Tahjyei Thompson – 2020 Calico Challenge Participant

Tahjyei Thompson is an aspiring front end engineer who grew up with a passion for computers. After writing his first program at the age of 16 with little to no effort, his passion from computing burned brighter than ever. Former Wolmerian and current UWI Pelican pursuing a bachelor of science with a major in Computer Science and a minor in Economics. His highest achievement to date is winning the NCB Innovation challenge where his team won the prize for best software solution in retail banking. With many more accolades behind, Tahjyei continues to live up to the Wolmerian legacy “Age Quod Agis”.

We feature Dominic Henry one of our 2020 Calico Challenge participants.

I am Dominic Henry, who is currently an Undergraduate Computer Science student at the University of the West Indies, Mona. Currently also a proud graduate of the excellent Wolmer’s Boys’ Highschool in which I completed 7 years.

I am a proud participant of the Calico Programme for Summer 2020, where I will be making contributions to the Pattoo project. I chose this project due to it’s technical nature and the depth of knowledge that it requires. These criteria helped me to choose this project as I excel in and love complex problems. The main goal of contributing to this project is to utilize concepts that I’ve learned during my time at UWI, as well as, to also broaden my field of knowledge in the scope of producing production ready software.

In my spare time I spend a lot of time reading and watching informative resources. This is especially important to me as I love to make informed decisions and have well formulated opinions on a given topic. I also spend a lot of my time managing my finances and increasing my knowledge on how to effectively invest and grow wealth.

My goals and aspirations beyond Calico and University is to be an innovator of sorts, and to push the Jamaican science and technological landscape. I would like to achieve through entrepreneurial ventures and scientific research.

We feature Laurell Seville one of our 2020 Calico Challenge participants.

My name is Laurell Seville. I went to Ardenne High School in Jamaica and graduated with 9 CXC subjects. I currently attend the University of Technology Jamaica, majoring in Computer Science.

I began working with the Palisadoes foundation in June 2020. I became familiar with the organization through the Calico Program, an initiative meant to give students in Jamaica experience working on real world projects. I am currently working as a back-end developer for the API for the Talawa Mobile App. This application is meant to be a project management application for organizations such as churches and local businesses. I am currently working with another developer on the API which is implemented in graphql with Node js.

I am interested in a lot of areas but my main interest is AI specifically Machine Learning and how it can be used to benefit a small island nation such as jamaica. Machine Learning, though it has its downsides, can be used to increase the efficiency of operations and tasks, this can be especially useful when resources are scarce and money is hard to come by. Automation is one of the ways in which machine learning achieves this. Automation can be especially useful in the public sector where agencies and departments are often understaffed due to budget-cuts. s

I am currently focused on learning how to implement Machine Learning using Javascript, as this is the language I have the most experience with. Eventually my goal is to build a portfolio of full stack machine learning based projects which use javascript on the backend and a js based framework, react on the front-end. If all goes well I may even create mobile application versions of my projects using react native. My hope is that creating this portfolio will provide me with the experience needed to actually build something that can really impact the industry, both locally and globally.

Our 2020 Calico Challenge has begun! We have nine participating students each with one or more mentors from Jamaican software development companies. In this video we show the progress on the Pattoo Mobile project. The app will eventually allow users to track data from various sources and view the results in charts and graphs. All code is automatically tested before going into production to make sure it works correctly without crashing.

We feature Shannon Henry one of our 2020 Calico Challenge participants.

My name is Shannon Henry. I am currently a third-year student at the University of Technology, Jamaica, majoring in Computer Science. I was accepted into the Calico challenge in May 2020.  I chose to apply as I relish the challenge that this job has to offer. It is also timely as I am aim to gaining additional experience in the field, since my graduation date was fast approaching. Through research, I found that this program was the best option for me to apply what I have learned in my courses, gain first-hand experience, tackle challenges and make a substantial impact on the project I was given the opportunity to work on.

I have a wide range of interests, mainly, Cyber security, independent game development, and learning new languages. Thus, applying for the Calico challenge was a step in the right direction, in facilitating said interests. Ultimately, I plan to pursue a career in cyber security or digital forensics, and I am currently pursuing certifications in both fields.

Beyond programming, I enjoy exploring my country, playing video games, watching anime, and reading novels and manga.

Finally, even though I am currently focused on programming, being a risk taker, I see my passion in technology leading me to Japan, which is experiencing a rise in the Cyber security field, to furthermore expand my knowledge in the field whilst fulfilling my dream of not only living in Japan but doing a job a love.