Blog – Serenze Global

Blog

Introducing the Serenze Global Class of 2022

We are very happy to introduce to you the Serenze Global Class of 2022!

Earlier this year, we announced our second annual technology education grant. Our goal again this year is to help 100 people improve their lives, their careers, and their communities through technology education.

As part of our mission, we focus on individuals who are currently under-represented in the IT industry. We’re also specifically focusing on individuals who have experienced hardships as a result of the global pandemic this year.

Ultimately, we’re hoping to help cultivate the next generation of tech community leaders by providing them with the skills they need to succeed through free access to technology education.

So, to help you better understand our students and their various backgrounds, we’d like to introduce you to the Serenze Global Class of 2022.

First, we have students by their years in the program. As you can see in the chart above, we had 20 returning students from last year and 80 new students this year. We had over half of our existing students request to return to the program, but we had over 1,500 new applicants this year, so we were only able to retain the top 20 students.

Second, we have students by their age. As you can see from the chart above, the majority of our students are in their 20s and 30s. However, we have one teenage student and 3 students in their 50s this year.

Third, we have students by their gender. We have 67 male students and 31 female students this year. We feel that is a good ratio given that we had four times as many male applicants as female applicants. In addition, we have our first transgender students joining us this year.

Fourth, we have students by their ethnicity. For the 2nd year in a row, the vast majority of our students (over 90%) are of African (Black) origins. We also have 5 students of Asian origins, one Latino student, and a few other ethnicities from subgroups in Africa.

Fifth, we have students by their education level. The majority of our students again this year have 4-year degrees. However, we also have some students with high-school educations, master’s degrees, and a few students with doctoral degrees.

Sixth, we have students by their employment status. The majority of our students this year are currently unemployed – so we’re hoping to change that status by the end of the year. In addition, we have several students who are currently attending university and some that are employed full-time, part-time, or self-employed.

Seventh, we have students by country. As you can see, we had a tremendous number of applicants from Nigeria again this year. However, we also have students from several new countries joining us this year as well. We love how this program is spreading locally via word of mouth and across the world via the internet.

Just to see how far-reaching the word of this opportunity was in Nigeria again this year, here’s a chart of students by their city in Nigeria. As you can see, this was (once again) a country-wide initiative to spread the word to various communities.

Finally, here’s a map to help you visualize the reach of our global technology education program. The map below contains all of our current students and alumni from last year’s program. As you can see, this program has affected the lives of over 100 people on every continent in the world (excluding Antarctica).

Over the next few years, we want to have this entire map filled with students from every country in the world. With your help, we believe we can achieve this goal.

Best of luck to the students in our Class of 2022 this year!

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Announcing Our 2022 Technology Education Grant

Serenze Global is excited to announce our Technology Education Grant for 2022!

We’re looking for highly motivated self-learners who want to improve their lives, their families, and their communities through careers in tech.

Our grant provides free technology education to under-represented individuals to help them gain the education they need to enter the tech workforce.

This year, we will continue to place additional focus on helping individuals who are dealing with economic hardships created by the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Each grant recipient will receive:

To apply, please fill out the online application before Dec 15, 2021. We will contact you before Jan 1, 2022 to let you know if you’ve been selected to receive the grant.

Please help us spread the word to inform others in your community about this great educational opportunity.

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Student with Interest in Energy Joins Class of ’21, Earns Valuable Certification

Toheeb of Nigeria

As a student of Petroleum and Gas Engineering at the University of Lagos in Nigeria, Toheeb learned about machine learning and the ecosystem. It fueled his desire to take on the challenges of data science and machine learning, spurring him to apply for a Serenze Global grant.

“The more I learned about machine learning, the more I realized that the possibilities are endless and the more I became interested in it,” he said.

Toheeb’s passion for energy lead him to pursue the career in petroleum and gas engineering. He discovered the gas industry is becoming more technology-oriented and encourages the application of machine learning and data science for more efficiency.

Although Toheeb had already taken some free courses on Pluralsight, he had a desire to learn more and liked the structured learning paths on Pluralsight but could not afford to join the e-learning platform. He was awarded the Serenze Global grant in January 2021, which has given him access to Pluralsight to further pursue his passion.

“The grant has been helpful to me not only because I have a premium account but also that I get to meet people from other places who are interested in the same thing,” said Toheeb. “The opportunity was introduced to me by a colleague who then became my accountability partner with whom I have learnt a lot about time management. He helped me stay motivated through my learning process and made sure I met my set target for the month.”

Since becoming a Serenze Global student, Toheeb also participated in the Microsoft Ignite Challenge to earn a voucher to take a professional exam. He completed the challenge, earned his voucher and was able to take the Designing and Implementing Data Science Solution in Microsoft Azure exam. He’s excited to announce he passed the exam and became a Microsoft Certified Data Scientist Associate.

He has also gone on to publish articles on Hashnode.

– Written by Emily A. Roush

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Webinar: Best Practices for Hybrid Events

Join us Friday, Jun 18, 2021 at 08:00 AM (Pacific Time) for a free 1-hour webinar on best practices for running hybrid events presented by Matthew Renze and Heather Wilde.

We just spent the past two weeks hosting three 2-day hybrid events for the US Air Force and Space Force. It was essentially a crash course in running hybrid events without any playbook to go by!

We took a very Lean/Agile approach to the hybrid events. We ran a bunch of experiments, we gathered feedback, we learned from our mistakes, and we pivoted each day based on what we learned. As a result, we’ve learned a ton about what works well and what doesn’t work well for hybrid events.

So, we were thinking it might be valuable to share this knowledge with the rest of our friends in the conference organizer community. We’re hoping that we might be able to save everyone a bunch of time, money, and stress by sharing what we learned from our successes and failures.

The webinar will be 30 minutes of presentation by followed by 30 minutes of Q&A and open discussion.

We’re specifically targeting technology conference organizers for this event. However, everyone is welcome to join.

Please help spread the word to other event organizers in your community.

You can watch the video of this webinar here:
https://youtu.be/Vj-WxG5QCu0

You can view the slides for this webinar here:
https://serenzeglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Best-Practices-for-Hybrid-Events.pdf


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Webinar: The AI Developer’s Toolkit

Join us Friday, June 28 at 8:00am (Pacific Time) for a free 1-hour webinar on The AI Developer’s Toolkit presented by Matthew Renze.

In this webinar, you’ll learn about all of the tools in the modern AI developer’s toolkit. We’ll survey a wide variety of tools for performing automated tasks with tables, text, audio, images, video, and more.

You’ll learn how to use machine learning, deep learning, and reinforcement learning to solve a variety of real-world problems. In addition, you’ll learn how to compose these models together to build modular AI applications and cyber-physical systems.

If you’re looking for a quick survey of everything that you can currently do with state-of-the-art AI, without getting into all of the math, code, or vendor specifics, then this session is right for you!

You can view a recording of this webinar here:
https://youtu.be/DWn_VAgfSHs

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Webinar: Preparing Your Career for AI

Join us on Friday, Feb 26, 2021 at 08:00 AM (Pacific Time) for a 1-hour webinar on Preparing Your Career for AI presented by Matthew Renze.

In this webinar, you’ll learn the five things you should be doing today to prepare for the coming wave of AI-enabled automation:

1. Educate yourself about AI
2. Update your career for AI
3. Invest in an AI-first economy
4. Use AI ethically and responsibly
5. Adapt to what comes next

The future belongs to those who are willing to invest in AI now. Don’t get left behind!

You can view a recording of the webinar here:
https://youtu.be/OawaWzdV7nU

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Introducing the Serenze Global Class of 2021

We are very happy to introduce our Serenze Global Class of 2021!

Earlier this year, we announced our 2021 Technology Education Grant. Our goal was to help 100 people improve their lives, their careers, and their communities in 2021. We focused specifically on technology education because we feel that this is the best way to help our students achieve their goals.

As part of our mission, we focused on individuals who were under-represented in the IT industry. In addition, we also focused on helping those who have experience hardships as a result of the global pandemic. We were also looking for individuals who share our belief that we can make the world a better place through technology, education, and community.

So, we’d like to introduce you to the recipients of our Technology Education Grant this year — our Serenze Global Class of 2021.

First, in the chart below, we have our students by their final grant application status. We accepted over 80% of all of the applicants we received this year.

Next, let’s take a look at students by age. We have students ranging from teenagers to seniors, with the majority of our applicants in their 20s and 30s.

Third, we have students by their gender. We were hoping for more female applicants — in fact, almost all of our targeted marketing efforts were geared towards women. However, we’re going to work even harder next year to increase our gender diversity.

Fourth, we have students by race/ethnicity. We had a lot of applicants of Black or African origins followed by Asians and various other ethnicities. We were very happy to see such a diverse array of applicants from various backgrounds.

Fifth, we have students by education level. The majority of our students have 4-year degrees. However, we also have some high school graduates, 2-year degrees, and a few students with Master’s degrees and one with a Ph.D.

SIxth, we have students by country of residence. We have a large number of students from Nigeria this year. In fact, word of the grant spread very quickly in Nigeria. So, thank you to everyone who spread the word about this opportunity!

Just to show how wide-spread the word of this opportunity was in the country of Nigeria, here’s a chart of students by their city in Nigeria. As you can see, this was a country-wide initiative to spread the word to various communities. Once again, excellent work to everyone who helped spread the word about this grant.

Finally, here’s a map to help you better visualize the reach of our global initiative. As you can see, we have applicants from every continent in the world — except for Antarctica. Next year, we’re hoping to have this entire map filled with students. With your help, we believe that we can achieve this goal.

We wish our entire Class of 2021 all the best in achieving their educational and career goals this year!

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Announcing Our 2021 Technology Education Grant

Serenze Global is excited to announce our Technology Education Grant for 2021!

We’ve teamed up with Pluralsight One to provide technology-education grants to help 100 people enter the tech workforce in 2021.

This year, we are focusing primarily on helping individuals who are under-represented in the tech industry as well as those who are dealing with economic hardships as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Grant recipients will receive a free one-year subscription to Pluralsight’s entire catalog of online courses and learning resources. In addition, they will become part of our “Class of 2021” online learning community.

To apply, please fill out the online application before Dec 31, 2020. We will contact you before Jan 15, 2021 to let you know if you’ve been selected to receive the grant.

Please help us spread the word (using the link below) to inform others in your community about this great educational opportunity!

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Unicorn Whisperer Uses Latest Book Launch to Support STEM Diversity Nonprofit

“Birth of a Unicorn”, the latest book by author Heather Wilde, has launched this week on the crowdfunding platform Publishizer. 100% of the proceeds going to 501(c)3 Nonprofit Serenze Global.

“Birth of a Unicorn – Six Basic Steps to Success”, the latest book by award-winning author Heather Wilde, has launched this week for pre-order on the crowdfunding platform, Publishizer. She has announced that 100% of the proceeds of book sales will go to nonprofit Serenze Global to create a grants program for continuing-education STEM workshops, training, and courses.

Wilde explains, “We have a blockage in our STEM pipeline — it’s a barrier built up by gender, socioeconomic status and lack of access to education. Serenze Global wants to help level that playing field.”

With the recent rise in media coverage around interpersonal relationships and mental health for business owners, Birth of a Unicorn’s subject matter is a hot topic and a must-read for Entrepreneurs.

“Birth of a Unicorn – Six Basic Steps to Success” is now available on Publishizer at https://pszr.co/bVzHe

“Birth of a Unicorn” is the true-life account of a young woman who leaves her “normal” life behind to travel the world — while creating one of the world’s most beloved startups, working on her relationship, and discovering her true voice. What emerges is a lasting friendship, a billion-dollar company, and an understandable framework of success for others to replicate.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Award-winning “Unicorn Whisperer” and CTO Heather Wilde was the eighth employee of Evernote, advises Fortune 500 companies and startups alike, and writes about all of it for Inc and Forbes.

To learn more about, Heather Wilde, visit https://heathriel.com

ABOUT SERENZE GLOBAL

Serenze Global is a 501(c)3 Nonprofit organization based in Las Vegas, NV to utilize STEM education to create a more informed public understanding and appreciation of future events, ideas, and cultures.

Media Contact
Company Name: Serenze Global
Contact Person: Serene Richardson
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 408-786-5758
Country: USA
Website: https://pszr.co/bVzHe

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