Laurie Carey

Education October 1, 2020

With COVID reshaping IT, Syosset startups hit stride

By GREGORY ZELLER // If you thought the computer-savvy were in demand before the pandemic, better re-check those spreadsheets: Digitation has soared, and with it the need for skilled coders and programmers. This is brilliant news for We Connect the Dots and the Nebula Academy, the Syosset-based brainchildren of founder Laurie Carey on an ongoing mission to educate new generations of software specialists, in direct response to evolving workforce needs. Both We Connect (a nonprofit…

IT February 11, 2020

Boot camp rewrites the workforce development code

By GREGORY ZELLER // They’re connecting important new dots at the Nebula Academy, where an innovative approach to software development is answering a 21st century workforce challenge. You don’t need an Excel spreadsheet to know coders, programmers and other software specialists are in high demand; the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook projects a 21 percent surge in software-development jobs between 2018 and 2028, easily outpacing national averages. And developers bring home the…

Newsletters January 10, 2020

No. 465: In which Pathways emerge, Qunnect connects, Hoplite hops to it and BNL accelerates, big time

Like magic: Blink and you might have missed it, dear readers, as the first full workweek of 2020 nears its end and we approach an unusually warm winter weekend. That voodoo that you do: It’s Friday, Jan. 10, on Planet Earth, and to our many readers in Benin – the tiny West African nation known best as the birthplace of voodoo – a spirit-pleasing Fête du Vodoun. Here in the States, no voodoo dolls…

Education October 15, 2019

Bold step has ambitious STEM startup thinking global

By GREGORY ZELLER // A muddled marketing message hasn’t stopped We Connect the Dots from changing lives across Long Island – but sharper marketing could carry its unique STEM-education formula around the world. That’s the thinking at the multifaceted educational organization, which has hired a professional marketing team to help scale its successful technology-training model across the United States and beyond. In September, We Connect the Dots joined forces with Raffa Social Capital Advisors, a…

IT June 13, 2019

New home, new partners for ambitious STEAM startup

By GREGORY ZELLER // It’s all coming together for slightly nomadic nonprofit We Connect the Dots, which may have found a permanent home – and has definitely identified some promising partners on its STEAM-powered mission. The registered 501(c)3, intent on leveling the technological playing field for underprivileged students via extracurricular science, mathematics, engineering, art and math activities, is now occupying 2,500 square feet in Syosset, carved out of a larger commercial space swimming with children’s…

IT January 15, 2018

Homeland Security coming for Westbury hackers

By GREGORY ZELLER // A multistate hacking effort centered in Westbury has attracted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s attention – and agents are coming. But no arrests are imminent: When Westbury nonprofit We Connect the Dots hosts its Back-To-School Code-a-Thon later this month, it will welcome DHS representatives as partners in an educational data dump for high schoolers on potential cybersecurity careers, including government work. The federal agents are among several tweaks marking the…

Education October 27, 2017

We Connect the Dots’ new STREAM of consciousness

By GREGORY ZELLER // After a “year of growth and great progress,” STEAM-powered Westbury nonprofit We Connect the Dots is already gearing up for a big 2018. Founder and Board Chairwoman Laurie Carey notes a 2017 filled with major advances for her five-year-old startup, a science-, mathematics-, engineering-, art- and math-focused 501(c)3 determined to level the technological playing field for underprivileged students. But as progressive as 2017 has been, according to the founder, the industries…

Workforce July 6, 2017

Westbury allies give Charlotte ‘workforce experience’

By GREGORY ZELLER // A professional alliance assembled at LaunchPad Westbury has joined with the Microsoft Corp. on an ambitious “workforce experience” program. Please do not call it an “internship.” This experience, which delivers unprecedented technological and on-the-job training to 18 disadvantaged North Carolina youth, starts in the office of Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts, who upon taking her oath in 2015 inherited a longstanding Mayor’s Youth Employment Program. To evolve the three-decade-old summer program, Roberts’ office…

Education January 8, 2017

New Westbury connections key for STEAM startup

By GREGORY ZELLER // A STEAM-powered nonprofit determined to help educate the next generation of scientists and engineers is going where the action is. We Connect the Dots Inc. will now promote science, technology, engineering, arts and math education – and host its evolving schedule of pro-innovation networking events – at LaunchPad Westbury. The organization will take a single office large enough to accommodate four volunteer staffers, plus about 200 square feet of storage space,…

Education May 11, 2016

Connect the Dots launches $1M crowdfunding effort

By GREGORY ZELLER // There are lots of connections these days at We Connect the Dots, the Cold Spring Harbor nonprofit focused on educating the next generation of scientists, mathematicians and engineers. In the four years since founder Laurie Carey thought it up, and just over a year since it officially launched, the not-for-profit has completed its first international outreach – a January code-a-thon that involved young programmers at three different locations, including a team…

Education May 25, 2015

The art of workforce development

By GREGORY ZELLER // Long Island’s LaunchPad ecosystem, one of several fronts in the war against the Island’s “brain drain,” is facing a recruiting crisis. Many businesses within the LaunchPad system – a co-working environment for startups and entrepreneurs that now includes facilities in Great Neck, Hicksville, Huntington, Mineola and Stony Brook – are finding their recruiting processes hampered by “a lack of available talent and a shortage of innovate thinkers,” according to Hofstra University….