Vidette Online, 9/14/2016 (Basheer Becerra, Joel Johnson)

Basheer Becerra

ISU Student Helps Local High School Place Third. The Black Data Processing Associates (BDPA) Central Illinois High School Computer Competition (HSCC) team placed third out of 15 teams at the BDPA National Conference with the help of one Illinois State University sophomore.

Basheer Becerra is studying computer sciences at ISU and said that when the opportunity to be a mentor to high school students presented itself, he was more than willing.

“During my freshman year when I [had] just joined BDPA, I was looking for some non-profit organizations to get involved with to help mentor students,” Becerra said. “Then I received an email from Joel Johnson, and he said we have opportunities available for Information Technology mentorship, so it was just what I was looking for. I joined immediately and Joel introduced me to the program.”

Read the rest of the Vidette Online article.

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.