Bloomington Pantagraph, 8/29/2016 (Joel Johnson, Sidhearth Panda, Suraj Sunkara, Jordan Stipp)

From left are BDPA-CIL president Marcus Barbee, BDPA member Theonnie Shields, BDPA-CIL HSCC coordinator Joel Johnson, Normal Community HS students Sidhearth Panda, Suraj Sunkara and Jordan Stipp. The three teens placed in 3rd place in the national HSCC in Atlanta, GA.

NCHS Students Score Third in National Computer Competition. Three Twin City high school students showcased their technology and communication skills at the recent national High School Computer Competition (HSCC) in Atlanta, Ga., netting third place. Joel Johnson is the coordinator and instructor for the local HSCC club, hosted by Black Data Processing Associates Central Illinois Chapter, a non-profit organization.

“We recruit students from Bloomington-Normal high schools to learn at our training academy. The goal of the program is to encourage African Americans to get into IT (Information Technology), but we will educate any student that wants to learn,” said Johnson, who also works as a system analyst at State Farm.

The academy members meet three times a month, October through April. The students learn basic web page construction, java script and database creation for websites.

Read the full Bloomington Pantagraph article.