(JEF) is an all volunteer non-profit community-based K-12 organization teaches students advanced computing sciences and contemporary mathematics topics with an emphasis on Intelligent Technologies. (JEF) is an all volunteer non-profit community-based K-12 organization that works primarily with junior and senior high school students and teaches them advanced computing sciences and contemporary math
ematics topics with an emphasis on Intelligent Technologies. One might ask such questions as: What will JEF participants gain? If so, how well do they do? On the one hand, over the last few years all the seniors in the JEF program have entered college and are doing well. On the other hand, JEF feels that a vast majority of minority students at the junior and senior high school level are not getting the appropriate level of education/training to be fully successful at the collegiate level. Large numbers of our students upon entering undergraduate school are burdened with the inability to do creative thinking in the sciences and mathematics, and to communicate orally and in writing with people other than their peers. Our programs are designed to acquaint students with research techniques, advanced mathematics, emerging technologies in computer science and computer communications, and computational science and public speaking. Some of the grassroots techniques which have proved successful are: pairing African American youth with African American computer professionals (mentoring and role models), pairing African American high school students with African American college students (peer mentoring), development of computer projects which relate to their "real life" (e.g., the computer models of a Black teenager and a teenage girl's shopping habits), and the development of oral and written language skills (confidence building). Basically our approach is one of confidence building through skill development. To evaluate the success of our programs, JEF, over the last ten years, has established informal relationships with a number of colleges and universities. These relationships are in the form of scholarships, Internet accounts, students for paper presentations at national and international conferences, etc. These programs would not be possible without the support of dedicated professionals and students. The JEF faculty consists of the following professionals and students: Angelique Berry, a computer specialist at the Federal Aviation Administration; Shiree Brown, an accountant at the Bricklayers International Pension Fund; Sadie Strong, an MBA Fellow at the US Dept. of Labor; Michael White, independent IT consultant; Curtis Roberts, IT specialist US Dept. of Housing and Urban Development; Donald Holmes, a network specialist and computer trainer at the University of DC, Inc.; Charles Robinson, a software engineer at SUN Microsystems; Orissa Brown, a youth intervention specialist at Howard University Hospital; Larry Matthews, Kristen Baten, and Darren Lamison-White, students at Bowie State University; and Bryan Bemley, a student at Archbishop Carroll High School.
