Academic Outreach Activities

Educationists should build the capacities of the spirit of inquiry, creativity, entrepreneurial and moral leadership among students and become their role model. - A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
Narayana is passionate about building the next generation of technologists and leaders who can change the world. As IBM Academic Ambassador, Federated developer advocate and Course Review Committee member for Central Queensland University, He has organised several workshops for university students. As a Goldcoast edutech member and CSIRO Stem Partner, he organised several activities for school teachers and students.
2021

Industry Academe Collaboration
Central Queensland University 17 Aug 2021
Co-presented with Iven Mareels on Industry Academe Collaboration at ICT Research Symposium organised by CQU about how IBM Global University Programs’ IBM PhD Fellowship, IBM Masters Fellowship and IBM Academic Awards promote research, innovation, and the building of social, scientific, and technology-based collaboration with universities. IBM Academic Initiative helps students and faculty gain access to new technologies and education resources needed for the current job market through a no-charge program.Students and faculty at accredited academic institutions can access the program with institution issued email id via ibm.com/academic
Univative Training
Australian Universities 18 Jun & 16 Jul 2021
Hosted Univative 2021 through IBM, where IBM is chief technology sponsor and collaboration venue sponsor. Kickoff had presentations on team/project management, design thinking, report/presentation management and media production training. Around 300 students attended. Univative is a unique inter-university, inter-disciplinary student competition where university student teams devise innovative solutions to genuine problems posed by industries and communities. it is held once a year for four weeks during the students’ winter break (June/July). Students have four weeks to work on project, devise a solution, deliver a report and presentation video to the project host.
Agile Workshop
Central Queensland University 21 Apr 2021
Organised an Agile workshop for students from CQU. Presented on Agile methodologies and then conducted a hands-on workshop along with a colleague. Around 20 students attended the session and created epics, stories and estimates for a case study of requirements for patient data management systems.
IBM Academic
Central Queensland University 17 Apr 2021
Presented to 31 participants from CQU including 25 students and 6 faculty members from CQU about "IBM Academic Initiative" that enables students and faculty at accredited academic institutions to access select IBM resources through a no-charge, self-service program that will provide them with the requisite skills to help distinguish themselves in their career. Spoke at length about technology industry skill gap, and the need to develop the next generation of skilled professionals by leveraging guest lectures available at ibm.com/academic, code patterns, digital conferences at developer.ibm.com
Virtual Industry Visit
Central Queensland University 8 Apr 2021
Organised Digital/virtual version of an industry visit where students get to interact/listen from IBMers about various roles.(Lab Director, manager, architect, dev, devops, product owner, mobile developer, scrum master..) Each speaker talked about the role, projects, challenges and advice. 31 students registered and around 25 attended and benefitted from the session.
Cybersecurity Workshop
Monash University Malaysia 25 Mar 2021
Along with a colleague organized cybersecurity workshop for students of Monash University, Malaysia chapter. Around 15 students attended and 5 speakers from IBM including Narayana presented on various cybersecurity topics such as facets of activity kit, cybersecurity, network traaffic monitoring, password less logins and adaptive access. Students appreciated the opportunity to learn about industry practices from the best speakers at IBM.
Micro:bit Teacher Workshop
QSite 25 Mar 2021
Along with a teacher presented at Microbit and Design Thinking Workshop for teachers in Gold coast schools 4 teachers attended and the recording was shared with other teachers. Described 3 projects corresponding to 3 sustainability goals to help teach students.

Virtual Industry Excursion
Griffith University 24 Mar 2021
Organised Virtual Industry Excursion, moderated as well as spoke about developer role. Around 50 students registered and 25 students attended to hear diverse perspectives from 8 IBM speakers about their roles ranging from product owner, developer, devops engineer, mobile app developer, scrum master, architect, manager and CTO. The event was well-received and students learnt about the various roles across the organisation and learnt insights to to take the next step in your career
2020
Micro:bit Teacher Workshop
Mudgeeraba Creek State School 4 Nov 2020
Along with a teacher presented on IBM design thinking process and how to create digital solution using programmable micro-computer, a Micro:bit. From the Micro:bit workshop, teachers learnt about how to apply design thinking and micro:bits in their classroom and teach the students the steps to create a solution with a digital device.
KeyNote Speaker
ICCIA-2020 Team, Mohamed Sathak AJ College of Engineering 28 Aug 2020
Attended as a keynote speaker at International Virtual Conference on Computational Intelligence and Applications 2020 and delivered a talk on safe tech and cybersecurity careers.
Agile Workshop
Central Queensland University 20 Aug 2020
Organised an Agile workshop for students from CQU, presented on Agile methodologies and then conducted a hands-on workshop along with a colleague. Students practiced creating epics, stories, tasks, estimating stories, creating product backlog, sprint backlog etc. for their assignment. 8 students and 4 faculty attended the session and appreciated the insights.
Cybersecurity Activity Kit
Goldcoast Edutech 20 May 2020
Presented on cybersecurity as part of professional development session to members of Gold coast edutech including school teachers.Topics included cyber hygeine, risks of data sharing online, and careers in security.
Cybersecurity Workshop
University of Sydney(USYD) 14 May 2020
Organized cybersecurity workshop for students of USYD. Around 35 students attended and the session was well appreciated. Moderated the session and presented on Cybersecurity Activity kit and colleagues presented on various cybersecurity topics such as facets of cybersecurity, network traaffic monitoring, password less logins and adaptive access.
Virtual Industry Visit
Central Queensland University 16 Apr 2020
In the light of Covid19, Organised a virtual lab visit instead of physical lab visit for students of CQU. Presented on developer role along with colleagues who are in the roles of CTO, architect, manager, tester, scrum master, interacted with students on topics such as daily responsibilities, projects, challenges, motivation to join the role and advice to pursue the role. Feedback was
Thank you for organizing this information rich session. It provides a very quick overview of all aspects of software development, career paths, opportunities, methodologies, processes, and some information on tools.
2019
Cloud Computing and Poster design hackathon
Arundel State school, Dec 2019
Narayana, Anuradha and Aman presented on “Cloud Computing” and conducted a poster design hackathon for around 150 students in the six sections of year 5. 18 teams were formed, where each team had students who role-played developer/tester/project manager/UI designer/sales/db admin and presented their ideas in a minute in the form of a creative poster.
Capture the flag
Varsity College, Nov 2019
Attended the finals of “Capture the Flag”, a coding competition where Year 10 students worked for 10 weeks on coding autonomous bots to do battle in the Capture the Flag Arena using finite automata and algorithms in Python and presented swag to the winners on behalf of IBM.
Inculcating Design thinking in students for STEM projects
Musgrave Hill State School, 5 Sep 2019
Presented “Inculcating Design thinking in students for STEM projects” to teachers from different schools as part of QSite Professional Development event for teachers.

Reduce impact of Natural Disasters using technology, a case study
Central Queensland University, July 2019
Presented “Reduce impact of Natural Disasters using technology, a case study” to ICT students and covered topics around developer.ibm.com and material available to students to develop their skills. Participated in industry forum where ideas around students visiting the lab and doing work during their academic years was discussed.
IBM Design thinking workshop
Musgrave hill State School, July 2019
Presented “IBM Design Thinking” to Year 6 students and conducted a design thinking workshop with the help of year 6 teacher Ben as part of CSIRO STEM partnership program. Students came up with around 30 ideas to use micro-bit for protecting life on earth and life in water and selected 5 or 6 ideas to submit projects in do your bit global challenge.
Machine learning hands-on workshop
Big Day in Jr, Grand Avenue State School, June 2019
Attended Big Day In Jr, and conducted hands-on workshop with colleagues and introduced machine learning to Year 5 and Year 6 students using scratch programming. Ran 5 classes each comprising of approximately 50 students where students learnt how to design a virtual smart classroom, where natural language can be used to operate virtual fan and light etc. ( project based on https://machinelearningforkids.co.uk)
How to become a technologist
Big Day In, University of Southern Queensland, Springfield and Sunshine Coast, May & Mar 2019
Attended Big Day In, a full day event where high school students attend tech talks and visit stalls to get exposure to careers in ICT. Presented on “How to become technologist” and interacted with students.