STV Senior Data Scientist Bilal Assaad, P.E., was recently named a mentor for the 2023-2024 Break Through Tech AI program at Cornell Tech.
Break Through Tech works at the intersection of academia and industry to propel women, non-binary students, and other underrepresented groups in college into computing degrees and tech careers. An initiative of Cornell Tech, the Break Through Tech AI Program helps students gain the necessary skills that will allow them to advance in careers in some of the fastest-growing areas of tech: data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
As a mentor for the program, Assaad will be matched with 5-6 students who are currently pursuing Computer Science or STEM majors at universities in the New York Metropolitan area. He will be responsible for cultivating their growth of confidence and helping them gain the technical and soft skills to facilitate entry into a tech career.
“I want to make equitable opportunities available for minorities and people with non-traditional backgrounds in career spaces that may be hard to break into,” Assaad said. “I look forward to representing and inspiring minority students to show them that success is attainable if they persist, and to creating a safe and supportive community space for us to share experiences, discuss challenges, and solve problems through innovative use of data.”
Assaad has previously served as a structural engineering mentor for the ACE Mentor Program of Greater New York, a free after school program for high school students interested in furthering their education in architecture, engineering, and construction.
At STV, Assaad leads the national data science practice within the firm’s digital advisory services. In this role, he leverages general and geospatial data with machine-learning techniques to augment our understanding of the built environment and add value to the ways we can deliver better-informed outcomes to our clients in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry.
“STV will be one of the few industry partners in the AEC industry participating in this one-of-a-kind Break Through Tech program,” Assaad said. “We want to demonstrate to students that their tech career can start in any industry. Their innovative ideas combined with tech skills can very well be applied to solve problems in the built environment and make a difference for generations to come.”
