Two Jacobs School alumni featured in Forbes' 30 Under 30 for 2016

We are incredibly proud of Sarah Guthals and Daniel Lee, two Jacobs School alumni who are featured in this year's 30 Under 30 selection by Forbes Magazine.

ThoughtSTEM cofounder Sarah Guthals

Guthals is a co-founder of ThougthSTEM, a company that focuses on teaching kids how to program, in San Diego and beyond, as well as online. The company has created LearnToMod, a software package that allows students to learn how to code inside of Minecraft. ThoughtSTEM currently offers a free Coursera course to teach educators how to use LearnToMod in their classrooms as a learning tool. The company has also developed CodeSpells, a first-person player video game to teach coding.

Guthals leads ThoughtSTEM's initiatives that connect with schools and teachers, online and in real life. She often chats with educators online to help them customize their programming lessons. She presented a many educational and programming conferences, including Minecon, a Minecraft-centric event that draws crowds every year.

With fellow ThoughtSTEM co-founders and UC San Diego alumni Stephen Forster (computer science) and Lindsey Handley (biochemistry), she co-authored "Minecraft Modding for Kids," in the For Dummies series. Guthals earned her bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. in computer science at UC San Diego.

Daniel Lee with one of the Hush smart earplugs prototypes.

Daniel Lee, nicknamed "Ewok," co-founded Hush Technology, a company that makes smart earplugs with fellow UC San Diego student and alumni Daniel Synn and Daniel Chesong Lee (hence the need for nicknames to distinguish between the three Daniels).

The team raised more than $450,000 for their product on Kickstarter. The three Daniels then turned to making the product a reality. As of December 2015, the company completed a 400 unit preliminary mass production run. Hush plans to deliver its units in January 2016.

Lee, who graduated in 2014 with a bachelor's in mechanical engineering, came up with the idea for the smart earplugs during an entrepreneurship class taught by Teaching Professor Nathan Delson. Lee and the other two Daniels took part in Phases 1 and 2 of the NSF I-Corps program offered at the von Liebig Center here at the Jacobs School.

Why Minecraft is good for teaching computer science

Minecraft enthusiasts in San Diego will be able to take a unique inside look into their favorite game during a class taught by Jacobs School computer science Ph.D. student Stephen Foster at UC San Diego Extension.

Students will learn how to set up Minecraft servers and build Minecraft mods. In the process, they will learn about client/server architectures, network security, operating systems and computer programming. The class will be taught in a project-based style.

Heads-up: the class, which starts March 1, is full. But Foster says it'll be offered again soon.

In this video, Foster explains why the video game is a great tool to teach computer science. In the process, he makes some interesting connections between Alan Turning, one of the fathers of computer science, and Minecraft.

Note: Foster is one of three co-founders of ThoughtSTEM, a company that teaches students ages 8 to 18 how to program. He is also one of two creators of CodeSpells, a first-player video game that teaches children (and adults too) how to program in Java.

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UC San Diego Computer Scientists Develop First-Person Player Video Game that Teaches how to Program in Java