TU20 2018 in review

JANUARY— We began 2018 preparing for the 2nd Annual TU20 Cup. During the Winter break we were busy matching teams with mentors, preparing our judging criteria and setting up workshops. In 2018 we tried something new for the TU20 Cup, we hosted four workshops at the Iroquois Ridge Creation Zone. These workshops were designed to help the competitors better understand how to approach the cup, avoid some common mistakes and be better prepared.

In addition to the TU20 cup, we continued with our TU20 University Guidance series. We connected students to engineering and business programs, with a great segment recorded about Western’s Ivey program.  We also launched our TU20 of the Month Series with Griffin’s article about Neural Networks. 

February—we continued our preparation for the TU20 cup with workshops and Q&A. One of the new items we added to the cup was for each team to make a thank you video for their mentors. We had a great set of mentors and wanted to makes that they knew how much we valued their effort. You can checkout the video below!

March – Our 2nd Annual TU20 Cup. The Theme for this year was Smart Cities, and we got a number of awesome submissions by teams. We had teams detecting potholes,  building parking solutions, e-commerce solutions and so much more! We had a panel of awesome judges and mentors to complement the great teams.

For a full recap of the 2018 TU20 Cup, checkout our article from earlier in the year. Big congratulations to the team of Ben Prystawski and Phillip Christoffersen for winning first place!

April – As we wrapped up the TU20 cup, we began looking ahead to our next event, Learn2GetHired. The event focuses on two parts, the first helping student understand the skill they need to have to find a summer internship in technology and business, and the second on connecting students with local employers. 

To help students be better prepared, we hosted a TU20 cloud computing workshop, one of the top skills employers are currently look forwards to. The goal was to help students better understand the cloud and give them a hands on explanation on how developing for the cloud is different from the programming taught in classrooms. 

May – Learn2GetHired was finally here and it didn’t disappoint! This was the third year we ran the event and we had a great time at the Milton Education Village Innovation Centre (MEVIC). The first part consisted of employers and students sharing their perspectives on how to successfully find a summer job. We had Pieter Venter, VP of Software Engineering at Geotab, Nancy Mancini, Principal Consultant of Marcom Blueprints and Mickey Ngo, Talent Acquisition Specialist at Geotab, join us to share their experiences in finding work, interviewing and how their careers have evolved. We had some fantastic insight and were very thankful to have them join us.

In addition, we had a student panel of 2nd are 3rd year university students who shared how they first found their internships. The goal was to offer a number of different perspectives to students to help offer advice and potential road blocks as they begin their careers.

June – After Learn2GetHired, we continue with our workshops with the Oakville Public library. We hosted three more workshops, an introduction to coding, and introduction to Data Science and Machine Learning and an introduction to blockchain and crypto currencies. The goal was host workshops on interesting topics related to technology in a community focused and intimate environment. We got a variety of people attending from business professionals, students and passer-byes at the library. We’re excited to continue to work with the library for the upcoming year! 

In June we also launched our first ever TU20 Fellowships program. The goal of the program was to provide students with funds and mentorship to work on their own personal projects. We selected three teams of student who had some very interesting projects in mind. Students could work alone or in pairs to build out a project over the summer and have three checkins with a mentor in their field. You can read more about their projects below:

June was also an important transition time for the TU20 team. Many of our executives were off to university and were starting a new chapter of their lives. We wished them all the best hope that their experience as part of TU20 will continue to benefit them.

JULY— was a busy month for TU20’s. After school ended, many of us headed off to work summer jobs. A number found jobs from Learn2GetHired. Others had returning offers from other employers. Others traveled across the continent.  

While working our summer jobs, it was time to welcome the new TU20 execs for a summer of team building and learning activities. During the summer we had Jen Zhao, Logan Kieller, Angela Xiang, Angela Wei, Nicole Chen, Jacky Xu and Tiger Bi join our team. We began planning for the year ahead and working on how we could continue to grow TU20 and our community. 

One of the key things we did was join the Silicon Halton Summer Social to better connect the TU20 executives with the rest of the Silicon Halton community. It was a great evening of fun, trivia and food!

AUGUST— August continued with more preparation for the upcoming year. We focused on three main items, the TU20 C3 Conference, the TU20 Chapters and the TU20 University Series.

Last year we held the C3 workshop, but this year we wanted to make it more impactful so we transitioned it into a full day conference. We began contacting speakers and reaching out to students who would demo their projects. There rarely are student focused technology and career conferences in Halton, so this was a great opportunity to run a unique event.

Our summer University Guidance series was aimed at students entering university. We connected current university students from Queens, U of T,  Waterloo and Western to discuss their experiences and share some tips for getting started at University. We want to thank everyone who participated, it was awesome to see the community come together.

SEPTEMBER—School’s back! We relaunched our Chapter program with a number of new Chapters. 

We welcomed three new chapters, Dr Frank Hayden, headed by Rachel, Allen & Noor, Garth Webb led by Sam, Ryan & Diya and St. Aloysius Gonzaga led by Helena, Ben and Andy. The growth of the chapter was an exciting experience as we could connect better students and bring technology and entrepreneurship right into schools!

We also saw our existing chapters run by a new group of leaders to continue the progress of the past. Below are all the new executives and chapter leaders who joined!

OCTOBER—was a quieter month. We continued working on the TU20 chapters and hosted our first TU20 social. We had over 20 students join us for board games and pizza at alternawork, a local co-working space in Oakville. Big thank you for having us! 

We also launched our TU20 AMA (Ask Me Anything) series, where we connected with a number of different students in the community doing very interesting things. This was the evolved form of our original TU20 of the month, but now in a new form.

NOVEMBER—was a busier month. We began the month with an exciting announcement that TU20 & the Oakville Community Foundation (OCF) were teaming up for this year’s TU20 cup. The OCF will be funding a $15,000 grant for the winner’s of the TU20 Cup to implement the winning idea for a local charity. We are super excited to be combining technology, entrepreneurship and philanthropy to this year’s cup. You can read more about this announcement here.

In addition we also ran our first annual Policy in Technology event, focusing on getting students thinking about AI. We had some amazing ideas from the event, with the team of Alice, Arushi and Diya taking first place. We had 12 teams competing and want to thank everyone who joined at Burlington’s Techplace for the event! For more info on the event, you can checkout our PIT recap!

We also had the opportunity to connect with both students and teachers during November. On Nov 14th, TU20 was invited to Aldershot’s Human Library session to help connect community professionals to high school students. We had a great opportunity to chat with students in grades 9-12 with a variety of different interests. 

On November 23rd, the Halton District School Board had a PD day with workshops on a variety of topics. TU20 was invited to give a talk, and we shared our knowledge about careers, the changing nature of education and the importance of the technology sector. It was an interesting plot twist, as the students were now the teachers and the teachers were now the students!

Also talk about symposium for teachers on Sept 27th and TU20 exec social Nov 12th

This was also a follow-up to our October 27th  presentation at Garth Webb Secondary School, during the Halton Technology Symposium. We had the opportunity to chat with a number of teachers about TU20 and our work in the community.

Last but not least, we hosted another TU20 Exec get together at a local escape room. We made it out and ventured over to a desert place to conclude the evening.

DECEMBER- Oh how quickly December comes around! Our first order of business was launching the registration for 2019 TU20 Cup! We’re excited to see the projects that students come up with this focusing on youth issues and new technologies.

We also hosted our second TU20 social at alternawork, with cookies, hot chocolate and a gift exchange. Another great evening of meeting students in the community!

We concluded December with two TU20 University Guidance series for U of T and Waterloo CS. In case you missed them, you can find them on our sound cloud account! 

DECEMBER- Oh how quickly December comes around! Our first order of business was launching the registration for 2019 TU20 Cup! We’re excited to see the projects that students come up with this focusing on youth issues and new technologies.

We also hosted our second TU20 social at alternawork, with cookies, hot chocolate and a gift exchange. Another great evening of meeting students in the community!

As we begin 2019, we remember all our ups and downs from 2018. We’re looking to build on our successes and failures and looking to continue to help students to achieve success in the tech industry.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us this year, especially Silicon Halton Co-Founders Chris, Rick and Reema, we couldn’t have done it without you!

We’re always looking for new members, executives and partners, so if you are interested, send us a message and we’ll be in touch! Join us in making 2019 the best year to date!