East LA Latinos Get a Dose of Tech at Tecnificate
The 9th Tecnificate conference was held this past Saturday October 26th at the East LA College in partnership with Univision Radio’s Recuerdo 98.3 and 103.9 FM. Tecnifícate is a free, one day event that openly invites the Hispanic community, for a day full of advice on how to leverage technology to find jobs, protect your family online, grow your business and better your children’s education, among other important topics.
“This is a unique event where Latinos come to learn technology, in Spanish”, said Ariel Coro, founder of Tecnifícate and keynote speaker and MC for the event, who speaks technology like it’s his primary language, and is passionate about helping others to do the same. “Here we are (as a community), learning the abilities and skills we need to survive in the modern world”, added the technology expert for Despierta América and author of, El Salto – aprovecha las nuevas tecnologías y alcanza tu potencial (The Leap – Leverage new technologies and reach your potential).
Coro and other speakers at the event shared how future technologies will impact our lives, such as 3D printing, commercial drones, self-driving automobiles, advanced robotics, wearable technology, machines that learn, regenerative medicine, automated agriculture, among other emerging trends and tools that will serve us to advance our lives.
Dr. Tomás Valdéz, Chemical Engineer for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), also spoke of future technologies, a scientist’s perspective. He also shared his journey from East LA to NASA and his unique experience of being mentored by renown Hispanic teacher Jaime Escalante. Melissa Rivera, director and actress, shared her journey to produce her very own YouTube series, Rag Dolls and talked about her challenges and how she was able to overcome them with the latest consumer accessible technologies.
Coro later concluded the event with a presentation focusing on practical resources for education, such as MOOCS (Massive Open Online Courses) like Coursera, Udacity and the new Khan Academy now available in Spanish and useful apps, tools and websites that can be used for small businesses to raise money, manage the business, sell online and much more. The conference also featured prizes such as a Sony laptop, an iPad, video and photo cameras, and family tickets to Disneyland, Universal Studios, Aquarium of the Pacific, among other rewards for attending.
Tecnifícate continues to garner media attention and attract more speakers, sponsors, celebrities and collaborators who believe in the growing need of furthering technology education for Hispanics.
Cosette Torres
Ariel Coro