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new e77ea2e6 Add DS4ALL Summer 2026 blog post
e77ea2e6 is described below
commit e77ea2e6d3a601692970a3e1eba6f489ad7d1f92
Author: ali <[email protected]>
AuthorDate: Wed Jul 22 09:22:47 2026 -0700
Add DS4ALL Summer 2026 blog post
Covers the fourth Data Science for All summer program for high-school
students, held July 6-10, 2026 at UC Irvine, which used Apache Texera
to teach data science and AI/ML concepts.
Includes the program logo and the closing showcase photo sourced from
ds4all.ics.uci.edu.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QjjnucfxA7rHZp1wHsHe4E
---
content/blog/ds4all-summer-2026/index.md | 110 +++++++++++++++++++++
.../blog_hero/ds4all-summer-2026-showcase.jpg | Bin 0 -> 127706 bytes
static/images/blog_hero/ds4all-summer-2026.png | Bin 0 -> 610945 bytes
3 files changed, 110 insertions(+)
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+---
+title: "DS4ALL Summer 2026: Teaching Data Science to High Schoolers with
Texera"
+linkTitle: "DS4ALL Summer 2026"
+slug: "ds4all-summer-2026"
+date: 2026-07-22
+author: Ali Risheh
+description: "The fourth Data Science for All summer program brought
high-school students to UC Irvine to learn data science and AI/ML with Apache
Texera, July 6-10, 2026."
+images:
+ - /images/blog_hero/ds4all-summer-2026.png
+tags: ["ds4all", "education", "outreach", "uc-irvine", "ucla"]
+---
+
+<div style="max-width: 100%; width: 100%; margin: 0 0 32px; text-align:
center; background: #fdf6e9; border-radius: 12px; padding: 24px;">
+ <img src="/images/blog_hero/ds4all-summer-2026.png" alt="DS4ALL Summer 2026
Texera program logo" style="width: 100%; max-width: 380px; height: auto;
display: inline-block;">
+</div>
+
+<div style="max-width: 100%; width: 100%; margin: 0; font-family: 'Helvetica
Neue',Arial,sans-serif; color: #14110f; background: #ffffff; line-height:
1.65;">
+
+<div style="padding: 44px 44px 8px; background: #ffffff;">
+
+<p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;
font-weight: 800; letter-spacing: .08em; text-transform: uppercase; color:
#c8451f; margin: 0 0 28px;">
+July 6–10, 2026 · ISEB Building, UC Irvine
+</p>
+
+<p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 21px;
line-height: 1.5; margin: 0 0 20px;">
+The fourth <a style="color: #c8451f; text-decoration: none; font-weight:
bold;" href="https://ds4all.ics.uci.edu/summer2026/"; target="_blank"
rel="noopener">Data Science for All (DS4ALL)</a> summer program wrapped up at
UC Irvine, bringing high-school students on campus for a week of hands-on data
science and machine learning — taught almost entirely through the
open-source Apache Texera (Incubating) platform.
+</p>
+
+<p style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 21px;
line-height: 1.5; margin: 0 0 20px;">
+The premise of DS4ALL is simple: students should not need years of programming
experience before they can do real data science. With a “no code and low
code” approach built on visual workflows, participants spent the week
working with actual datasets rather than waiting to earn the privilege.
+</p>
+
+<h2 style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif; font-weight: 900;
font-size: 32px; letter-spacing: -.01em; margin: 48px 0 6px; line-height: 1.1;
color: #14110f;">
+<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;
font-weight: 800; color: #c8451f; letter-spacing: .1em; border: 2px solid
#c8451f; border-radius: 999px; padding: 3px 11px; margin-right: 10px;">01</span>
+What the Program Covers
+</h2>
+
+<div style="height: 3px; width: 60px; background: #14110f; margin: 0 0
22px;"></div>
+
+<p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 17px;
margin: 0 0 18px;">
+Over the week, students worked through the core concepts that underpin
practical data science: data modeling, data cleaning, data wrangling, and
visualization. From there the program moves into basic Python programming for
data processing, and then into AI and machine learning techniques —
building and training models, running inference, and working with
classification and clustering.
+</p>
+
+<p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 17px;
margin: 0 0 18px;">
+Each day pairs a morning lecture with an afternoon lab session, so concepts
introduced in the morning get applied the same day. The week builds toward a
capstone project in which students analyze real data end to end and present
their results at a final showcase, with family members invited to attend.
+</p>
+
+<div style="background: #eef2f0; border-left: 4px solid #1f6b5c; padding: 18px
22px; margin: 24px 0; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif;
font-size: 16px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0;">
+Students who complete the program without any absence receive a certificate,
and those with strong performance are eligible for recommendation letters from
the organizers.
+</div>
+
+<h2 style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif; font-weight: 900;
font-size: 32px; letter-spacing: -.01em; margin: 48px 0 6px; line-height: 1.1;
color: #14110f;">
+<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;
font-weight: 800; color: #c8451f; letter-spacing: .1em; border: 2px solid
#c8451f; border-radius: 999px; padding: 3px 11px; margin-right:
10px;">02</span>Why Texera
+</h2>
+
+<div style="height: 3px; width: 60px; background: #14110f; margin: 0 0
22px;"></div>
+
+<p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 17px;
margin: 0 0 18px;">
+The barrier for a ninth grader entering data science is rarely the ideas
— it is the toolchain. Environment setup, dependency management, and
boilerplate code can consume the entire week before a student ever sees a
result.
+</p>
+
+<p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 17px;
margin: 0 0 18px;">
+Texera's visual workflow model removes most of that overhead. Students
assemble pipelines by connecting operators on a canvas, see intermediate
results at every step, and drop into Python User-Defined Functions when they
want finer control. The same platform that supports research workloads scales
down to a classroom without becoming a toy, which means students learn concepts
that transfer directly to professional practice.
+</p>
+
+<p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 17px;
margin: 0 0 18px;">
+This also makes DS4ALL a genuinely useful source of feedback for the project.
A cohort of first-time users working through a full data science lifecycle in
five days surfaces rough edges that experienced contributors have long since
learned to navigate around.
+</p>
+
+<h2 style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif; font-weight: 900;
font-size: 32px; letter-spacing: -.01em; margin: 48px 0 6px; line-height: 1.1;
color: #14110f;">
+<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;
font-weight: 800; color: #c8451f; letter-spacing: .1em; border: 2px solid
#c8451f; border-radius: 999px; padding: 3px 11px; margin-right:
10px;">03</span>Who Runs It
+</h2>
+
+<div style="height: 3px; width: 60px; background: #14110f; margin: 0 0
22px;"></div>
+
+<p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 17px;
margin: 0 0 18px;">
+DS4ALL is organized by faculty from two campuses — <b>Prof. Chen Li</b>
(Computer Science, UC Irvine) and <b>Prof. Wei Wang</b> (Computer Science,
UCLA) — with instructors and staff drawn from professors and Ph.D.
students at UCI and UCLA who work in data management, data science, AI, and
machine learning.
+</p>
+
+<p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 17px;
margin: 0 0 18px;">
+The program is open to students entering 9th, 10th, or 11th grade, with
Algebra II or Integrated Math II as the only prerequisite. Sessions run 9 AM to
4 PM daily on the UCI campus, with lunch provided.
+</p>
+
+<div style="max-width: 100%; width: 100%; margin: 34px 0 10px;">
+ <img src="/images/blog_hero/ds4all-summer-2026-showcase.jpg" alt="DS4ALL
Summer 2026 participants with their program certificates on the final day"
style="width: 100%; max-width: 1024px; height: auto; display: block; margin: 0
auto; border-radius: 12px;">
+ <p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;
color: #5b5347; margin: 12px 0 0; text-align: center;">Participants with their
certificates at the close of the 2026 program.</p>
+</div>
+
+<h2 style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif; font-weight: 900;
font-size: 32px; letter-spacing: -.01em; margin: 48px 0 6px; line-height: 1.1;
color: #14110f;">
+<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;
font-weight: 800; color: #c8451f; letter-spacing: .1em; border: 2px solid
#c8451f; border-radius: 999px; padding: 3px 11px; margin-right:
10px;">04</span>A Growing Outreach Effort
+</h2>
+
+<div style="height: 3px; width: 60px; background: #14110f; margin: 0 0
22px;"></div>
+
+<p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 17px;
margin: 0 0 18px;">
+DS4ALL is now in its fourth year, and it sits alongside a broader set of
education and outreach efforts that use Texera to lower the entry cost of data
science — including workshops for middle school students and summer camps
aimed at biology students with limited coding backgrounds.
+</p>
+
+<p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 17px;
margin: 0 0 18px;">
+Making advanced data science and AI accessible to people who are not primarily
programmers is one of the reasons Apache Texera exists. Watching a room of high
schoolers build and present working machine learning pipelines in five days is
a reasonably direct test of whether that goal is being met.
+</p>
+
+<div style="background: #fbf7ef; border: 1.5px solid #d8cfbf; border-radius:
12px; padding: 24px 26px; margin: 30px 0 10px;">
+<p style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;
margin: 0;">
+Details about the program, including information on earlier offerings, are
available at <a style="color: #c8451f; text-decoration: none; font-weight:
bold;" href="https://ds4all.ics.uci.edu/summer2026/"; target="_blank"
rel="noopener">ds4all.ics.uci.edu</a>. To learn more about the platform behind
it, see the <a style="color: #c8451f; text-decoration: none; font-weight:
bold;" href="/docs/latest/">Apache Texera documentation</a>.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+</div>
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