Tech Trek

 

The Fremont Branch sponsors seventh-grade girls from the Tri-City area to attend Tech Trek summer camp each year. Girls are nominated by their Math and Science teachers and are selected through a rigorous application and interview process. The selected girls attend a one-week residential STEM program at one of several Northern California universities. The Tech Trek scholarships, at $1,200 per participant, are funded by the Branch through donations from our members, supporters and local businesses that value the importance of gender equity in STEM. Learn more about it HERE


2023 Tech Trek Girls Conclude Program

By Randy Fewel, President of Foundation For Local Scholarships 

This year’s group of Tech Trek girls will be at the end of Fremont’s Tech Trek program after they speak at the Fall Brunch about their summer experiences at Sonoma State and at the virtual Tech Trek camp.

Attending the brunch will be Akshara Mareedu and Emily Tran-French, from Itliong Vera Cruz Middle School; Camila Escamilla and Sarah Bacosa, from Cesar Chavez Middle School; and Shanvi Gupta, Jerusha Prabhudass, and Keerthana Krithivasan, from Walters Middle School.

Tech Trek is a STEM summer camp for seventh-grade girls. The Foundation For Local Scholarships efforts for Tech Trek are year-round. We begin by targeting Title I middle schools, which are schools known to have families in lower economic areas. Each September the Tech Trek committee informs the middle school STEM teachers about Tech Trek, and by December we ask each identified school to nominate two girls for a scholarship to our Tech Trek summer camp.

After the girls are selected, in January and February, they are introduced to an online program called CampDocs that is driven by AAUW CA. Then the nominees write an essay and begin the registration process to be considered for Tech Trek. After we receive the student essays, we interview the girls in February and March, then make our decisions about which girls will be most appropriate for our Tech Trek scholarships.

In June, the Tech Trek scholarship winners are invited to an Ice Cream Social to meet girls and their parents from the other local schools. Parents are asked to pay $50 and the rest of the expense for the camp is paid to AAUW CA Tech Trek in the student’s name. This year our designated camp was Cal State University Sonoma; it cost $1,200 for each camper.

A virtual camp is also run by the AAUW, attended this year by Sarah Bacosa. Virtual camp is a fully dedicated week with evening sessions that cover the same kind of activities as those done at the regular summer camp.

Alumni Tech Trekkers are invited to continue their relationship with AAUW by helping to inform and support the newer Tech Trekkers at the June ice cream social and to assist in other AAUW Fremont Branch activities.


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