The Education Committee’s activities relate to education in a broad sense, except those covered by other conference committees. Thus, the committee has included the following activities at the conference, taking care to minimize conflict with other interesting conference activities.

1. Saturday, 2-3pm, Hall B 308 (subject to change), Math Competition for  School Students
   The committee has been approached by a representative of an organization, named “myQBook” that offers Math skill enhancement programs. They are offering six months of free access to their materials for our audience, and have offered to conduct a competition for 3rd through 12th graders (and also possibly 1st and 2nd graders) at the ATA 2012 conference. Students can start taking advantage of their six month free offer by signing up at www.myqbook.com using the ambassador code “INDQBOOK”.
2. Saturday, 3:15-5pm, Hall B 308 (subject to change), Telugu Fonts, Tools, and Software Workshop
   The workshop will cover details on using various Telugu fonts, tools, and software that are available.  Suresh Kolichala has extensive experience in this area and works closely with “eemaata” Telugu web magazine.  He has introduced Telugu in Unicode at eemaata, and has also created a search feature in Telugu at the site.He is also a member of The Unicode Consortium, and was responsible for adding 14 new characters to the Telugu Unicode character set.
3. Sunday, 3-5pm, Hall B 308 (subject to change), College Application Process Panel
   This panel will be of interest to college-bound students, as they enter high school and plan for college, as well as their parents.  It covers details on the college application process, requirements, preparation, the SAT test, financial aid, scholarships, etc.  There will also be time for questions.  Dr. FarrokhMistree is currently Director of School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, and L.A. Comp Chair at the University of Oklahoma, Norman.  Previously, he was Associate Chair of the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech.  Dr. VenuDasigi has been Department Chair of Computer Science and Software Engineering at Southern Polytechnic State University in Atlanta, and is in the process of assuming the position of Chair of Computer Science at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.  He has offered an SAT preparation course one of more times every summer since 2006 at the Hindu Temple of Atlanta.

In addition, the education committee plans to include articles in the 2012 ATA Conference souvenir on education-related topics, specifically:

• Useful websites, tutoring, and other services for kids’ education (in a  very broad sense)
• Enhancing the status of Telugu as a recognized foreign language for high schools and colleges.