Education

For seven years, Bio::Neos has made it a priority to get involved with Computer Science Education Week, and 2021 was no different. During the month of December, we worked hard to advance computer science education in our community in creative covid-friendly ways.

CSed Week seeks to promote CS education to students across the country through teachers, mentors, and partners in the field. Our team is always happy to take time to inspire students to learn more about CS and celebrate others in our community doing the same.

Here at Bio::Neos we recognize the importance of hands-on learning and providing post-secondary opportunities for students in our community. Throughout our internship program, high school and college students have the chance to work both collaboratively and independently on different projects ranging from internal backup systems to client projects. Once completed, interns understand that programming careers can be fun and exciting; and gain a renewed motivation to pursue more computer science internships and job shadowing opportunities in the future.

Have you sent a work email while in bed? When you should be, going to bed? 55% of Americans check their work email after 11:00 pm. Too many of this sounds outrageous and probably past our bedtime, but this is the new norm with the majority of the workplace being online due to the covid-19 pandemic or being a tech company. While there are countless benefits to working remotely (no commute, not sharing germs, and endless kitty or puppy cuddles) employees are feeling burnt out more than ever.

Every year in December, various computer science organizations work together to celebrate Computer Science education and history during Computer Science Education Week.

We love celebrating the successes of our clients, and believe now it is more important than ever to acknowledge these solid wins when there is so much concern and anxiety in our current environment. In this spirit, I would like to tell you a little bit about a startup company from the western side of Iowa that we are working with closely as a technology partner.

We at Bio::Neos were happy to once again participate in Computer Science Education Week 2019. Steven Davis, Cody Metz, and I volunteered at schools throughout the ICR area.

We've been thinking about Computer Science Education Week 2019 since March and are extremely excited about it. We hope that this will be the biggest event for the ICR.

In addition to my responsibilities at Bio::Neos, I teach a course at the Kirkwood Regional Center of Johnson County, on the University of Iowa campus. The course is provided by the Jacobson Institute for youth entrepreneurship, an organization that creates and empowers the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs. I enjoy the opportunity to pass on my knowledge.

On the weekend of July 12th I attended Startup Weekend IC, a startup competition held at Merge. The event had three stages. In the first stage, participants pitched their ideas to the crowd and attempted to win a popular vote for their ideas. The six most popular pitches were chosen to continue into the second round. I pitched an idea for self-assembling furniture, but sensing the idea was overly ambitious, was happy it did not go on to the second round.