.” She also told the students in the room, “Have some fun. You will get there.”

Ms. Uwadiegwu told the audience, “Networking is everything. Meetups and Eventbrite both have tech events you can find and attend.”

Ms.Granda concurred on the importance of networking. “When you’re at an event, ask people what they do and how they do it. People love to talk about themselves.”

According to Ms. Lokhandwala, “Create your own opportunities. Go to your neighborhood bakery, offer to make a website for them. Tell them, ‘You pay for the platform, I’ll build it for you.’”

Other career advice to students from the panelists included the recommendation to make a public website that recruiters can access; to define objectives when working with mentors; to work for free—if that is a financial option—in order to gain experience, and to have someone in the industry—not a peer—review their resume.

Students discuss their connection to the IT field

Audience member and SGA President Djibrilla Issa Hamani summed up why he was attending Tech Equity Day: “We need to raise our awareness of cybersecurity issues. It’s a growing problem on our campus and for many campuses around the country.”

Computer Science major Katheryne Herrera-Burgos said, “I’m here for everything, but especially for the Cybersecurity Hygiene panel, because I want to work in that field and I’m interested in the legal end of it as well as the tech end. It’s a passion of mine.”

Finance major Zaineb Afzaal said she came to Tech Day “because I am thinking of switching my major to IT. I want to go into a computer science field to mix business, finance and technology someday.”

“I’m here because I want to know about cybersecurity,” said Computer Science major Fatemazui Zohra. “I like problem solving and cyber fraud is one of our biggest problems today.”

Mahadin Munin shared that as an Accounting major, “I think I should know about cybersecurity so I can be aware of scams and phishing that can affect my clients.”

What’s coming up next?

On Saturday, May 4 from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. in the BMCC gymnasium, the BMCC Technology Learning Community and the IA Tech Equity Innovation Hub will present “AI Innovation Challenge for Social Good,” a day of workshops, networking and more.

Students will break into groups and brainstorm around ways to apply AI to address logistical, social and other challenges on campus. Email bmccsteminnovation@gmail.com for more information. Register here.