Students in the district use technology to further interests and possible careers.

For the second year in a row, LPS is promoting technology through two different events; HackEd, hosted at LHS and Tech Night, hosted at LNHS. Both of these events involve technology, but in different ways. They were both started by the Technology for Tomorrow club (T4T), which was formed last year with the goal of introducing more students to computer sciences classes.

“[HackEd] is a 24 hour coding event in which groups form, take an idea on how to solve a problem and design a solution with code involved,” club sponsor Angela Klein said. “They don’t complete [the coding], it’s all about the idea and presenting the idea.”

Students involved with T4T feel that HackEd is important in helping students get involved in computer science classes and technology at the high school.

“It’s a great opportunity that gets you engaged with technology, especially if you’re into coding or design practices,” senior Tyler Tetens said. “You also get mentorship that will help you further those two [skills].”

HackEd took place November 15 and 16 at LHS.

“The Tech Night is a two hour event at LNHS,” senior Nathan Mills said. “The purpose is to teach the students about technology that they have the capability of being able to use. We’ll have a couple main speakers that will talk for a little while and then some individual sessions to go to and learn from.”

Tech Night will have a variety of speakers to educate students and get them excited about technology.

“This year we’re having one of the executives from Sprint who’s going to talk about the technology used at Sporting KC,” Klein said. “Then we have a young lady coming to talk about what opportunities there are for girls in technology.”

The Tech Night took place November 6 at LNHS. Students and faculty alike see these events as having a lasting impact, possibly even for years to come.

“I think it’s important for students to be able to see what opportunities are in the technology field,” Mills said.

“We have several companies in the KC area and in the country who can’t hire enough talent,” Klein said. “And so we are not producing enough people who know how to create solutions with technology and computers. So they have to get other people outside of our country to do the work because we don’t have enough talent here in the US to cover the need. So we’re just trying to encourage people to code and that it’s not that hard. The hard part is understanding what you need to code.”