Youth team wins Boston
Federal Reserve contest
BY PATRICK ROCCHIO
A local team of young ladies
did their community
proud by taking home honors
at a Boston U.S. Federal
Reserve competition.
The group of three girls,
10- and 11-year-olds, tied for
fi rst place out of 17 teams in
the Boston Fed’s 2019 Global
Economic Symposium competition
for middle school
and also high school students.
The homegrown team
consisted of Giselle McGraw
of Williamsbridge, Bekah
Givan of Clason Point and
Isabella Gonzalez of Manhattan.
As part of the competition,
which took place on Friday,
February 15, the team
was required to pick a global
economics question, explain
it, give examples, and then
come up with solutions, said
the team members.
The teams were researching
weighty issues such as
food insecurity, water pollution
and air quality, said the
girls, who chose to base their
project on cybercrime.
Team Cybercrime Fighters
competed against middle
school aged teams from New
York City, Massachusetts
and Rhode Island.
The girls made a fi veminute
presentation before
a panel of judges and a
room full of spectators, fi rst
defi ning cybercrime before
stating their solution of increasing
cyber security and
developing stronger global
best practices, they said.
“These (solutions) include
fi rewalls, cyber security, and
implementing GDPR (General
Data Protection Regulation),”
said Givan, adding
that GDPR is a regulation
currently in use in England
and throughout the European
Union providing for
data protection and privacy
for individuals.
The team worked for three
months on the project, meeting
via video call on the computer
application Zoom for 45
minutes at a time to go over
their project and refi ne it, including
BRONX TIMES R 14 EPORTER, MARCH 1-7, 2019 BTR
content and slides,
said team members.
The team members said
they chose cybercrime because
it is timely and part of
their ordinary experiences.
“We picked the topic because
it is in our everyday
lives,” said McGraw. “We are
young, and we use technology
in school, for games and
in our everyday lives.”
Conveying a lot of information
in a short time period
was a challenge the
girls were able to overcome,
they said.
“We had to speak so that
people could understand us,
and do so in fi ve minutes,”
said Gonzalez.
The girls went to the symposium
before, so they had
an idea of what to expect, but
nevertheless making a presentation
of this magnitude
was something new.
“Since we had never done
anything like this before, it
was a challenge, and we are
really happy we stepped up to
(l-r) Isabella Gonzalez, Bekah Givan and Giselle McGraw after their win at
the symposium. Photo coutesy of April Horton
the challenge,” said Givan.
Gonzalez added: “It was a
great opportunity.”
The girls are already
planning on competing next
year, they said.
The young ladies took
part in programming sponsored
by World Of Money,
which fi elded a number of
teams at the competition, including
the other winning
team in the girl’s age group.
World of Money is a nonprofi
t dedicated to teaching
youth about personal fi nance
and empowering them with
immersive classroom and
mobile education.
“We cannot allow a zip
code to defi ne our students’
educational experience or
what they are capable of contributing
to our state, nation,
and global community,”
said Sabrin Lamb, World of
Money CEO and founder in a
statement.