Amazon program to benefit Davies
LINCOLN – Thanks to an assist from tech giant Amazon, students at William M. Davies, Jr. Career and Technical High School will have new classes, new scholarships, and new internship opportunities when they return to school this fall.
Davies Tech computer and software engineering instructor Joe Mazzone explained that the school will be able to offer new courses this fall, funded by Amazon Future Engineer, a program, described by Amazon, aimed at “inspiring and educating hundreds of thousands of students from underrepresented and underserved communities each year to try computer science and coding.”
This program’s goal, in addition to getting a rigorous new computer science curriculum into the hands of diverse students from a lower economic background, is to have a more diverse workforce enter into Amazon’s engineering careers, Mazzone explained.
Amazon Future Engineer provides more than 2,000 schools across the country that serve students from underrepresented and underserved communities with Intro to Computer Science and AP Computer Science classes, and Amazon Future Engineer is a part of Amazon’s $50 million investment in computer science over the next five years.
The courses run in a threepart sequence: Introduction to Computer Science and AP Computer Science Principles – Davies offers comparable courses to both – and a new offering at Davies for the upcoming school year – AP Computer Science A. The trio of courses were developed
by Amazon and Edhesive, a curriculum provider for computer sciences, for free for Davies Tech.
“Because the courses we’ve been offering are comparable to the courses, it was a very good match to us, similar to what we’re doing,” Mazzone said. “Seniors are able to jump right into that course.”
“It’s a huge benefit. One of the things I’m most excited about is the opportunities that being part of this program offers to students. For coursework, it offers all of Amazon’s cloud services. Students get to access Amazon’s services for free, that’s exciting for a curriculum, and students can apply for a scholarship from Amazon.”
All of Davies Tech’s approximately 100 pre-engineering students can apply for the $30,000
scholarships and guaranteed internships with Amazon, as well as other smaller scholarships and beneficial programs as part of the program, Mazzone explained.
“One of the benefits is Amazon does provide us with employees that essentially can mentor the students, bring them on tours of the facility,” Mazzone said, although he noted those tours will likely only be conducted virtually this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
However, the tours will showcase how Amazon’s warehouse and fulfillment center robots are programmed and repaired, which should catch the eye of the pre-engineering students, especially those with an interest in robotics.
“They’re releasing a robotics challenge, students can compete with all the students around the U.S. with opportunities for scholarships,” he explained. “It’s a virtual warehouse to program the warehouse to program deliveries for customers … It’s a very real-world problem in a fun way.”
“I’m really excited,” Mazzone said of Davies’ latest offering. “I haven’t had a curriculum provided to me of such vast resources and pre-built lessons that it’s really going to allow me to more easily meet the needs of the students in the classroom.”