Rhode Island Chronicle

Code A Wish Corp Founder And CEO Faith Cheung Q&A

 Breaking News
  • No posts were found

Code A Wish Corp Founder And CEO Faith Cheung Q&A

October 13
02:42 2020
Code A Wish Corp Founder And CEO Faith Cheung Q&A

Rockville, Maryland – Oct 12th, 2020 – Code A Wish Corp is a Maryland 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that is run by teens, for teens. In an interview with the founder of the organization, Faith Cheung, a senior at Richard Montgomery High School, we learned that the club was founded in the summer of 2019 by six high schoolers from Montgomery, Howard, and Fairfax Counties in the greater Washington, D.C. area. The DMV area serves over a million high school students and many of them rely on programs such as free lunch and other school incentives. During her time in high school, Faith observed that an overlooked but unmet need of many underserved students was the lack of technology equipment and education that would help propel them to future success.

Reporter: “What is the mission of your club?”

Faith: “Our mission is to provide underprivileged teens computer equipment and technology education to succeed in the innovation-driven economy tomorrow. “

Reporter: “What programs did your club previously run to accomplish this mission?”

Faith: “We started with donating laptops to foster homes and offering free coding classes at local libraries. After discovering the avid turnout and the level of need in our communities, we realized that we needed larger organized efforts to reach more underserved communities in the DMV area. So in the summer of 2019, I initiated the idea of a technology conference just for teens.”

Reporter: “That sounds fantastic! Can you tell us a bit more about the technology conference?”

Faith: “Yes, of course. We invited six top technologists to speak and interact with over 200 teens in November of 2019 to our conference, the Future Summit. This included the co-chair of the US Air Force AI Initiative, Mr. Michael Kanaan; founder of a tech start-up FiscalNote, Mr. Jonathan Chen; and other speakers with expertise in topics, such as voice recognition robotics or the fourth industrial revolution. We had the rare opportunity of personally meeting these inspiring figures and asking for advice on how we can prepare our careers in technology. It was an eye-opener to say the least and we received overwhelmingly positive feedback from attendees who asked for more conferences.”

Reporter: “That was an amazing event and I wish I was there. I guess the 2020 pandemic derailed your plan to have more conferences?”

Faith: “Unfortunately, yes. However, we quickly adapted to the virtual learning environment and created an online AI academy for the entire summer of 2020. We hosted a series of webinars on AI 101 topics and invited guest speakers to the virtual conference. The CEO of Insilico Medicine, Mr. Alex Zhavoronkov, joined us on August 14th and hosted a breathtaking webinar on their AI breakthrough technology with drug discovery including treatment for COVID-19. We have expanded our reach to national and even international levels by setting up local chapters of Code A Wish. We truly hope that our cause is recognized by more and more high school students and that they can join us in bridging the gap in technology education.”

Reporter: “Are there any other programs that we missed?”

Faith: “Well, besides offering technology education, we have fundraised and donated laptops to the Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless, which serves many homeless teens, and St. Ann’s Center for Children, Youth, and Families. The laptops are being put to use to help people learn new skills so that they can be better trained for today’s job market.”

Reporter: “That is wonderful! Thank you so much for your time and looking forward to more news from Code A Wish!”

Faith: “Thanks for interviewing me! We hope by spreading the words, more and more organizations and technology companies can sponsor and support our programs. ”

To learn more about Code A Wish, please visit their website: www.codeawish.org

Code A Wish National Leadership Team: Faith Cheung, Justin Wang, Philip Wang, Andrey Dai, Iris Guo, Pranava Nidumolu, and Lucy Wu.

Media Contact
Company Name: Code A Wish Corp
Contact Person: Faith Cheung
Email: Send Email
Phone: 3014613425
Address:9710 Traville Gateway Dr. #156
City: Rockville
State: MD 20850
Country: United States
Website: https://www.codeawish.org

Categories