Code in the Schools | Co-Founder & CEO

Gretchen is a passionate advocate for ethnic and gender diversity in tech, and her work over the past 15+ years in the non-profit and human services sector has focused on education, workforce development, and poverty alleviation. In 2013 Gretchen and her husband (game developer Mike LeGrand) started Code in the Schools with an after-school club of 20 high schoolers. Code in the Schools now serves thousands of Baltimore City youth each year through their education and workforce development programs.

In 2014 Gretchen was recognized by the Baltimore Social Innovation Journal for her work, and in 2016 Code in the Schools was named tech mission organization of the year by Technical.ly Baltimore. Gretchen and her organization offer workshops and training for teachers and librarians and she frequently presents on the importance of Computer Science education at conferences around the country, including the Computers in Libraries Conference, US News and World Report STEM Summit, and SxSW EDU. She holds a BA in Philosophy and the History of Science and Mathematics from St. John's College, and an MS in Applied Psychology from the University of Baltimore.

Google | Site Reliability Engineer

Marissa was born and raised in Baltimore, MD. She participated in the inaugural cohort of the Prodigy Program at Code in the Schools while attending Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. After graduating from BPI in 2016, she began attending Morgan State University. During her enrollment, Marissa had the opportunity to intern with Facebook and Google. After graduating in May 2020, she joined Google as a full-time Site Reliability Engineer on the Search Frontend team.

Adobe | Senior Director of Education Initiatives

Ben Forta is Adobe‘s Senior Director of Education Initiatives. His primary responsibility is a focus on students (primarily K-12 but some higher-ed) with an eye towards digital and visual literacy, and the role that Adobe services and tools play in the future of communication and storytelling. Ben gets to spend a considerable amount of time teaching, talking, and writing about Adobe products, and providing feedback to help shape the future direction of the products.

Ben is also an author, with over 900,000 books in print. He's written on SQL (including the best-selling SQL book of all time), classroom creativity with Adobe Spark, Python, Regular Expressions, ColdFusion, Windows development, JSP, and more. Ben's books page has details on these, many of which have been translated into 16 languages. And he has new books on the way – stay tuned for more info.

Ben's been teaching for over 30 years. Via his books, lectures, and videos, he's had the privilege of teaching coding skills to over a million people worldwide. And, when he has the time, Ben leads a local high-school coding and robotics program.

Before joining Adobe (well, Allaire actually, and then Macromedia and Allaire merged, and then Adobe bought Macromedia, Ben gets acquired for a living) he helped found a company called Car.com which provides automotive services (buy a car, sell a car, etc.) all online. Car.com (including Stoneage) became one of the largest automotive web sites out there, was written entirely in ColdFusion, and is now owned by AutoWeb (Auto-By-Tel).

Ben now lives in Oak Park, MI. Before moving to the Midwest, he lived in London, England (where he was born) and in New York and California.

Towson University | Clinical Assistant Professor - Computer and Information Science (CIS) Department

Dr. Sanders is veteran IT professional/educator with over 19 years on experience in the IT field and academia. He holds an Associates Degree in Computer Networking, Bachelors degree in Information Technology, a Masters degree in Information Assurance (Cybersecurity) and a Doctorate in Cybersecurity. He also holds 29 professional technology certifications including the highly sought-after CISSP, CySA, CompTIA A+, Network+, Security+ and Cloud+. In addition to his academic accomplishments, Dr. Sanders has also held senior technical roles with the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Pearson Education. In each of these roles he grew to become a subject matter expert (SME) who was heavily relied on for his technical expertise and communication skills.

Currently, Willie serves on the faculty of Towson University (Towson, Maryland) where he teaches Cybersecurity, Computer Networking and Systems Administration. He is also the University’s 1st ever Cyber4All Fellow, a role funded in part by the NSA in order to encourage interdisciplinary cybersecurity research. In 2015, Dr. Sanders founded the 501c3 nonprofit organization Pass IT On, as a way to combat the technology skills gap experienced by youth and adults from disadvantaged backgrounds. As Pass IT On's Executive Director and Sr. Instructor, Dr. Sanders has helped to impact the lives of thousands of individuals in Baltimore City and the surrounding region. Willie currently resides in Glen Burnie, Maryland (a suburb of Baltimore City) with his wife Jessica and their two daughters: Isabella and Victoria.

Peraton | WAN Engineering and Project Manager

Dr. James M. Smith, Jr. was born in Baltimore and is a product of the Baltimore City Public School System (BCPSS). He attended Ashburton Elementary and Roland Park Middle where he discovered his first passion, technology. He taught himself two programming languages, Basic and Pascal on an Apple IIGS by 8th grade. Dr. Smith graduated from Milford Mill High School in 1992 where he played lacrosse. He graduated from Catonsville Community College and attended UMBC where he continued playing lacrosse and majored in Computer Science. While attending college, he worked at night installing network and PBX phone cables to pay for his phone line and internet access. After seeing its potential, Dr. Smith left school in 1997 to work full time for national office of NAACP as head web designer. He returned to school in 2001 and earned his bachelors degree from Sojourner Douglas College in Information Systems Management. The following year he earned a masters degree from American Intercontinental University also in Information Systems Management. His doctoral journey started in 2018 and ended in 2022 where he obtained his Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) from Walden University.

Dr. Smith worked for Amtrak as the Security Manager where he created security policies and ensured network device security. He joined the BCPSS family in 2005 as the Information Security and Data Center Operations Manager to design and lead the implementation of a network infrastructure optimization and consolidation program. In 2013 Dr. Smith moved to the Director of Information Security and Infrastructure position where he assumed the strategic role leading 4 teams with 109 staff in providing information security, infrastructure development, network management and support, and data center operations. He chaired the IT Technology and IT Security Steering Committees where he guided the C-level executives in business process and technology strategies, and cybersecurity planning. Dr. Smith currently works as a WAN Engineering & Project Manager for Peraton (formerly Northrop Grumman). He leads a team that supports DevOps and infrastructure initiatives for the U.S. Government.

Baltimore City Public Schools | Executive Director - Infrastructure and Security

Executive Director for Cybersecurity & Infrastructure at BCPSS Office of Information Technology. Over 20 years of experience with information technology solutions. A UMBC graduate and former Adjunct professor at ITT Technical Institute. Currently In charge of protecting BCPSS network connectivity and data services.