Lexington Youth STEAM Team is looking for volunteering students interested in contributing to two open-source projects, to be delivered to the Lexington Observer local newspaper. The goal of the projects is to promote transparent, participatory, and collaborative government in Lexington, by making information available at the fingertips of our reporters, citizens, and public servants. Students will be mentored by industry and academic leaders to complete the projects and will be exposed to cutting-edge technologies such as generative AI.

Application Link: Contact us if you are interested.

Open Source Projects

1. Expand lexbudget website, update it with current year financial data, and upgrade its current PHP-based web interface to a newer framework using Python.
   Skills required:
   
   • JavaScript, Python, PHP
   • Understand the basics of Web application development
2. Create an AI-based Chat Agent for Lexington public records.
   Skills required:
   
   • Python: We will program with familiar Python modules like Streamlit, Langchain, ChromaDB.
   • Linux development environment
   • Familiarity with language models is a plus, but is not required.

GitHub experience is desirable but not required. We will do a quick “Git Basics” tutorial.
The time commitment is 2-4 hours a week, with an additional 30-60 minutes weekly Zoom session for presentations and updates.

Project Mentors

Andrei Radulescu-Banu is a Software Architect for self-driving cars, robotics, fintech, computer networks and other industries. He is co-founder of Analytiq Hub, where he develops tools to facilitate AI adoption in the Enterprise.

Chester Curme is a Senior Applied Science Manager at Microsoft, where he builds features backed by large language models into Microsoft products. Prior to Microsoft, Chester led teams of data scientists and machine learning engineers at Evisort Inc and Kensho Technologies. He holds a PhD in physics from Boston University.

Jeannie Lu is a Principal Software Engineer at Middleby, where she develops IoT solutions for commercial properties and connected kitchens. Prior to Middleby, she was a founding team member of Mazu Networks where she developed network infrastructure software. In her spare time, she volunteered as a FLL robotics coach in MIT Lincoln Lab's outreach program for 5 years.

John Truelove is the VP of Engineering at Bitsight, where he leads the development of a large-scale distributed system that measures businesses' cybersecurity posture. John joined Bitsight as its first engineer, and prior to that was a security researcher at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. John has degrees in computer engineering from Johns Hopkins and Carnegie Mellon.

Neerja Bajaj is the VP of Product and Innovation at Brivo. She has taken many products from innovation to launch at both startups and Fortune 500 companies. She has also led digital transformations to address customer experience, operational efficiency and scale. She holds a Masters in Computer Science from University of Maryland.

Wei Ding has been a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Boston since 2008. She served as a Program Director at the National Science Foundation's Division of Information Intelligent Systems from 2019 to 2023, She is an IEEE Fellow, AAIA Fellow, and ACM Senior Member.