With the rise of tech in the market, tomorrow’s workforce is increasingly dependent on a foundation of mathematics. While the youth is increasingly familiar with the use of internet technology, there is a big push among educators to prepare students for the development skills used to create it.
IntelliChoice was founded in 1993 here in Dallas by Professor Gil Lee, and operates to provide math tutoring to students to build up that foundation of math literacy. The organization puts special emphasis on making tutoring available to economically-disadvantaged communities.
With 31 chapters across DFW and beyond, thousands of students have benefitted from time spent with IntelliChoice tutors. The organization held a special banquet on Sunday at the campus of the University fo Texas at Dallas to recognize its volunteers and award scholarships to outstanding students.
IntelliChoice began distributing the annual scholarships in 2013.
The keynote speaker for the event was T.J. Gilmore, mayor of Lewisville. Gilmore encouraged students to look outside their occupations for ways to make a difference in their adult life.
“People will tell you your job is your passion. It’s not mine,” Gilmore said. “My job pays for my passion which is giving back to the community.And I will tell you that being mayor brings a tremendous amount of welath to me because we have two official meetings a month, and they pay us $50 per meeting … I don’t do it for the money as you can tell. I do it because it’s important to do something.”
Professor Lee recounted to the audience on how he once answered a question about the need of such programs with a slide showing the average starting salary for an engineering graduate at UTD was $81,000, and the average starting salary for a computer science major was $93,000. Laugingly, he recalled an immediate spike in enrollment. Numerous workforce studies concur that STEM-related skill sets are only expected to increase in demand in the coming years. If so, these starting salaries will only increase.
Following the dinner and remarks, scholarships for $500 were distributed to students showing promise from across the netwrok of tutoring branches.
Scholarship recipients announced on Sunday include: Nathan Abate, Hiwete Ayele, Thomas Ayele, Roderick Butler, Ananiya Demissie, Eyuel Desta, Sarah Doughtery, Amanuael Fisiha, Dahlia Fsehatsion, Essey Fsehatsion, Salama Gayem, Bezawit Getachew, Lamek Ghebreamalck, Noel Ghile, Yehab Girmay, Alazar Girmay, Arsema Girmay, Angie Graciano, Faven Habtamu, Saron Habtamu, Samuel Hagos, Jordan Hampton, Shakia Harper, Sarah Ji, Daniel Kang, Joseph Kifle, Hyunyoung Kim, Dylan LaRoche, Cano Loe, Kaden Lopez, Evan Mangrum, Natan Mehari, Iana Merritt, Joesiah Merritt, Nicholas Michell-Ortega, Destiny Morano, Amir Najm, Mekebib Naomi, Efrata Nega, Vinny Nguyen, Nayome Nigatu, Oluwasemiloba Ojerinde, Jordan Pelt, Ehlinata Reda, Rediat Samson, Naod Sium, Taylum Stafford, Julie Tak, Kebron Tewelde, Henon Tewelde, Chesky Thandeka, Robert Wheatley, Raegan Wheatley, Yohana Wondimu, and Teshome Yitzhak,
More information on IntelliChoice can be found at https://intellichoice.org.
