Educating the Next Generation

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On Saturday May 5, more than 4,000 students and parents descended upon the University of Southern California to participate in the Los Angeles Unified School District Family Summit 2012. This year’s event, “Make Me Proud: On the Road to College and Careers,” marked the first time that students were a part of the event, which aims to prepare families for the next journey into academia: college.

As presenting sponsor, Microsoft was honored to play a key role in the event and throughout the day, parents learned about ways to keep connected and students learned how to apply the technical acumen (that is so prevalent within today’s youth) to their future studies.

  • Anthony Salcito, vice president of Worldwide Education at Microsoft provided opening remarks at the Welcoming Session
  • The Microsoft EduTech experience brought together a wealth of information, spanning across various products, services and fun applications for Make Me Proud attendees to view and try-- even learn to build games, including Kinect, FIRST Robotics and Imagine Cup
  • Three key workshops featured Microsoft executives sharing insights for college preparation:
    • STEM:EARN, led by Cameron Evans, US chief technology officer, discussed how students should think about careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
    • 21st Century Classroom Tools…Why?, led by Andrew Ko, general manager, US Partners in Learning and joined by innovative teachers Daphne Bradford and Jackie Lopez, provided opportunities to discover and learn about more than 100 free tools and programs available for teachers, principals, parents, others engaged in education
    • Internet & Cyber Security in the Age of Social Media, led by Scott Emigh, director of solution sales and Ned Curic, enterprise architect, helped parents and students explore the benefits and potential pitfalls and dangers of the Internet and social media

Our thanks to all the teachers, volunteers, college students, executives, board members and educators that made this year’s Family Summit possible. We look forward to hearing about the great accomplishments of the LAUSD students for years to come!