Each year, over 150 New York City youth from programs throughout the five boroughs compete in the premier showcase of digital media and technology projects designed by youth, for the betterment of the world.
Just because we are stuck at home, doesn't mean we can't team together during this challenging time to honor and celebrate our students, their innovative ideas and their hard work over this school year. With that in mind, the 12th annual Emoti-Con NYC Youth Digital Media & Technology Challenge is now a VIRTUAL project fair and competition for young people who believe in digital innovation as a tool for positive change in the world around them.
Emoti-Con is a culminating showcase of the creative work produced all year within the in- and after-school programs of the Hive NYC learning network, and at public schools participating in CS4ALL NYC and other DOE programs.
Competing projects are reviewed by judges and peers. Winners could earn one or more digital badges.
Errol King was born and raised in the Bronx, NY. He is a self taught creative technologist, game designer and social entrepreneur. His career started in communications and tech strategy for social justice movements. He later became the Director of Online Organizing & New Media at 1199SEIU, the largest local union in the US. In this role, he used tech to improve the lives of 400,000 low wage healthcare workers across five states. Inspired by maker culture, he left this work to pursue his passion for education and technology. He co-founded Hidden Level Games, an indie gaming studio focused on transforming players into creators. Over the last two years, he designed and developed a virtual world where students can build and share games via the cloud. He is also the co-author of CodePop, a tweet-sized game programming language. Using this platform he has toured the world teaching design thinking and game programming to youth. Errol was named a Tech Week Top 100 most influential people in New York for 2014. He is now at Google working on a team focused on cultivating the next generation of awe-inspiring leaders in computer science from Black and Latino communities.
All of Abigail's career changes have been motivated by play - her interest in education, her pivot into playful learning technologies, and even her time at ESPN have been focused on making play accessible, digital, and delightful. Abigail is a playful, pragmatic product manager who strongly believes that products should be enjoyable AND useful, whether your users are toddlers, adults, or learners of any age. She has a Master’s degree in Digital Media Design for Learning from New York University, and served as a Peace Corps education volunteer in West Africa from 2010 to 2012.
Amanda is an Emoti-con committee member and holds the title of head ninja of the Aluminati advisory committee for the event. She first participated in Emoti-con as a student back in 2014 with her Mouse design team. Since graduating high school she has continued to be involved in the event every year since. Certified weirdo who loves quirky things.
Bio Coming Soon.
Andrea Ferrero is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Pockets Change, an education organization that uses hip hop pedagogy to build financial capability with K-12 students, families, and educators. She is also a board member of California Jump$tart Coalition, finding innovative ways to make money more approachable in classrooms. She’s enjoyed over a decade of teaching PreK-12th grade, coaching educators, and designing award winning educational programs and digital products.
Azfar Rizvi worked at the intersection of narratives, policy, and tech for the past 10 years. Recently led a content project at Google. Currently consulting on an Amazon mini series for its third season.
"BiaSciLab is a 13 year old hacker, maker and international speaker. She spoke on election security at DefCamp in Romania, was the youngest speaker at H.O.P.E. and has spoken multiple times at DEFCON. She received national attention when she hacked the voting system at DEFCON 26, this was recently highlighted at the Congressional Hearing on Election Security. She is also the Founder and CEO of Girls Who Hack, teaching girls the skills of hacking so that they can change the future. She has also started Secure Open Vote and is building an end to end election system."
Charlie is a Systems Tools engineer at Verizon Wireless. He creates full stack applications for other engineering to track their progress in constructing cell sites and 5G nodes in the New York Metro area. He loves OOP and distributed systems.
Chloe Koo is a multidisciplinary designer who works at IBM Watson as a Visual UX Designer and Founder of HugMatch. As a designer, she aspires to design things that are emotionally rich and grounded in meaning. She loves to come up with designs involving new technologies and innovations.
Danny Jimenez AKA Mr. J is a Library Information Assistant at New York Public Library's Bronx Library Center branch, where he conducts a myriad of programs for teens ages 13-17. He has over a decade of experience in the IT field as a former member of the Department of Education. He served as a School Computer Technology Specialist at Fiorello H. La Guardia Highschool aka The Fame School. In his tenure there he furthered his love of the arts and technology. Through NYPL he seeks to up the literacy of the whole world!
Deren Guler is a technologist, designer, and educator who's work focuses on designing accessible technology solutions and tools. She is the founder of the brand Teknikio, a line of creative electronic parts and kits for future inventors. She is also Adjunct Faculty in the Design and Technology department at Parsons the New School for Design and leads workshops around designing for the future around the world.
Emily Gregor is an experienced copy editor, content marketer, and branding expert. A pro when it comes to ideation and strategy, she's worked in digital and print publishing, social media marketing, email marketing, video production, event management, and event production. She is passionate about diversity and inclusion and helping the next generation of leaders in tech!
Eric J Lewis is the Engineer Of Things at Power Home Remodeling, Hacker, Programmer and Maker. Member of DEFCON 610, TOOOL, and 2600. When he is not breaking things, he likes to teach others programming, fixing, hacking and other useful skills.
Gina is a former special education teacher passionate about engineering education. She has worked with the HIVE NYC community to create learning communities that support innovative learning experiences. Gina also has experience leveraging the design process to engage in Design Based Research at the University of Washington. Currently, Gina works with NYCDOE DIIT as an Ed Tech Implementation Manager with a focus on leveraging technology to get to know each student well.
Holly Tienken is an Assistant Professor in the Communication Design department at Kutztown University. Holly received her BFA from Kutztown University and her MFA from the School of Visual Arts. In addition to teaching, she is also an independent designer focused on branding for hospitality and real estate markets. In 2007 she co-founded Bag the Habit, a line of reusable shopping solutions made from 100% eco-textiles and introduce an interactive, educational program WE CREATE THE FUTURE designed to teach positive “reusable” habits to students.
Ilana Weiss is writer and interactive designer with a background in psychology and learning design. She has worked on interactive educational products for both adults and students. She is passionate about using educational media and technology to enhance content knowledge and social-emotional skills.
Ischia Bravo serves as District Manager for Bronx Community Board 7 (CB7). As the only Latina and woman of color serving as District Manager among the 12 Community Boards in the Bronx, one of her main priorities is to ensure that underrepresented and underserved groups in her community are informed of, and have access to, vital resources and services provided by local government and community based organizations. Through her work, in partnership with CB7 leadership, the Board serves as unique vehicle to organize and amplify the voice of community residents to weigh in on important issues impacting their neighborhoods and to ensure that local residents have a seat at the table during these transformative discussions issues including affordable housing, economic development, workforce investment, and City services.
Bio Coming Soon.
Joey focuses on strengthening his community and making a positive impact on society, especially for our world's most important change-makers: students. His current job working for the Facebook Education Modernization Team gives him the opportunity to support students across the nation through its many programs and initiatives. Joey always encourages others to follow their passion, and he knows that leading by example will build a stronger world.
Jonah Brucker-Cohen. Ph.D., is an award winning researcher, artist, writer, and Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Networked Culture in the department of Journalism and Media Studies at Lehman College, CUNY. He was a designer in residence at the New York hall of Science and two of his artworks are in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. His work has been exhibited at venues such as San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, MOMA New York, ICA London, Palais du Tokyo,Tate Modern, Ars Electronica, Whitney Museum of American Art, Transmediale, and others.
Juliana earned their BFA in Art & Design from the Stamps School at the University of Michigan and their MS in Historic Preservation from Eastern Michigan University, and is currently working on their EdD at the University of Illinois. Juliana’s creative work aims to highlight the subject of gender-inequality in both the private and public sectors, and includes overtones of satire mixed with museum exhibition and historic architectural references. They founded Triangle Worship in 2016 as a non-gendered lifestyle label that creates products celebrating color and material, with a humorous nod.
Lorelle Reid is the head of Global Technical Operations at Outbrain. Outbrain is the world's leading performance-driven discovery and native advertising platform. A former runway model, Lorelle studied Computer Science at Fordham University and became a full-stack software engineer working with companies such as: R/GA, Nike, Verizon, Samsung, L’Oréal & Pepsi. She is a national speaker for Girls Who Code, an iMentor, and mentors over 60 young women through various associations. Her message is “you do not have to look a certain way to succeed a certain way”.
Oscar is an award winning multidisciplinary designer & technologist and founder of delasign. His work is sold in over 30 countries by the Museum of Modern Art and can be found in over 200 Apple stores around the world. He has worked on high-profile projects such as the Apple Watch Nike+ and has been interviewed by El Mundo.
English major and educator turned techie. Two weeks after graduating college I changed my career path from English to Tech. The reason for the drastic change was a failing laptop. In my last semester my laptop crashed while I was in the middle of typing up my paper. Getting a new laptop was not an option, so I did research on how to nurse my MacBook back to health. In my findings I learned how to upgrade the hardware and use the command line. That piqued my interest and began my quest into the world of tech. By the time graduation rolled around I found a full stack web development course and enrolled into it, where I spent 10 months learning the fundamentals of web development. Since then, I went on to work for Girls Who Code as a Teacher, Morgan Stanley as a Training specialist. Now, I am currently with the NYPL as their Youth Technology Programs Associate. At NYPL I have a lot of fun learning all the “tools” [tech] we use for our youth, supporting our librarians who use them in their branches, and collaborating with my team and librarians on activity content using our tools for the young patrons.
Rudy Blanco served as the Director of Digital Learning overseeing new and innovative ventures in technology and education. As Director of Digital Learning, Rudy has managed and overseen several projects related to the use of technology for learning, career exploration and development. Rudy has managed partnerships with organizations like Google, The New York Video Game Critics Circle, Here to Here and Mouse. Currently, Rudy is working on opening up one of the first gaming spaces in the Bronx called BX Start meant for community members to explore career pathways into the gaming industry.
As a Community Manager at Fullstack Academy, Sam gets to work with cool people all day and make unexpected connections. This goes back to his days of hosting theme parties. In his career, he has worked with such wonderful folks as Sesame Street, Sony Legacy, eMusic, and Mouse. For more information, please visit him.
Sarah is a recent graduate of Lehigh University where she received a dual degree in Computer Science and Business with a minor in Entrepreneurship. She is now working as a software engineer at Google working on the open source Nomulus Registry for top-level domains. Sarah is a proud member of the Lime Connect Network and the Disability-Alliance Employee Resource Group at Google. Sarah is passionate about creating accessible products, especially for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
My expertise is in websites and web-related experiences. Sometimes I build them to experience the code and keep abreast of modern development. Most of the time I architect them. I help develop ideas for the web - to explore who they are for, what they will do, and how best to bring them to life. This blends disciplines of design, website technology, information architecture, and user experience. I then detail how a website will be built, the technologies used, and ensure best practices are employed.
Tiffany is a Design Educator at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. With a background in design and a passion for education, she inspires learners from New York's five boroughs and beyond to think critically about the the physical and social world around them, and feel empowered through Design to make positive change.
Emoti-Con! is made possible through the support of our generous sponsors and supports youth-serving organizations throughout NYC. Download our PDF to learn about becoming an Emoti-Con! sponsor.
