White House To Laud Facebook Engineer

A Facebook engineer will be honored on Wednesday for being a “champion of change” in the technology industry.

Carlos Bueno is one of eleven people in the U.S. who are being publicly honored for doing things that create opportunities for people from communities that are underrepresented in tech jobs. He was primarily nominated for inspiring students to become the developers, engineers, and innovators who will create solutions to some of the nation’s toughest challenges in the future, said a White House spokesperson.

Earlier in 2013, President Obama declared that American students needed to have the intellectual tools to enter high tech fields. He said that the country should be investing in initiatives that give students STEM skills, or Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math skills. He said the fate of the country’s future economic prosperity depended upon this, in his State of the Union address.

Carlos Bueno authored a children’s book called “Lauren Ipsum,” which teaches kids computer science concepts and encourages critical thinking. It is used in classrooms throughout the country.

He will be recognized during an event at the White House that will also include a discussion about how to expand the Obama administration’s White House Tech Inclusion Initiative.

Baratunde Thurston, CEO and Co-Founder of Cultivated Wit, will host the event that will be live streamed at www.whitehouse.gov/live starting at 2 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, July 31.