LA Tech Week at SMPREP 

Mr. Roland Labana, CTO of Altafid and SMPREP's STEM Academy Dean/Computer Science teacher, hosted a LA Tech Week session at SMPREP last week with the help of his Engineering students. The workshop, "AI Tools for Building Apps with Lightning Speed," took place in our new Engineering classroom and was full of a variety of ideas for new apps — from how to report potholes and other road issues, to a study guide for the HSPT with AI-generated quizzes, to researching different car models by searching reviews. Senior David Alexander shared, "The best thing I liked about the workshop is that I got to walk around and help everyone. There were people of all ages from middle schoolers to adults...Using AI along with programming is a powerful way to complete more complex programs in a short time."

After a demo where Mr. Labana created a sign-in app within minutes for participants to complete in real time about why they came to the seminar, they used AI to create their own apps. He shared, "I was blown away; the apps were amazing." Middle Schooler Makoa K. added, "It was really fun and informative about how AI is used to make apps and how it could affect apps in the future." Students helped participants work with the Lovable app, which they are currently using in their own classes on projects such as tracking school and parish maintenance requests and developing a prayer resource for teachers. Mr. Labana has more applications for the tool in mind for SMPREP. 

His takeaway from the event, which he thought fit in well with other Tech Week events he attended: "Things are moving super fast and all of us, if we want to survive, have to know about these tools. What I would've given a talk on six months ago is completely different from this workshop, and in another six months will be completely different." Mr. Labana is excited about the AI opportunities for tech, though he cautions we will need to find ways to manage both the ethical and privacy concerns with AI. LA Tech Week, Tech's Largest Decentralized Conference, included thousands of free events hosted across Los Angeles by some of the top founders, funds and companies around the globe.