Tuesday, March 12, 2013 | Tristan Larson TechNews !'. campus@technewsiit.com UTSAV GANDHI EWB San Claudio Bridge Project prepares for spring break trip TECHNEWS WRITER The IIT Engineers Without Borders Student Chapter will send a team of students and professionals to the community of San Claudio, Nicaragua on Saturday, March 16, to perform a site assessment of the location for a proposed bridge, marking EWB-IIT’s first travel experience since its Summer 2011 trip to Haiti. EWB-HT began work on the bridge project in October 2012. The community of San Claudio is located in the Nicaraguan state of Leon, in the Western portion of the country, with a population of approximately 3,000 people. During the Nicaragua rainy season, flooding restricts access to the nearest school, health center, marketplace, and church. Because of this, the community has expressed the need for a footbridge. EWB-IIT’s goal is to facilitate the design and construction of this bridge, with a focus on community involvement and the long- term sustainability of the bridge. The San Claudio project team, which is made up of approximately 25 IIT students of various backgrounds, is split into four sub-teams: F u n d r ai s i n g & PR, Culture & Education, Technical, and Health & Safety. Meetings are h e l d e v e r y other week for the project team as a whole, and sub-teams meet as often as their work requires. The sub-teams have succeeded in developing a comprehensive work plan for the trip, as well as fundraising the cost of the plane tickets and other assorted travel expenses. The Nicaragua travel team consists of students Cara Cummings, Sara Glade, Tristan Larson, and Lisa Stump, as well as IIT Student Access and Diversity staff member Megan Mozina, along with professional engineers Christine Freisinger and James Lewan. The primary goals of the trip are to gather technical data about the project site and to establish a healthy relationship with the community. Tasks to be completed include mapping the town’s roads and important sites using a GPS device, creating a topographic map of the project site using engineering surveying equipment, assessing the health of the community members, and meeting with community leaders and an in-country engineer. Photo courtesy of E WB-II T After the completion of the trip, the EWB-HT team will move forward with the interpretation of the data collected while in Nicaragua, and begin the structural design of the bridge. If you would like to get involved with EWB-USA, IIT, visit their website at www. ewbusaiit.moonfruit.com or send them an email at iit.ewb@gmail.com. Sodexo hosts Job Shadow day for high school students Utsav Gandhi CAMPUS EDITOR IIT Dining Service hosted a ProStart Job Shadowing Day, where 13 Chicago Public School students, who expressed an interest in the culinary arts and the hospitality industry, were on campus on Wednesday, March 6th. Each student was paired with a Sodexo employee across the Oflice disciplines: accounting/ management, service coordination, and retail and food preparation, to learn more about their role in helping serve HT Students. Tim Lipman, from the Oflice of Undergraduate Admissions, also donated HT bags and brochures to help promote HT as a possible future college option. The students came in from three local schools - Simeon Career Academy, Dunbar Vocational Career Academy and Chicago Vocational Career Academy. These schools were picked by ProStart, the Illinois Restaurant Association and Chicago Public Schools, because they exist in primarily “education deserts” or areas with no schools in miles of immediate space, making the interest of these students all the more relevant to the local neighborhood. Following an hour-long introduction to the business at all on campus locations and the HT team, they were given a tour of the facilities. Students were then placed in the front and the back of the house, depending on their career preferences. The day concluded with a group lunch in the The Commons and students were provided with Hawk paraphernalia. The students were reportedly impressed by the strong correlation in the academic success of residential students at HT, with the convenience of their on campus meal plans. Some of these students will soon be approached by Sodexo to work as trainees or interns. TEDXIIT team prepares for pre-events, finalizes speakers Shreeyeh Rajan TECHNEWS WRITER Last week, four members of the TEDxHT team, Luling Li, Ethan Yujian Bai, Yoetzin Diaz and me sat down to a radio interview at our very own radio station, WIIT 88.9 FM. After Luling booked an exclusive interview for TEDxHT, we spoke at 1pm on Tuesday, March 15, 2013. While Ethan was clicking away photos, Yoetzin and I talked about TED, TEDx, TEDxHT and how to be a part of it. Being our first radio interview for all of us, it was nerve wracking in the beginning. But we ended up getting better through time! After learning that Nik Rokop (the Managing Director of Knapp Entrepreneurship Center) was going to speak, WHT’s Tech Director Kevin M. Sampson told us he’ll definitely be there! Collaborating with HT Campus Life, TEDxHT will also be presenting two events this month! One of our HT advisers for TEDxHT and photographer, Daniel Guidara is holding a Tai Chi workshop on Thursday, March 14, 2013 from 6 to 7:30 pm. For those who don’t know what Tai Chi is, Tai Chi involves three aspects: Health, Meditation and Martial Arts. Personally, I think it’s a great way to take off your Midterms stress while learning Self Defense! Celebrating Women’s History Month, HT Campus Life will be discussing gender, leadership, and stereotypes and how they intertwine in our everyday lives and feature a TED talk about gender and leadership during a discussion of Gender, Leadership and Stereotypes at 12:45pm on Wednesday, March 13, 2013 in the MTCC Executive Room. After receiving confirmation emails from all the speakers, we are almost there! Let me give you an intake on how we selected the speakers. Students who nominated them gave a 3-minute presentation explaining why they should be nominated and how their idea is exponential. Then, each one of us read aloud their ideas and accomplishments to the rest of the team. After crucial examining and analyzing, the whole TEDxHT team narrowed it down to twelve competitive speakers from twenty-four. Why is the selection process for the speakers so competitive? TED.com explains why. TED is “the place” to give the talk of your life. TED is the place to condense your ideas into a compelling 18-minute talk that communicates your best ideas. Other TED talks from around the world have included former US. President Bill Clinton, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, designer Phillipe Starck, architect Frank Gehry, primatologist Jane Goodall, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, , Lost producer I] Abrams, architect and sculptor Maya Lin, cellist Yo Yo Ma and Google founders Sergey Erin and Larry Page. With the pre-event around the corner, make sure to research our speakers so that you could pair up with them during the real event (a.k.a. apply to be a Speaker Buddy!). By helping out the speakers, you get to know more about them. And who knows, fast forward five years and you might be working under them! Humanities Department sponsors screening of ‘Girl_lnside' Lewis College of Human Sciences, Humaniiies Department A campus film-showing of the transgender coming-of-age story Girl Inside will be held on Wednesday, March 13 from 7-10 pm in the MTCC auditorium, sponsored by the Humanities Department and Oflice of Campus Life as part of Women’s History Month celebration at HT. The award-winning movie Girl Inside is the account of a young adult transitioning from male to female and her “emotional, intellectual, and spiritual journey of self-discovery . . . (amidst) the physical journey of hormones and surgery. Sometimes funny, sometimes painful, this sweet coming of age story is both an intimate portrait and a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be a woman.” (Women Make Movies) “My intent was to document Madison’s journey up to, and immediately beyond her sex reassignment surgery. Neither of us thought I would be following her for three years, but it took that long for her to save the money for the surgery. Although this made the filmmaking process more intense, it also allowed for deeper layers of understanding of Madison’s experience. As a result, the film speaks to many people on many levels, and became, ultimately, a portrait of self-transformation and metamorphosis,” commented director Maya Gallas on Girl Inside. Women’s History Month looks at how conventional and unconventional women throughout history have changed the world we live in today. Women’s History Month is a space to talk about people who identify as women and how their roles in society matter- -that means anyone can participate in the festivities, not just those of us who identify as women! It’s also a safe space to talk about how the dynamics of gender create categories like women, men, intersex people, transgender people, and people who live between the genders. It gives us an opportunity to think about what these categories mean for how we organize our social, political, and economic institutions and how we define our collective or personal goals and dreams. The Humanities Department, in partnership with the Oflice of Student Life, has created several programs for March which included a BOG game night that was held on March 7. The campus film showing of Girl Inside, described above, showing on Wednesday March 13, from 7-10 pm in the MTCC auditorium, and a luncheon with speakers on Women in Technology, Tuesday March 26, from 12:3()-2:3()pm in the MTCC ballroom are other activities planned. We hope to see you at any and all of these events!