NSBE - November/December 2008 - (Page 27)

INteRNatIONaL News A Toronto Welcomes NSBE Convention Planners Stalin Boctor, dean of engineering for Ryerson University; Cristina Amon, dean of engineering of the University of Toronto; Richard Marceau, provost of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology; David Griffiths, former president of the Jamaican Canadian Association; and Charlotta Gigliotti, senior program manager at IBM Canada. NSBE is also pushing hard to meet the 2010 convention attendance goal of 10,000 members, reports Stewart. A Passport Competition has been launched to inspire NSBE collegiate, NSBE Jr. and Alumni members to get their passports for travel to the event. Chapters with the most members – and the highest percentage of members – with passports will be eligible for 2009 Annual National Convention prizes. Proof of passport acquisition must be submitted by Friday, Dec. 26, 2008. To send submissions, or for detailed information, contact Stewart at ainsleystewartjr@yahoo.com. ■ high-level group of Canadian government officials, corporate executives, community leaders and others joined NSBE officers in October, at a reception in Toronto in support of the 2010 NSBE Annual Convention. Tourism Toronto and Toronto City Councillor Michael Thompson hosted the event for those interested in partnering with NSBE or sponsoring events during the convention, which will take place March 17–21, 2010 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. “They’re giving the Convention Planning Committee an opportunity to meet everyone we need to know to get hooked into the city,” said NSBE National 2010 Convention Planning Committee Chair Ainsley A. Stewart Jr., before the meeting. Among the meeting attendees were: Duncan H. Ross, senior executive advisor of Toronto Economic Development, Culture and Tourism; Harriet Thornhill, regional vice president of the Royal Bank of Canada; Jean Agustine, fairness commissioner for Ontario; N Regional Officer Reconnects in Ghana SBE member Carly Cobbold packed a ton of adventure into an 11-week stay in Ghana this past summer: working, and visiting relatives, six cities and the NSBE Accra Alumni Chapter. “It was definitely an amazing trip,” says Cobbold, who is a junior mechanical engineering major at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the assistant treasurer for NSBE’s Region I. Her parents are from Ghana, but her latest trip was her first in eight years to the West African nation. Cobbold had a summer job in Accra making gas cylinders for an engineering firm. During her travels around the country, she enjoyed spending time with her great-grandmother in the small village of Dunkwa, a place with few of the modern conveniences she was used to. She also sought out NSBE chapters and, after some effort, connected with some Accra Alumni members who were also members of the NSBE–Ghana National Executive Council. She got to sit in on some of the Council meetings and give some feedback. “This is the 10th year of NSBE being in Ghana, so they were planning an anniversary celebration. It was supposed to happen while I was there, but they were pressed for funding. They only needed $3,000, but for them, that’s a lot of money,” she explains. “Also, a couple of students came in who wanted to charter a new chapter. So they were talking with them about how they could get a chapter started.” “They were definitely hopeful and optimistic about the NSBE activities they were planning,” Cobbold reports. “And they wanted to know a lot about how we run things here (in the U.S.). “They have book drives and computer drives and would like to get some NSBE U.S. chapters or NSBE as a whole to help provide books and computers to the high school and college students there. They’re also interested in being pen pals,” she says. “I realized there’s a big gap between NSBE here and NSBE there,” Cobbold reports. “They definitely wanted to connect.” ■ • november/december www.nsbe.org 2008 • 27 http://www.nsbe.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NSBE - November/December 2008

NSBE - November/December 2008
Contents
How We Got Over
Obama Wins!
LaTanjia Robinson of Aerojet
Membership News: You Did It Again!
Cash In Your GPA!
NSBE-AE Signs On
Growing from One Love
New York Renaissance
Toronto Welcomes NSBE Convention Planners
Regional Officer Reconnects in Ghana
Texas A&M - College Station, NSBE's Distinguished Chpater of the Year
Lifetime Members: 118 and Counting!
NSBE Midshipmen
Vision and Change
The AE Niche
Thinking Green
Blacks in Computer Science: The Secrets of Their Success
NSBE Calendar
AE Programs Address Critical Goals
AE Members on the Move
Making Games for the Masses
Advertisers Index

NSBE - November/December 2008